Henry Einspruch

Henry Einspruch (born Khaim-Yekhiel Aynshprukh in Tarnów, Galicia, 1892–January 1977), was a Galician-born Jew who converted to Lutheranism, becoming a Messianic missionary affiliated with the Hebrew Christian movement. Einspruch translated Christian literature into Yiddish, Hebrew, Polish, Russian, and English. His most notable work was a translation of the Christian New Testament into Yiddish.[1][2][3]

Henry Einspruch
Born	Khaim-Yekhiel Aynshprukh (Hebrew: הנרי איינשפרוך‎) December 27, 1892 Tarnów, Galicia
Died	January 1977 (aged 84–85)
Burial place	Washington, D.C.
Nationality	American
Occupation	Pastor, translator

Early life

His father Mendel was a scholar, an iron merchant, and a Santser Hassid. His mother Mirl was the daughter of the cantor of the main synagogue in the city of Jarosław. As a teenager, Einspruch was drawn to Christianity. Raised in a Yiddish-speaking home, he was a yeshiva student who studied under the rabbi of Barnov. Einspruch attended a Baron Hirsch School and the Tarnów High School. Along with other Jewish socialists, Einspruch was active in the Poale Zion movement and helped organize a strike of clerks, tailors, and teachers at religious elementary schools. In 1909, at the age of 17, he made aliyah to Ottoman Palestine and worked at Merhavia, a moshav in Galilee. In 1911, he immigrated to the Khedivate of Egypt. After living in Egypt, he returned to Poland and converted to Christianity under the guidance of the Jewish-born Messianic missionary Khayem (Lucky) Yedidiah Pollak. By 1913, he had immigrated to the United States and lived in Cleveland and New York City, working at a restaurant and an iron factory. Moving to Chicago, he studied at McCormick Theological Seminary. He moved to Baltimore in 1920 and studied at Johns Hopkins University.[4]

Career as Christian missionary

in 1923, Einspruch founded the Salem Hebrew Lutheran Mission in East Baltimore, located at the intersection of South Caroline and East Baltimore streets in Baltimore's historic Jewish quarter close to Corned Beef Row. The Salem Hebrew Lutheran Mission's church building has a Magen David above its entrance with the Greek letters iota eta sigma (IHS, a monogram for "Jesus Christ"). Einspruch founded Lederer Messianic Jewish Communications, which became the largest publisher of "Hebrew-Christian" literature in the world. On Shabbat, Einspruch was known to regularly stand on a soapbox in front of various Baltimore-area synagogues and deliver Christian sermons in the Yiddish language.[5]

References

1. "Jesus in Yiddish". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Retrieved 24 September 2019.
2. "The New Testament Sounds Odd in Yiddish". The Forward. Retrieved 24 September 2019.
3. "Converts, Bible Scholars, and Yiddishists". Yiddish Book Center. Retrieved 24 September 2019.
4. "When Missionaries Wrote in Yiddish: The Rise and Fall of Missionary Yiddish in America". Diario Judío. Retrieved 24 September 2019.
5. "Church Mystery Reveals Hidden Local Jewish History". Jmore Baltimore Jewish Living. Retrieved 24 September 2019.

Bibliography

• Einspruch, Henry. 600,000,000 People Can't Be Wrong: A Modern Jew Looks at Jesus, Chicago: Good News Publishers, [date of publication not identified]
• Einspruch, Henry. Der Brīf fūn Yaʻqov ha-shaliyaḥ, Baltimore: The Mediator, [1933?]
• Einspruch, Henry. Der Bris Hadoshe, Balṭimor: Laybush un Ḥayah Lederer Fond, 1959.
• Einspruch, Henry; Geden, A. S.; Kilgour, R.; American Bible Society. Dīʼ gūṭeʻ Beśūrah lōyṭ Matyaʼ : ʼa nayyeʻ ʼībeʻrzeʻṣūng., New York : American Bible Society, 1925.
• Einspruch, Henry. Jewish Confessors of the Faith, Brooklyn, N.Y.: Amsterdam Bd. of Missions to the Jews, 1925.
• Einspruch, Henry. Lider fun gloybn Hymns of faith, rendered into Yiddish, Baltimore, Mediator, 1935.
• Einspruch, Henry. When Jews face Christ, Brooklyn: American Board of Missions to the Jews, 1939.