Harry Halpern (February 4, 1899 – June 10, 1981) was an American Conservative Jewish educator and rabbi who for almost 49 years was the rabbi of the East Midwood Jewish Center (EMJC), in Brooklyn, New York.

Halpern was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, attending Brooklyn's Public School (PS) 37 and Eastern District High School. He received his bachelor's degree in philosophy from the City College of New York in 1919 and a master's degree from Columbia University in 1925. He also received both a bachelor and doctoral degree from Brooklyn Law School, studied at the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, and earned ordination as a rabbi from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS), in 1929. He later received a Doctor of Hebrew Literature degree from JTS in 1951.

Halpern served as the first "pupil rabbi" for the Talmud Torah "junior congregation" of Congregation Beth Jacob Ohev Sholom in Long Island, New York. He also served for a short time as the "student preacher and spiritual leader" of the Jewish Communal Center of Brooklyn, before taking the position of rabbi for the East Midwood Jewish Center in 1929, where he served for almost 49 years. At the EMJC, his sermons constantly educated, challenged and inspired the congregation both in terms of Jewish identity and larger social concerns such as the rights of minorities, and he "pleaded for intensive Jewish Education of the Day School-Yeshiva type long before private schools became fashionable. He retired from the EMJC in 1977 to live in Southbury, Connecticut until his death four years later, in 1981.

A leader in both the general Jewish community and numerous major rabbinic groups, he served as president of both the Rabbinical Assembly, the organization of conservative rabbis, and the New York Board of Rabbis, and Chairman of the JTS Rabbinic Cabinet, advising the seminary chancellor on issues important to the Jewish people. He was also Chairman of the Rabbinical Assembly Social Actions Commission, visiting professor of homiletics at JTS, and adjunct professor of pastoral psychiatry at JTS. In addition to his work at JTS, he served as chairman of the board of the Yeshiva of Flatbush.

During his tenure as president of the Rabbinical Assembly, a number of major changes and new institutions for the conservative movement were introduced, often in conjunction with the Jewish Theological Seminary, reaffirming those two organizations as the leadership groups for the movement. These included the Joint Bet Din(rabbinical court) of the Conservative Movement and the "Joint Conference on Jewish Law."

Halpern was a leader in many organizations and philanthropic affairs, including service as a member of the New York City Human Rights Commission (1967–1978), and the Kings County Commission Against Discrimination, and on the executive committees of the Brooklyn Red Cross and the Brooklyn Cancer Society. He also served on the executive committee of the New York Division of the National Conference of Christians and Jews. He opposed the use of taxes to support private schools (including religious schools) during his chairmanship of the Social Actions Commission of Conservative Judaism, also speaking out against the idea as President of the New York Board of Rabbis. The Board of Rabbis resolution was especially opposed to the idea of public funding of private religious schools, calling such action a "violation of our understanding of the hallowed principle of church-state separation."

As one of his colleagues wrote upon the occasion of Halpern's death, "There was hardly a National Jewish Conference where Harry Halpern had not delivered the keynote address or one of the major speeches." Halpern's sermons, lectures, and addresses, in and out of the synagog, were "challenging, demanding, and even disturbing ... Rabbi Halpern preached social justice and human rights when those values were still associated with Hosea, Amos, and Isaiah."

Halpern was well respected by civic leaders for his actions, and sought out for his advice. In 1968, when a Brooklyn Jewish School was attacked by youths with rocks and molotov cocktails on the night of Halloween, New York Mayor John Lindsay visited the site the next day, also visiting other Jewish schools, he stopped to pick up Halpern and have lunch with him in between the school visits.