Alexander (Ḥanokh Yehudah) Kohut (April 22, 1842 – May 25, 1894) was a rabbi and orientalist from a distinguished family of rabbis. After finishing the gymnasium course in Kecskemét, he removed to Budapest. Anxious to continue his rabbinical studies, he went to Breslau. In 1865, he received a call to the rabbinate of Tarnowitz, Upper Silesia. He then spent another year in Breslau, devoting his time to Oriental philology and Semitics. During the previous year he received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Leipzig, his dissertation being "Ueber die Jüdische Angelogie und Daemonologie in Ihrer Abhängigkeit vom Parsismus." The essay was published by the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft in 1866, it being the first Jewish work issued under the auspices of that society. He obtained his rabbinical diploma in 1867. It was in 1864 that he began to collect materials for a critical edition of the 'Aruk of Nathan ben Jehiel. In 1880 Kohut was called to Oradea, Hungary, where he remained until 1884. At Oradea he became acquainted with Kálmán Tisza, prime minister of Hungary, who, hearing him speak at a national gathering of notables, was so carried away by his eloquence that he caused him to be called to the Hungarian parliament as representative of the Jews. In 1885 Kohut was elected rabbi of Congregation Ahavath Chesed in New York. Kohut was associated with Rabbi Sabato Morais in founding the Jewish Theological Seminary of New York, becoming one of its advisory board, and being active as professor of Talmudic methodology up to the time of his death. In 1889, on the occasion of his finishing the Aruch Completum, he was the recipient of many honors, notably at the hands of various learned bodies in Europe.