In an unusual ecumenical investiture, the nation’s first rabbi to serve on the faculty of a Roman Catholic college, Rabbi Bernard M. Cohen, was installed Friday as the fifth rabbi of Sinai Temple. More than 2000 persons – Jews, Gentiles, blacks and whites – prayed together for Rabbi Cohen’s success as spiritual leader of the 2800-member synagogue. Among those present watching the rabbi accept his pulpit were 100 Roman Catholic and Protestant clergymen dressed in their clerical robes. Rabbi Cohen succeeds Rabbi Herman E. Snyder who served this congregation for almost 25 years. Rabbi Snyder will continue to serve as rabbi emeritus. The 40-year-old Rabbi Cohen was the first rabbi on a Catholic college faculty at St. Mary of the Woods College, St. Mary of the Woods, Indiana, where he taught history for eight years while serving simultaneously as spiritual leader of the United Hebrew Congregation in Terre Haute, Indiana.
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