Rabbi Michael Cook, who helped Jews navigate the New Testament, dies at 79
(JTA) — Rabbi Michael Cook, who identified and then fulfilled a need for Jewish rabbis to navigate a culture steeped in New Testament learning, has died.
Cook died March 30 at 79, said a statement from Hebrew Union College that did not name a cause. Cook for decades taught a required course on the New Testament at the school’s Cincinnati campus.
“His influence on the Reform Movement and the Jewish and larger world coincided with a time in which American Jews faced challenges navigating the challenges of living in a predominantly Christian culture society due to burgeoning assimilation, intermarriage, conversion, blended families, antisemitism, missionizing, and interfaith debates over Israel advocacy,” said Andrew Rehfeld, HUC’s president. “Through his teaching and publications, he provided the infrastructure for significant Jewish-Christian dialogue by clergy, scholars, and laity that contributed greatly to interfaith understanding in North America and around the world.”
The statement quoted Cook as explaining, in an article HUC posted not long after his 2019 retirement, why the New Testament discipline was necessary for rabbis.
Cook said his career “coincided with a time in which navigating Christian America had become increasingly difficult for Jews due to the burgeoning of assimilation, intermarriage, blended families, and a declining Jewish birthrate.”
He estimated that he had taught more than a thousand students who were now spread throughout North America in various roles administering to the Jewish community.
Cook’s passion was launched when he was a student at Haverford College, studying medieval church art. He noted the sculptures depicting a blindfolded woman who represented the synagogue, contrasted with an enlightened woman who represented the church.
“It is my passionate hope that my career and my many students have had a powerful impact in allowing Jews to enhance their wellbeing simply by helping Christians realize that — far from being ‘blind’ — Jews have intelligible as well as intelligent reasons for processing the New Testament in their own way,” he said.
Cook is survived by his wife, Rabbi Judy Chessin, five children and five grandchildren.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
