Azriel Louis Eisenberg

Background

Azriel Louis Eisenberg was born on July 29, 1903, in Russia.

Education

Eisenberg obtained his diploma from the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1922, his Bachelor of Arts degree from New York University in 1926, and his Doctor of Philosophy degree from Columbia University in 1935.

He received honorary doctorates from Jewish Theological Seminary in 1959, from Baltimore Hebrew College in 1977 and from Gratz College.

Career

Eisenberg started working in 1935 as a director for the Bureau of Jewish Education in Cincinnati, moving to Cleveland in 1940, and Philadelphia in 1946. Between 1946 and 1949 he served as an acting dean of Gratz College. In 1949 Eisenberg became an executive vice president for the Board of Jewish Education in New York. In 1966 he was appointed as a director of the World Council of Jewish Education, New York. From 1968 to 1973 he served as a chair of the United Synagogue Commission on Jewish Education, and as a co-chair of the National Zionist Education Commission. He also worked as a vice president of the Jewish education committee.

Eisenberg's first book, Children and Radio Programs, was published in 1936. It was followed by forty-two other monographs, some co-authored or edited, on such topics as Jewish education, the Holocaust, Jewish history and religion, the Bible, the Hebrew language and Jewish literature, and biographies of prominent Jewish figures. His final two books were Tzedacah: A Source Book on Caring and Sharing (Board of Jewish Education, 1982, with Abraham Eckstein) and Momentous Century: Personal and Eyewitness Accounts of the Rise of the Jewish Home-ions and State, 1875-1978 (Herzl Press, 1984, with Eevi Soshuk). Eisenberg also penned over a dozen teachers’ guides and manuals, and a number of textbooks. He contributed many scholarly and popular articles to journals and magazines, and some of his books have been translated into Spanish.

Achievements

• Eisenberg was honored with a National Jewish Book Council Award in 1965 for the book Worlds Lost and Found.
  
  

Works

More photos

• book

  • Treasures from the Dust

    (Describes the technical aspects of several important arch...)

    1973
  • Synagogue Through the Ages

    (An Illustrated History of Judaism's House of Worship; A h...)

    1973
  • Momentous Century

    (Personal and Eyewitness Accounts of the Rise of the Jewis...)

    1984
  • Tzedakah

    (A source book on caring and sharing)

    1982
  • Feeding the world

    (A biography of David Lubin)

    1965

Connections

Eisenberg was married to Rose Leibow. The marriage produced a daughter Sora Landes and a son Judah. Eisenberg is also survived by seven grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

Wife:

Rose Leibow

Daughter:

Sora Landes Eisenberg

Son:

Judah Eisenberg