For more than half a century, Rabbi William Berkowitz of New York, who died February 3 at 83, led free, public dialogues with prominent world figures and heads of state.

Starting in 1951, Berkowitz invited American and Israeli politicians, authors, artists, and thinkers to participate in public conversations that welcomed diverse points of view, a trait that also defined his tenure as a Conservative rabbi in New York City.

“He was really a bridge builder. He sought to move beyond superficiality and shallowness,” his son, Rabbi Perry Berkowitz, said.

A former head of the New York Board of Rabbis and a pulpit rabbi at Congregation B’nai Jeshurun in Manhattan, Berkowitz served as an adviser to several New York City mayors and as an interfaith adviser to Catholic leaders. He was best known for his Dialogue Forum Series, the public conversations that took place in venues including the Beacon Theatre, Lincoln Square, and Town Hall and drew participants such as Henry Kissinger, Martin Luther King Jr., and Elie Wiesel.

In fact, before its cessation in 2005, the series attracted guests whose names read like a “who’s who” of world personalities, including prime ministers Ariel Sharon, Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin, and Golda Meir; Vice President Rockefeller; Senator Kennedy; Mayor Koch; Alan Dershowitz; Norman Podhoretz; Arthur Miller; I.B. Singer; Beverly Sills; Jane Fonda, and Sammy Davis Jr., among others.

In 1984, Berkowitz invited the Reverend Jerry Falwell to speak at Town Hall, where the crowd heckled the evangelical leader.

“I remember having a discussion with him,” the younger Rabbi Berkowitz, who is president of the American Jewish Heritage Organization, said. “My dad said to him, ‘We’re not going to let protesters shut us down and end free speech. The important thing is that we have the opportunity to hear your point of view.’ That was my father.”

“He had a sense of integrity and he listened to his own conscience,” Mr. Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate who met Berkowitz 40 years ago when he participated in one of the rabbi’s dialogues, said. “He never hesitated voicing or expressing ideas that were not popular.”

Berkowitz was born June 28, 1924, in Philadelphia, the son of a Yiddish poet and journalist. A naval officer during World War II, Berkowitz returned to Pennsylvania after the war to earn a Hebrew teaching certificate from Gratz College and a master’s degree in education and humanities from Temple University.

Berkowitz was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1952, and he immediately took a position at Congregation B’nai Jeshurun, where he served as a rabbi until 1984.

At the synagogue, Berkowitz emphasized adult education and established multiple prayer groups for worshippers. For 25 years, he prerecorded Friday night sermons that aired on local radio. Each year, Berkowitz and Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach hosted a Purim concert that drew thousands of worshippers.

“He saw the Jewish people as a single unit, although he himself believed very strongly in a progressive, dynamic, evolving Judaism that spoke to spiritual vitality and intellectually credibility,” his son said.

Berkowitz also served as president of several organizations, including the New York Board of Rabbis between 1972 and 1974, Bnai Zion between 1975 and 1977, and the Jewish National Fund between 1977 and 1981.

He was as an adviser to mayors Wagner, Lindsay, and Beame, as well as to cardinals Spellman, Cooke, and O’Connor.

Berkowitz died of natural causes. He leaves behind his wife of 61 years, Florence; three children, Rabbi Berkowitz, Dr. Adena Berkowitz, and Rabbi Leah Berkowitz, and five grandchildren.