Jeremy Rosen
The Evolution and Failings of the Office of the Chief Rabbinate
Jeremy Rosen - The Evolution and Failings of the Office of the Chief Rabbinate
- Good afternoon or good evening everybody. This session today is going to be a controversial one, but then, I like a bit of controversy. And I have to say at the outset, I dislike the chief rabbinate. It’s not personal. There’s some lovely people who have been chief rabbis, but unfortunately, the position is a political one, and I detest politics. So I’m going to start off with a little bit of a historical background. After all, the Bible itself doesn’t mention rabbis. The Bible lays down a dual track of leadership between the priesthood on the one hand and the monarchy on the other. Both of them were subject to corruption, both of them had their idealists, but in general, it has to be said neither was particularly successful. After the monarchy was disbanded, a new kind of dual role emerged out of the Babylonian exile, in which you had this bifurcation between what was called the head of the exile, Reish Galuta, who was the diplomatic political head of the Jewish community in Babylon. And the Reish Matifta, the head of the academy. Or alternatively, the division between the academic, if you like, and the political. And it was that system that transferred itself when the Jewish community rebuilt in Israel. And you had this division between, on the one hand, the priesthood. And on the other hand, you had what would turn into the Sanhedrin, or we would call the rabbinic leadership. And the rabbinic leadership itself, in due course, became bifurcated between the academic head and the political head. They went through a whole process of adaptation, in which the meritocratic Sanhedrin, as we will call it, balanced the, if you like, hereditary monarchy reestablished by the Maccabeans. And the Sanhedrin became, if you like, a kind of self-perpetuating oligarchy of experts usually founded on the basis of their intellectual and academic knowledge, rather than any other factor.
But it was self-perpetuating. And the idea that emerged at that stage was that religion would contribute to the governance of the country, and make sure the country was run on spiritual lines, but would not necessarily be the absolute authority. And leadership was passed down through a process known as semicha. Semicha literally means laying on hands, which originally, in the Bible, was to do with a sacrificial or priestly system, but it was a way of placing one’s hands on somebody’s head, giving ‘em a blessing and saying, “We think you’re right to carry on.” And this process of semicha carried on for a couple of hundred years until, eventually, it collapsed. On the other hand, one form of it continued in Babylon through this period. But in the land of Israel under the Byzantines, the Israeli authority was, in effect, disbanded. And therefore, there was no system in place to appoint a kind of a leader that would be regarded as a leader of the nation, the people, or the religion. Each community had its own religious advisor who was not necessarily paid, wasn’t necessarily called a rabbi in any way, and often earned their living independently. And these rabbis emerge solely on the basis of their intellectual capacity. And they were regarded as scholars. They weren’t regarded as we might consider them as to be counsellors, as to be pastoral leaders, neither were they regarded as being political leaders. But political leaders did emerge, not from an internal desire in Judaism to appoint a chief rabbi, but because from mediaeval times and onwards, different communities in which Jews lived wanted to have a spokesman.
And whether that spokesman was called the Rab de la Corte in the kingdom of Castile, or whether it was called a crown rabbi in parts of Russia and elsewhere, these guys were appointed by the non-Jewish authorities as the representatives of their Jewish community. The change began to come about during the late mediaeval period, where it was felt that Jewish communities needed to mirror a little bit of the non-Jewish communities, where you had pastoral leaders, where you had priests with a pastoral role to council. And in many cases, these were, within the Jewish community, whether they were regarded as mystics or faith healers. These were the people who balanced the scholars to service the community. But really, the idea of the chief rabbinate does not take off anywhere until the rise of Napoleon. And it was Napoleon who formed the first, shall we say, organisation of Judaism under the patronage of the state called the consistoire, who decided there had to be a head. And the head was appointed as an administrative role, and not necessarily as a religious role. Because after all, in the communities then, as now, there were different sections. There were the Ashkenazi, they were the Sephardi, they were the Hasidim, they were the Lithuanians. There were so many different subdivisions that it was not possible to claim that one person would be the religious head. All you could say is that they would be, if you like, the administrative head. In Anglo jury, which is the base from which I’m going to build my case, there were rabbis on both the Ashkenazi and the Sephardi side, who were the heads of their community. In the Sephardi community they were called the Hakham, the wise man, and they were the rabbi, or the senior rabbi of the various Orthodox synagogues that existed in London. And these men were all traditionally Orthodox. At this moment there hadn’t been a reform, or an alternative community.
