Introduction

Leopold Cohn immigrated to New York from his native Hungary in 1892 and came to believe that Jesus is the Messiah. To spread this message, he founded the Brownsville Mission to the Jews in 1894. Cohn’s ministry grew to be the largest Jewish mission in the United States. In sermons and in print, Cohn claimed that he had been a rabbi in Hungary, studying under Zalman Lieb Teitelbaum, a Hasidic rabbi.[1]

Cohn’s success won opponents among the traditional Jewish community of New York, as well as among rival Jewish missions that did not find as much success as Cohn. These opponents became more vocal as Cohn’s organization grew, and among their accusations was that Cohn was not the man he portrayed himself to be. They asserted that Cohn was never a rabbi in Hungary, nor was his name Cohn. Instead, while living in Hungary, he was Izsak Leib Joszovics (Yosowitz), a saloon keeper and convicted criminal. He had come to the United States to avoid trial.

The accusations against Cohn’s identity became unavoidable in the 1910s as rival Jewish missionaries sued Cohn in a series of New York court cases, where they made Cohn’s fraudulent identity center to their case. The accusations also arose suspicions among Cohn’s evangelical Christian mission supporters, who began pulling their financial backing.

These suspicions, long dormant since being settled in the 1910s, have awoken in the internet age where search engines provide easy access to Cohn’s accusers, but little argument in his favor. These accusations have relevance to today since Cohn’s organization is now known as Chosen People Ministries, a leading international Jewish mission.

In the book, A Rabbi’s Vision Continues, Brian Crawford provides an in-depth historical investigation into the claims of Cohn’s accusers and the reasons why they failed in all their court cases.[2] Crawford’s investigation included:

• The 350-page 1915 New York Supreme Court case.[3]
• The 95-page 1916 appeal in the New York Supreme Court.[4]
• The Chosen People Ministries archives, which included 345 pages of affidavits, interviews, and proceedings from a 1916 independent committee that investigated Cohn’s identity even further than the New York court.
• The committee’s findings as given in major publications.[5]
• A review of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle’s newspaper reporting on Cohn and the 1915–17 cases.
• Joseph Hoffman Cohn’s 1953 autobiography, I Have Fought the Good Fight.[6]
• Harold Sevener’s 14-page 1994 assessment of the controversy in A Rabbi’s Vision.[7]
• Yaakov Ariel’s 8-page 2000 handling of Cohn in Evangelizing the Chosen People.[8]
• The 1918 pamphlet against Cohn by Alexander S. Bacon, the prosecuting attorney who had lost his cases against Cohn.[9]

Unfortunately, it is only the final work, by Bacon, that is most readily accessible via search engines today. Crawford’s chapter illustrates why Bacon not only lost his court cases due to lack of merit but was also motivated by personal animus and jealousy. Through a series of trials, testimonies, and investigations, the chapter explores the complexities of the case, shedding light on the conspiracies, forgeries, and personal vendettas that shaped the legal proceedings.

Purchase A Rabbi’s Vision Continues here

The following is a summary of the chapter’s investigation:

Cohn’s Competitive Accusers

• Two of Cohn’s accusers in the New York courts, Spievacque and Shapiro, were involved with a competing mission to the Jewish people, also situated in Brooklyn, but with much less success than Cohn.
• Alexander Neuowich, originally from Hungary, had been closely associated with Cohn in the years of 1904–1912. In his writings during those years, he spoke positively of Cohn’s rabbinic background in Hungary. In 1913, he soured on Cohn and associated with Spievacque and Shapiro.

The 1915 Trial and Neuowich’s Lawsuit

• Alexander’s Neuowich’s lawsuit against Cohn, initially involving claims of womanizing and wrongful imprisonment, evolved into accusations of fraud and changed identity.
• Despite seeking substantial damages, Neuowich’s case was ultimately dismissed due to lack of evidence and credibility.
• Alexander Bacon, the prosecutor of the trial against Cohn, lost the case.

The Role of the Hungarian Document

• The Hungarian document, a key piece of alleged evidence establishing Cohn as the criminal Joszovics, was never submitted as evidence to the court, raising questions about its authenticity and relevance.
• Neuowich and his associates heavily relied on the Hungarian document to support their claims, despite its questionable nature, lack of substantiation, and omission from court scrutiny.

