Dr Isaac Cohen: Dr Isaac Cohen, who has died aged 93, served as Chief Rabbi of Ireland, retiring in 1979 after 21 years in the position.
He was a leading member of the executive of the Conference of European Rabbis and of the World Council of Synagogues, and lectured in the United States, Canada, Australia, Israel, India and New Zealand.
A champion of the state of Israel and enthusiastic supporter of Jewish national organisations, he campaigned for human rights, particularly on behalf of Jews in the Soviet Union.
At his installation in Dublin, he appealed to Soviet leaders to understand and recognise the legitimate longings of the Jewish people there, and to give them the power to live in the freest exercise of their religion and culture. He continued to highlight the issue and in 1976 was refused a visa to enter the Soviet Union.
In 1972, following the killing of 11 Israeli athletes at the Olympic Games in Munich, he spoke at a memorial service in Adelaide Road synagogue of how this "shameful atrocity" had cast a pall of gloom over a happy gathering of international fellowship. He subsequently called on world political leaders to recognise that "wild terrorist leaders" were not folk heroes but murderers.
Referring to the Northern Ireland conflict in 1974 he said:, "A culture that is content only to remember the tragic history of their forefathers and is bereft of any ambition to evolve a new life out of reasonable opportunities for the fullest expression of personal expression is a culture that is bound by hoops of steel, which certainly hold fast whatever they contain, but forbid the possibility of living growth and development."
Born of Lithuanian parents in Llanelli, south Wales, in 1914, Isaac Cohen's father was a shopkeeper. One of a family of five, he was educated at Llanelli Grammar School until he went at the age of 11 to Aria College, the Jewish ecclesiastical preparatory school in Portsmouth.
After three years he entered the Jews College in London, and later attended the University of London where he graduated with a BA in Semitic languages. At 21 he was appointed to his first community, Harrow, then a developing suburb of London.
In 1939 he was appointed to Leeds, and during the Second World War acted as officiating chaplain to all the Jewish members of the British forces based in Yorkshire.
After seven years in Leeds, he relinquished his post to return to London to resume full-time studies for the Rabbinical diploma. By now married, he and his wife lived frugally in a two-roomed flat. Before he completed his course, however, he was "called" to Edinburgh to be Rabbi of the Jewish community there, but the position was kept open while he completed his studies.
In Edinburgh he had for the first time full Rabbinical responsibilities for the city's Jewish community while, at the same time, representing all the Jewish people of Scotland on national occasions, such as the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II of England. He took his doctorate in philosophy at Edinburgh University.
In 1959 the "call" came to Dublin where he assumed the responsibilities of Chief Rabbi for all Jewish communities in the Republic. He later said that he found in Dublin a Jewish community "of exceptionally good religious quality".
Interviewed in 1970, he said that Jewish citizens were fully integrated into Irish life, and took their full place in public life along with other citizens.
In their private lives they practised their own religious beliefs and found no obstacle placed in their way in the fulfilment of their religious practices. He also said that he had not encountered anti-Semitism in Ireland in the course of his work although he was aware that undercurrents of anti-Semitism existed in some social quarters.
He objected to the missionary attitude towards Jews, however, claiming that the Jewish religion was the Mother Faith from which Christianity and Mohammedism [ sic] grew.
He struck up close and cordial relationships with prominent figures in Irish life. He was proud in 1966 to join President Eamon de Valera in planting three saplings of Galil fir trees (supplied from Israel) in the grounds of Áras an Uachtaráin to commemorate the dedication of the De Valera Forest in northern Israel.
Retiring as Chief Rabbi in December 1979, he accepted an invitation to carry out research into Jewish law at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The fruit of his labour was Acts of the Mind in Jewish Ritual Law: an Insight into Rabbinic Psychology, an advance copy of which he saw before his death.
As a young man he played cricket, rugby and table tennis, and was active in the Boy Scouts. In later life he enjoyed walking and music, especially Bach and Beethoven.
He married in 1939 Fanny Weisfogel, who predeceased him a year ago; his nieces, nephews and sisters-in-law survive him.
Dr Isaac Cohen: born July 26th, 1914; died November 30th, 2007