And they functioned in their dual capacities. And there were, during the 18th century, rabbis of the great Ashkenazi synagogues in London. But again, their role was rather limited to be that of the community rabbi, and not beyond the specific community they served. And interestingly enough, within this framework, it was the rabbi of a community who was considered the mara d'atra, the leader, the religious leader, and the academic leader of the community. And his decisions were ones that apply to his community only. There could be lots of variations between one community and another, but they were all within the framework of Orthodox law. And he was considered the boss. And nobody had authority over him. And as he wished, to cede authority to somebody else. There developed a kind of a substitute ordination of rabbis, which was called semicha based on the original system, but it didn’t have the power of Jewish law, it was just a matter of titular custom. And people would have, when they were appointed to be a rabbi, a declaration of their appointment and no more than that. There was no official overall test other than expertise in Jewish law. And expertise in Jewish law may vary. There would be those who would be expert in let’s say, economic issues. There would be those who are expert in marital divorce issues. And those who are concerned with the personal interactions of people. And then, following the influence of the non-Jewish world, slowly, these rabbis began either to take on, or to delegate, other roles within the community. And so you had across Europe, and the result under the influence of Napoleon, and in England, these rabbis, who were regarded as the titular diplomatic heads of the community to the non-Jewish world, not within the Jewish world itself.
Well, as I say, different rabbis were regarded as the leaders of whichever sect or group they ruled over. In England, this changed in the second half of the 18th century, 19th century, when the main rabbi at the time of the Orthodox community was a man by the name of Adler, who wanted Jewish life in England to parallel the Christian Church of England, and to model itself on the church in the following ways. Number one, he wanted all the clergymen within the, his community, to wear clerical clothes. Dog collars, gaiters, the other black clothes that ministers in the Church of England wore. He also thought that nobody else should call themselves a rabbi except for he himself. He would be the rabbi. Everybody else would be a minister, a reverend. And he wanted the atmosphere and the formality of the church to become that of the synagogue. And in 1870, an act of parliament made the United Synagogue, as it was called, The Synagogue of the Jews, recognised by Her Majesty’s government, Victoria’s government. And not only was this man the chief rabbi of the Anglican community, at this time, remember, Britain was a great empire. And therefore, the chief rabbi of England was the chief rabbi of the whole of the British Empire. Technically, that was his official position. And that was the position that Hermann Adler fought for, established, and made life absolutely impossible for anybody else. So whether it was the nascent reform movement on the one hand, or the newly arrived strong Eastern European Orthodoxy on the other, neither of them liked him. Neither of them felt he was in any position towards them, but they were prepared to recognise that he would be the diplomatic representative to the queen. He would go along to royal occasions like a coronation or a funeral. He would be the titular representative.
At the same time, there was another organisation established called the Board of Deputies, which were the lay leaders of the community. In both cases, whether it was the United Synagogue, or the lay leaders of the community, these were aristocrats. You had to be an aristocrat to run anything in England at that time. And these aristocrats were not themselves religious. They were merely performing a service to the community, their responsibility to the community to see that it ran. And naturally, they favoured the anglicization of Anglo jury of Hermann Adler. When Hermann Adler died, the new man who was appointed to replace him was a man called Joseph Hertz. His actual appointment actually didn’t come until 1913, and that was after years of discussing who to have, because the position of the chief rabbi was a position appointed exclusively by the United Synagogue. And the United Synagogue being Orthodox did not recognise the reform, didn’t recognise the other Orthodox groups. And so at this moment, because they were growing in influence and power, they began to put pressure on the United Synagogue. The United Synagogue’s method of appointing the chief rabbi, who really was only the chief rabbi of the United Synagogue, was a lay leadership appointments board. No expertise in choosing rabbis. They were as much influenced by the looks, and the appearance, and the ability to give a good sermon, as they were by scholarship or anything else. And that’s why for a couple of years they argued about who was going to appoint Adler. The aristocrats wanted to his kind of guy, and the religious wanted somebody of more religious stature. Rabbi Hertz was from continental Europe, but had actually studied at an academy, a rabbinic academy in New York, the Jewish Theological Seminary, which, at that time, was still Orthodox. A later date, it became conservative. And he came in as a strong fighter for Orthodoxy.