The 1916 Investigative Committee

• Following the 1915 trial, an independent committee was formed to investigate Cohn’s background and the accusations against him.
• The committee obtained the Hungarian document, scrutinized its description of Cohn, sought expert witnesses, contacted Hungarian authorities, and ultimately determined that the document was fraudulent.
• Claims of financial improprieties and criminal convictions in Hungary were debunked, highlighting the accusers’ fraudulent tactics.

Financial Investigations and Character Assessments

• Detailed financial audits and character assessments conducted during the investigations revealed no evidence of financial irregularities or misconduct on Cohn’s part.
• The committee’s meticulous scrutiny of Cohn’s personal and professional life dispelled the accusations of fraud and impropriety leveled against him.

Expert Testimony and Discrepancies

• Expert witnesses like Dr. Edward A. Steiner provided insights into Hungarian legal practices and the plausibility of Cohn’s claims about his rabbinic background.
• Witnesses like Neuowich and Spievacque provided testimonies that were riddled with inconsistencies and contradictions, casting doubt on their credibility.

Cohn’s Exoneration

• Ultimately, Cohn’s vindication through the investigative committee’s findings exposed the malicious intent behind the accusations and highlighted the lack of substantial evidence against him.

• Through meticulous investigations, expert testimonies, and thorough scrutiny, the truth behind the Hungarian document and the allegations against Leopold Cohn was brought to light, ultimately leading to his exoneration and the exposure of the conspiracies orchestrated against him.

Conclusion

Although the charges against Rabbi Cohn were shown to be fraudulent in the 1910s, some still continue to make the same accusations against him today. In most cases, the motive for rehashing the accusations is to discredit the mission of Chosen People Ministries, the contemporary name of Cohn’s organization. Contemporary accusers usually make their claims without having studied the 1910s era primary documents—or perhaps only the anti-Cohn pamphlet by the failed prosecutor, Bacon. When considering the wide range of evidence brought forward in the court cases and committee, it should be evident that Cohn’s accusers were jealous, competitive, and fraudulent themselves.

Given the evidence provided in The Rabbi’s Vision Continues chapter, there now stands no credible, rational, or substantiated reason to call Rabbi Cohn’s identity or character into question. Those who make such accusations today are ignorant of the great lengths that many went to in the 1910s to investigate the charges, ultimately finding them to be without merit.

May Rabbi Cohn’s identity and character be firmly established, such that Jewish people around the world cease to see him as an obstacle to investigating the Good News of Rabbi Cohn’s own rabbi, Yeshua of Nazareth.

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[1] Leopold Cohn, A Modern Missionary to an Ancient People (New York, NY: Williamsburg Mission to the Jews, 1908).

[2] Mitch Glaser, Gregory Dean Hagg, and Alan Shore, eds., A Rabbi’s Vision Continues: In Celebration of the 125th Anniversary of Chosen People Ministries (New York, NY: Chosen People Ministries, 2021).

[3] Supreme Court of the State of New York, Alexander H. Neuowich v. Leopold Cohn (New York, NY: Press of Freemont Payne, 1915), https://books.google.com/books?id=GJaYUhlI3koC&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&pg=RA2-PP33#v=onepage&q&f=false.

[4] See Neuowich v. Cohn.

[5] James M. Gray, ed., “Williamsburg Mission to the Jews: Abstract of Report of Committee of Investigation,” The Christian Workers Magazine XVII, no. 3 (November 1916): 191–92. https://books.google.com/books?id=F6BVAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA191#v=onepage&q&f=false. Summarized reports are given in The Missionary Review and The Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

[6] Joseph Hoffman Cohn, I Have Fought a Good Fight: The Story of Jewish Mission Pioneering in America (New York, NY: American Board of Missions to the Jews, 1953).

[7] Harold A. Sevener, A Rabbi’s Vision: A Century of Proclaiming Messiah : A History of Chosen People Ministries, Inc. : Centennial Edition 1894-1994 (Charlotte, N.C.: Chosen People Ministries, 1994).

[8] Yaakov S Ariel, Evangelizing the Chosen People : Missions to the Jews in America, 1880-2000 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2000).

[9] Alexander Samuel Bacon, The Strange Story of Dr. Cohn and Mr. Joszovics: (With Apologies to “Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde”) (New York, NY, 1918).