Balfour Brickner, who died Monday at 78, was rabbi emeritus of the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue and a familiar figure on national radio and TV, where he presented a Reform Jewish perspective. He had lung cancer and died at Mount Sinai Hospital.

Brickner was also a frequent contributor to newspapers and magazines, and his book “Finding God in the Garden” (Little, Brown) was published by in 2002.

Born November 18, 1926, into a prominent rabbinical family in Cleveland, Brickner attended Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. After serving in the Navy during World War II, he began his career as the founding rabbi of Temple Sinai in Washington, D.C. He also taught Jewish history at American University.

In 1961, he became rabbi of Stephen Wise Free Synagogue and joined the national staff at the Union of American Hebrew Congregations in New York. He eventually became director of its commissions on inter-religious affairs and on social action.

Brickner traveled to the South in the 1960s to participate in civil rights demonstrations. He once said he “enjoyed the hospitality of some of those cities’ finest jails.”

He also served as national rabbinic co-chairman of the Israel Bonds campaign.

Carrying a journalist’s credentials, he was one of the first American Jews to travel with Israeli troops into Egypt and on to Israel’s Golan Heights during the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

In 1970, he visited Vietnam as part of an interreligious peace group, and also met secretly with Viet Cong representatives in Paris. He also traveled to Nicaragua as part of a peace group in 1984.

In 2003, still sporting a rugged visage, Brickner was named by New York magazine as one of the “50 Sexiest New Yorkers.” The magazine said he had “the looks of a rake (wavy silver mane, chiseled jaw) and the soul of a mensch.”

Brickner is survived by his sons, Adam Brickner and Rabbi Barnett Brickner, and four grandchildren.