For his long reign as prime minister, as sorry, as chief rabbi, he tried to ensure that Orthodoxy would be the only and the unchallenged religious structure of England, of Anglo jury. And because Anglo jury modelled itself on the English system of hierarchy, aristocracy, the Church of England, that was how Anglo jury developed in the immediate period after his election, first World War, and on through to the Second World War. Now, Rabbi Hertz had with him a court called the Beth Din, the Court of Jewish law. And these were extreme scholars, top scholars, who knew the law inside out, and they were the ones who actually carried out the administrative function of religion in the United Synagogue. And Rabbi Hertz brought in an outstanding scholar from Eastern Europe called gaon Rav Yechezkel Abramsky to head the Beth Din, primarily because he wanted a fighter to ensure that Orthodoxy would triumph. At the same time, Hertz was also a strong Zionist, whereas the English aristocracy and the upper classes were not, with a couple of exceptions. And they were not in favour of Zionism, whereas Hertz had to fight for it. The result is that throughout his reign, Hertz was busy fighting, fighting over Zionism, fighting over Orthodoxy. And because he had a very strong character, he was up for the fight, he gave no ground, and he achieved everything he set out to achieve. But it was at a cost. And the cost was that when he died, the one thing that the electors of the chief rabbi decided, they would never again have, if they could avoid it, was a chief rabbi with a mind of his own. And therefore, as a successor, they found the very nice, and lovable, and quiet, and harmless Israel Brodie to take over.
And at the same time as this was going on, the various colonies, South Africa, Canada, Australia, who, technically speaking, as members of the Commonwealth, had to accept the superior authority of the Chief Rabbi of England, began to look for their own chief rabbis to see if they could find them. The one place that didn’t have a chief rabbi happened to be the United States of America. And there were several reasons why not. First of all, the United States of America, the dominant religion was reform. It was reform, and not interested in having any Orthodox interference in their particular sphere of religious influence. At the same time, the very Orthodox communities of the Lower East Side in New York were booming, and people coming from Eastern Europe, and they had nothing in common or very little in common with the reform community. And at one stage they thought, maybe they should have a chief rabbi. And there was one occasion, just one occasion, when in 1886, the Lower East Side invited a very famous European Rabbi, Rabbi Jacob Joseph, to come over and be the chief rabbi of the European Synagogues of New York. First thing he did was to set up a yeshiva, the first yeshiva in New York. And the next thing he did is to try to set about stopping all the different variations of kashrut supervision, of shechita, of ritual slaughter because anybody could set themselves up as whatever they wanted. This was a free, laissez-faire economic world, and everybody could do what they wanted to. And he tried to bring some discipline in. And he battled for a couple of years. And in the end, he gave up. In the end, the people who had funded him withdrew the money. He had a stroke and he died. And that was the last attempt to have a chief rabbi in the United States of America. The fact is that Jewish life in the United States of America, that stage took off and became, without any question, the dominant religious influence in the world, even though at this stage still, the British empire counted for something.
An Anglo jury also counted for something. Under the influence of the British mandate in Israel, and in the Holy land, they appointed chief rabbis because that’s what the English did. They liked to know who they were talking to. They liked to know who the boss was. And they found that the leading rabbi at the time was a Sephardi rabbi. And there was a problem because what about the Ashkenazis? And they appointed this great Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook to be the representative of the Jewish community in Israel to the British mandate. It so happened that Rabbi Kook ticked off all the boxes. He was a great scholar. He was a charismatic figure. He was cultured. He was a poet. He was a peacemaker. And he tried to make deals wherever he could. He supported the secular Jews of Israel tremendously, which got him into bad favour with the ultra Orthodox who thought they were all heretics and dangerous. And he unfortunately died just before World War II. Everything was kept into a bands until after the war The British authorities followed by Israel appointed Rabbi Isaac Hertzog, who had been the Chief Rabbi of Ireland, to be the Chief Rabbi of Israel. Except that what they accepted was, there had to be two chief rabbis. The chief rabbi of the Ashkenazi world and the chief rabbi of the Sephardi world. So where you’ve got two lots of rabbis, you have certain complications.
