Leopold Cohn (September 12,[1] 1862, Berezna, Hungary - December 19, 1937, Brooklyn, NY) was a Jewish convert to Evangelicalism[2] who formed the Brownsville Mission to the Jews, an organization that now exists as Chosen People Ministries.

[7] Raised in the Satmar Hasidic tradition,[9] he studied in the Pressburg Yeshiva and claimed to receive rabbinic ordination under Zalman Lieb Teitelbaum in Sziget.

Cohn was married in 1880 to Rose Hoffman, and he claimed to serve as an itinerant rabbi among three congregations in the Máramaros region.

Soon after he arrived, he passed by DeWitt Memorial Presbyterian Church in lower Manhattan, where he saw a sign in Hebrew saying, “Meetings for Jews.” Upon entering, he found an evangelistic service in Yiddish led by Jewish missionary Hermann Warszawiak.

No longer connected to the Presbyterians who had funded his schooling, Cohn moved to Brownsville, Brooklyn, and began regular evangelistic meetings in October 1894.

[14] Beginning in 1896 he was given a salary by the American Baptist Home Mission Society as their missionary to the Jews of Brooklyn, a partnership that lasted through 1907.

He involved his wife and children in the ministry and established a sewing school for girls, an English language class for Jewish women, and a dispensary to meet the medical needs of immigrant Jews.

The mission grew rapidly, attracting large numbers of Jewish immigrants who sought refuge from persecution in Eastern Europe.

In response to ongoing rumors and allegations about his identity and finances, Cohn proposed an independent committee be formed in 1916 to fully investigate all charges.

The description also included a red spot under his eye, but witnesses testified this scar came from an incident in Brooklyn after 1894, long after the supposed Hungarian conviction.

In the end, the committee declared Cohn to be innocent of all charges, and they published their lengthy decision in newspapers and leading Christian magazines.

[29] However, Cohn had already regained the respect of the Christian community through his court cases and committee investigation, and he continued serving with his organization until his death in 1937.

[18] The controversy surrounding Cohn's identity and character during his lifetime highlights the complexities of evangelistic ministry in interfaith contexts.

He was unique in that his Hasidic background gave him competencies that other Jewish missions lacked, but also a way of life that the Christian community did not understand.

Theologically, Cohn found success in promoting his premillennial eschatology and his focus on Jewish evangelism in America among Baptists and Presbyterians.