Kook, Abraham Isaac

Kook, Abraham Isaac ko͞ok [key], 1864–1935, Jewish scholar and philosopher, b. Latvia. He settled (1904) in Palestine, where he became the chief rabbi of the Ashkenazi community in 1921. He attempted to show that Palestine and Zionism were an integral part of Judaism; that those secularist Jews who worked to build up the Jewish homeland were unknowingly doing God's work, which one day would become evident to them; and that nationalism was a necessary step on the way to universalism. He was the author of several books that were influential among Jewish nationalists.

See biography by J. B. Agus (2d ed. 1972); study by S. H. Bergman, Faith and Reason (tr. 1963).

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