But nevertheless, these two men were able to get on pretty well together. And both of them were giants. Were giants in scholarship, were giants in their interaction with people, and were incredibly successful. The trouble was that once you have a system that is part of the government, as the chief rabbinate became, then you’re dealing with a government bureaucracy. And as a result of a government bureaucracy with government appointments, the bureaucracy loses contact with the ordinary people. And so whereas in the diaspora in England and in Europe, the role of the rabbi increasingly became a pastoral role, an educational role, not necessarily a role of scholarship. In Israel, although they tried to keep the role of scholarship going, it became, essentially, a political appointment. And whoever got the job was in that position because he had enough votes from his political supporters to outvote the other. And of course, once you have votes, it becomes political. And like politics, it becomes corrupt. And once it becomes corrupt, all the abuses of politics, all the influence of money, all the influence of nepotism, all the influence of government pressure comes to bear on a rabbinate, so that today it is probably fair to say that despite some of the great minds and great men who were indeed chief rabbis of Israel in previous times. We think of Rabbi Isaac Hertzog. We can think of Rabbi Goren. Might even think of Rabbi Unterman. In the Sephardi world, you can think of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. The fact is, that those who have come in recent years have even been because of their relations to a previous one and nepotism, or because of a political appointment. And the result is that some of them been actually corrupt in the sense that some of them being convicted and actually gone into prison.
So the whole role of the Chief Rabbinate in Israel is one that has fallen into disrepute. And this is, if you like, a problem not only of the chief rabbinate as an institution, but also it’s a problem because the idea of the rabbi being a pastoral leader is now a rabbi who is simply appointed to his position. It’s a good living, appointed by the government. And he stays there and very little can be done to get rid of him, or to get somebody else to do a better job. And naturally, like all conservative institutions, no bureaucracy wants to change, or modify, or open up, or be actually democratic, so it isn’t. It’s made worse by the fact that in Israel itself, the chief rabbinate has control over matters of personal status, and can say who is a Jew and who is not. Who can get married and who cannot. And it has these administrative roles. And very often if you want to get married, you have to go to a bureaucratic rabbi to marry you, somebody who you might have no relationship with, nor particularly like, and he’s there doing it the way he wants to do it. The only way around this, in theory would be to separate religion and state. Now, before I actually get to that position, I just want to refer to two interesting historical events that indicate something about what I’m talking about. After Rabbi Hertzog died, and they were looking for a man to replace him, almost everybody wanted the replacement to be Rabbi J.B. Soloveitchik, who came from Eastern Europe, moved to the United States of America, came from one of the biggest, most academic families in Jewish life. The Brisk family, the Soloveitchiks. Was open-minded, taught at Yeshiva University. Had a degree in philosophy from Berlin. And intellectually, and Jewishly, was one of the greatest minds of that generation. Apart from being a modest, humble, wonderful human being, he had all the characteristics you should possibly want.
His background, his family, his knowledge, and adored by his students. He was canvassed. And he was canvassed, and they begged him to come and take the position. And he was also one of the few Orthodox rabbis who was openly pro-Zionist. Maybe he wouldn’t have called himself a Zionist as such, but he regarded the establishment of the state of Israel as a miraculous event, and something all religious people ought to support. So he was pressurised a great deal to come into this position. And he had to fight off like mad. And he was asked to submit his candidacy. And he said, “There is only one way I would consider the candidacy, and that is if the chief rabbinate were to be completely reorganised so that the chief rabbi would only deal with spiritual, and not administrative matters, and not with institutional affairs, and not with ceremonies, and not with politics.” So you can see this man realised the danger of rabbinate and politics coming together. And interestingly, he was supported by, at the time, the great academic, Yushaya Livadance, who was a very important academic in Israel, and an Orthodox Jew, who himself in writing to Rabbi Hertzog said, “I view the institution of the Chief Rabbinate in Israel, religious leadership which is established not by religious people, by a government that is not religious for reasons of political gain. And its religious leadership functioning with the authority of government entwined in its bureaucracy as a prostitution of religion, a destruction of Torah and a desecration of God.” That’s pretty strong words. Very, very strong words. Meanwhile, back at the English branch, something else was happening, and it’s parallel with this in a different way. In London, the Jewish Theological College in, for the last previous a hundred years was called a Jews’ College. It combined academic study of Judaism with traditional Orthodox study of Judaism to ordain rabbis in Anglo jury.
