Jakob Josef Petuchowski
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Jakob Josef Petuchowski (1925 – 1991) was an American research professor of Jewish Theology and Liturgy and the Sol and Arlene Bronstein Professor of Judeo-Christian Studies at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Cincinnati, Ohio. He was born on July 25, 1925[1] in Berlin and died November 12, 1991,[2] in Cincinnati.
Petuchowski was brought up as an Orthodox Jew in Berlin[3] and left Germany in May 1939 for Scotland on the Kindertransport.[4] His father, Samuel Meir Sigmund Petuchowski, died in 1928 and his mother was murdered in the Holocaust.[5]
Aged just 16, and having had only a year's instruction in English before leaving Berlin, he became a rabbinical student at the Glasgow Rabbinical College.[6] While studying for a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) degree in psychology, which he received from the University of London in 1947,[7] he continued Jewish studies privately, receiving tuition from Rabbis Leo Baeck and Arthur Löwenstamm among others.[8] In 1948 he became a rabbinical student at Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati.[9] He received a master's degree in 1952 and a PhD in 1956.[10]
Professional career
He served as part-time rabbi in Welch, West Virginia, between 1949 and 1955 and was full-time rabbi in Washington, Pennsylvania, from 1955 to 1956.[11] He returned to teach at Hebrew Union College in 1956. During the academic year 1963-64 he was rabbi and founding director of Judaic Studies at the college's newly established branch in Jerusalem.[12]
