Henry Cohen (April 7, 1863 – June 12, 1952) was a British-American rabbi, scholar, community activist and writer who served most of his career at Congregation B'nai Israel in Galveston, Texas, from 1888 to 1949. He came to the United States in 1885, during a period of rapid and massive growth related to early 20th-century immigration from eastern and southern Europe. In Texas, he organized the Galveston Movement, which worked from 1907 to 1914 to attract eastern European Jewish immigrants to Galveston and the Gulf Coast as a destination, as an alternative to the better known Northeastern cities. Ten thousand such immigrants entered at Galveston. When his congregation built a community house in 1928, they named it in his honor. He helped organize and lead many educational and community institutions. Able to read ten languages, he was known as a Talmud scholar, and published books about Texas history and Judaism. Together with rabbi David Lefkowitz of Dallas, Cohen interviewed many Jewish Texans to collect their histories for the Texas Centennial in 1936. Early life, education and career Henry Cohen was born in 1863 to David and Josephine C. Cohen, a Jewish family in London, England. He was educated in local schools, worked with the Board of Guardians, a Jewish relief agency, and studied at Jews' College. Before graduating, in 1880 he traveled to Cape Town Colony, South Africa, where he worked as an interpreter for the British government. In 1883 he returned to England, completing his studies and being ordained a rabbi in 1884. He migrated to Kingston, Jamaica for his first assignment, where there was a sizable Sephardic Jewish community. It dated from the colonial period. In 1885 Cohen was called by the Jewish community of Woodville, Mississippi and immigrated to the United States. He also taught at a female seminary in the town. In 1888 he moved to the larger city of Galveston, Texas, where he later became naturalized as a United States citizen. History in Galveston Henry Cohen became the rabbi of Congregation B'nai Israel in Galveston, Texas in 1888, when he was 25. He served with that congregation until 1949, for most of his life. In 1889 he married Mollie Levy, and they had two children. One of their grandsons, Henry Cohen II, also became a rabbi. The early twentieth century was a period of rapid growth in Galveston, as the port city was developed for