Synopsis:

Rabbi Louis I. Newman (1893-1972)

Reform Rabbi and author, Louis Israel Newman was born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1893. Newman held several pulpits during his career one of his first being under Stephen Wise at the Free Synagogue in 1917. Newman was affiliated with the faculty of the Jewish Institute of Religion in New York City from its inception in 1922. He served as a professor of homiletics & apologetics intermittently until 1933.

During the 1930s, Newman became identified with the Zionist revisionist movement. He believed that Zionism was primarily a political movement and that the creation of a Jewish Palestine state was essential. Newman was appointed by the CCAR as "observer" at the UN General Assembly meeting when the vote was brought forward in 1947. His report to the CCAR is brief and succinct. His letter to his children is personal and reflective. He remarks, "It is a long journey from the day when I saw the Balfour Declaration in the green-typewriting ink of Woodrow Wilson's own typewriter…"

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