DAVID LINCOLN

LINCOLN--Rabbi David H., devoted community leader, scholar and Conservative rabbi, died Sunday, he was 86. Born in London in 1937, he was ordained an Orthodox rabbi in Jerusalem and studied at the Gateshead Yeshiva in northern England. He was rabbi in Portsmouth, England and then in 1967, moved to the U.S. with his wife Susan, where he joined the Conservative movement. Lincoln served as rabbi at several congregations, first in Kansas City at Beth Shalom, then Chicago at B'nai Zion, at Beth Hillel in Wilmette Illinois and most recently at The Park Avenue Synagogue in New York from 1987 until his retirement in 2008. Lincoln was an active participant in many Jewish organizations and causes, including support for Israel. He was a passionate advocate for interfaith relations, in particular between Jews and Christians in Poland and Ukraine. He travelled extensively to visit at risk Jewish Communities in places like Yemen, Syria and Ethiopia, and across eastern Europe. He met with many political and religious leaders, including two serving Popes, U.S. Presidents and Prime Ministers of Israel. His significant scholarship included various rabbinical treatises on Jewish law as well as the history of Jewish political autonomy in independent Ukraine from 1918-1919. He is survived by his children Sara, Simon and Jonathan and seven grandchildren, Natasha, Samuel, Jacob, Clementine, Gisele, Asher and Dorothy.