Rabbi Balfour Brickner, 78; Longtime Activist, Host of Radio, TV Shows

Rabbi Balfour Brickner, 78, a longtime activist and rabbi emeritus of the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in Manhattan, died of lung cancer Monday at a hospital in New York.

Brickner, who had homes in Fort Lee, N.J., and Stockbridge, Mass., was the former host of a nationally syndicated radio program “Adventures in Judaism” and appeared regularly on local and national radio and television programs.

For more than half a century, Brickner was an activist in the civil rights movement. He protested the Vietnam War and supported a woman’s right to an abortion, founding a group called Religious Leaders for a Free Choice.

Brickner was a published author of pamphlets, newspaper columns and books, including “Searching the Prophets for Values.” He taught biblical and post-biblical history at American University and Fordham University and lectured at the New School for Social Research in New York City.