Joshua Loth Liebman (April 7, 1907 – June 9, 1948) was an American Reform

rabbi A rabbi (; ) is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi—known as ''semikha''—following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of t ...

and best-selling

author In legal discourse, an author is the creator of an original work that has been published, whether that work exists in written, graphic, visual, or recorded form. The act of creating such a work is referred to as authorship. Therefore, a sculpt ...

, best known for the book ''Peace of Mind'', which spent more than a year at #1 on the

New York Times Best Seller list ''The New York Times'' Best Seller list is widely considered the preeminent list of best-selling books in the United States. John Bear, ''The #1 New York Times Best Seller: intriguing facts about the 484 books that have been #1 New York Times ...

Biography

Born in

Hamilton, Ohio Hamilton is a city in Butler County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Located north of Cincinnati along the Great Miami River, Hamilton is the second-most populous city in the Cincinnati metropolitan area and the List of municipaliti ...

, Liebman graduated from the

University of Cincinnati The University of Cincinnati (UC or Cincinnati, informally Cincy) is a public university, public research university in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. It was founded in 1819 and had an enrollment of over 53,000 students in 2024, making it the ...

when he was 19 years old. He went on to be ordained and also earned a doctorate in Hebrew letters from

Hebrew Union College Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and remained in regular use as a first language until ...

. From 1934 to 1939, Liebman served as rabbi of K.A.M. Temple in

Chicago, Illinois Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

. In 1939, Liebman became the rabbi of Temple Israel, a

Reform Reform refers to the improvement or amendment of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory, etc. The modern usage of the word emerged in the late 18th century and is believed to have originated from Christopher Wyvill's Association movement, which ...

synagogue A synagogue, also called a shul or a temple, is a place of worship for Jews and Samaritans. It is a place for prayer (the main sanctuary and sometimes smaller chapels) where Jews attend religious services or special ceremonies such as wed ...

Boston, Massachusetts Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

. A sermon Liebman gave at Temple Israel, titled "The Road to Inner Serenity", was published as a pamphlet by one of his friends, bookstore owner Richard Fuller, who passed it on to publisher Richard L. Simon of

Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster LLC (, ) is an American publishing house owned by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts since 2023. It was founded in New York City in 1924, by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. Along with Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group US ...

. Simon & Schuster then arranged to publish Liebman's

self-help Self-help or self-improvement is "a focus on self-guided, in contrast to professionally guided, efforts to cope with life problems" —economically, physically, intellectually, or emotionally—often with a substantial psychological basis. When ...

book titled ''Peace of Mind'', issued in 1946, which sought to reconcile

religion Religion is a range of social system, social-cultural systems, including designated religious behaviour, behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, religious text, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics in religion, ethics, or ...

and

psychiatry Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of deleterious mental disorder, mental conditions. These include matters related to cognition, perceptions, Mood (psychology), mood, emotion, and behavior. ...

. Liebman had himself previously undergone

psychoanalysis PsychoanalysisFrom Greek language, Greek: and is a set of theories and techniques of research to discover unconscious mind, unconscious processes and their influence on conscious mind, conscious thought, emotion and behaviour. Based on The Inte ...

. In ''Peace of Mind'', Liebman "addressed himself to the individual whose personal grief and anxiety, unassuageable by social betterment alone, required an inner peace that psychology and religion, working together, could provide." ''Peace of Mind'' became one of the year's best-selling books. Reaching #1 on the ''New York Times'' nonfiction best-sellers list on October 27, 1946, ''Peace of Mind'' held the top position on the list for a total of 58 (non-consecutive) weeks, and spent more than three straight years on the list. (In 1949, Roman Catholic Bishop Fulton J. Sheen responded to Liebman's assertions by publishing a book of his own entitled ''Peace of Soul''.) Scholar Andrew R. Heinze has described the impact of ''Peace of Mind'' as follows: "In its time, ''Peace of Mind'' was something of a cultural earthquake, allowing subterranean plates of religion, gender and ethnicity to find a new alignment in postwar America. Or, to invoke a commercial metaphor, ''Peace of Mind'' marked the arrival of Judaism in a marketplace of Christian goods. When Judaism appeared, it came with the colorful plastic of postwar psychology. Thus bundled, the old faith and the new therapy broke the religion monopoly of twentieth-century America." In September 1947, the rabbi and his wife Fan took in a teenager, Leila Bornstein, a Polish-born survivor of the

Auschwitz concentration camp Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, was a complex of over 40 Nazi concentration camps, concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany, occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) d ...

. Leila's parents and two younger sisters perished in the camp. The rabbi and his wife had been childless for the past 19 years and would later adopt Leila. A brief article on the family was featured in

The Ladies' Home Journal ''Ladies' Home Journal'' was an American magazine that ran until 2016 and was last published by the Meredith Corporation. It was first published on February 16, 1883, and eventually became one of the leading women's magazines of the 20th century ...

in January 1948. While ''Peace of Mind'' was still on the best-sellers list, Liebman died at age 41 on June 9, 1948. Liebman's death was attributed to a "heart attack" or "heart ailment", with one obituary reporting that he had a heart attack following a severe case of influenza. He is buried in the Temple Israel Cemetery in

Wakefield, Massachusetts Wakefield is a New England town, town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston, greater Boston metropolitan area, municipal corporation, incorporated in 1812 in the United States, 1812 and located about north-nor ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Liebman, Joshua L. 1907 births 1948 deaths Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion alumni University of Cincinnati alumni American Reform rabbis Writers from Massachusetts 20th-century American rabbis Burials at Temple Israel Cemetery (Wakefield, Massachusetts) Rabbis from Cincinnati