Morris Margolies

Rabbi Morris B. Margolies (1921-2012), born in Jerusalem, was a Conservative movement rabbi who served as rabbi for Congregation Beth Shalom (Kansas City, Missouri) and as an adjunct professor of Jewish history at the University of Kansas. He received his semikhah from Yeshiva University. In Hattiesburg, Mississippi, he marched for civil rights and helped with voter registration drives. He fought for non-discriminatory housing in Kansas City. He called the United States the aggressor in the Vietnam War. On the eve of the 1972 election, he delivered a sermon titled “Throw the Rascal Out,” a scathing reference to Richard Nixon, who was running for a second term. In his Yom Kippur sermon in 1982, he called Israel's invasion of Lebanon “morally unjustified” due to the deaths of so many non-combatants.