Pinchas Hacohen Peli

Pinchas Hacohen Peli was born in 1930 in Jerusalem

Peli was born in Jerusalem in 1930 to a Hasidic rabbinical family named Hacohen. His father was the rabbi and writer Mordechai Hacohen. He studied in a traditional heder and at the Etz Chaim Talmud Torah, and was ordained by Chief Rabbis Herzog and Uziel.

At 16 he began publishing poems in the newspaper Davar under the pen name Peli, which he later took as his name. He studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and later in Philadelphia and New York. He received a doctorate from the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1969, with a thesis on prayer written under Heschel.

In 1950 he went to the United States as an emissary of the Jewish Agency, and in 1951 he married his cousin Penina Cohen in New York. They had 4 children, among them the author Emuna Elon. In 1971 he joined Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, where he headed the chair of Jewish values from 1979.

He published books based on Soloveitchik's talks, including On Repentance in 1979, and founded a Heschel institute in Jerusalem with President Zalman Shazar. He was active in interfaith dialogue and discussed Jewish-Catholic relations at the Vatican. He supported separating state and religion in Israel.

Peli died in Jerusalem in 1989 and was buried on the Mount of Olives.