Under Brodie, Brodie had relaxed the dog collar Anglican conversion, but there were still many people within Anglo jury rabbinate under that period, who were moderately Orthodox, but certainly not theologically Orthodox. That’s to say they’ve been trained in analysis of text in history. They had a broader view than just the Yeshiva training. that most Orthodox rabbis elsewhere were getting. And in this place in Jews’ College, one of the most popular lecturers was a man called Rabbi Louis Jacobs. And Rabbi Louis Jacobs came from an Orthodox family. He had studied in Gateshead Yeshiva in the advanced kolel of Gateshead Yeshiva. He was incredibly knowledgeable. A very modest, lovely human being. But he wrote a book called “We Have Reason to Believe,” in which he argued, you do not have to take everything exactly at face value. So for example, when we talk about an issue of did God dictate all the Torah to Moses on Mount Sinai, you need to ask what do you mean by dictate? And what was dictated on Mount Sinai and how was it dictated? So, despite having absolute faith in the divinity of the Torah, you can still examine things from a historical perspective. At first, everybody in the United Synagogue was happy with that book. They thought that was perfectly fair. But the Beth Din that had been founded by Hertz and then had been maintained by Brodie was made up of fundamentalists who could not accept any kind of questioning. And they set about removing Rabbi Jacobs, both from Jews’ College and from his position as a rabbi in an Orthodox pulpit. And in a sense, casting him into exile. Rabbi Jacobs had his supporters. He had his supporters within the United Synagogue. But the United Synagogue was built in such a way as is in the Church of England. Not like in America and elsewhere, where each synagogue is independent and builds its own building. But there, all the synagogues belong to the United Synagogue. And all the ministers were appointed by the United Synagogue.
And if any minister, or any synagogue, stepped out of line, they’d be thrown out, lose their building, lose their job. The result was that almost all the moderate rabbis of the United Synagogue were afraid to stand up and express their opinion. The one man who did, Louis Jacobs, was thrown out, and his friends supported him and established another independent synagogue in England. The treatment of Louis Jacobs has remained a blot, and did remain a blot on the chief rabbinate throughout the rest of his life. And it did so, because although chief rabbis may have had some sympathy with Rabbi Jacobs, the increasing power of the right wing, and the influence of the Haredi world, meant they were cowards. They were unable to stand up and fight the good fight. They were rabbis whose constituency was not either reform or ultra Orthodox. Their constituency was the constituency of the middle. But with a possible exception of Rabbi Jakobovits, who was a man of stature and principle, they all capitulated, and not only did they capitulate but they felt it their obligation to humiliate, and to criticise, and to denigrate Rabbi Louis Jacobs. If ever there was a failure of religious leadership, this was it. But these were not really religious leaders. They might have had very, very good other qualities. Brilliant lecturers, brilliant preachers, brilliant teachers, brilliant scholars. Brilliant all kinds of different areas. But they were not, and did not, and could not give actual moral leadership. The only occasion I can think of where it happened was when Rabbi Jakobovits actually almost found himself thrown out of his position because he dared to criticise Israel for some of its policies and some of its actions. Now, the role, therefore, of the chief rabbinate, which has certain functions without doubt. The diplomatic function, the function of representation, the function of ceremonial duties, is one which has a position, has a role.
But when you try to bring too many aspects into it, when you try to make that same person of multi talents, the person who is the religious authority. If that person is not strong enough to stand up to anybody else, then that person simply does not have moral leadership. And so, when you have those rabbis who are officially called chief rabbis, and you might think are chief rabbis of the whole of the community, that’s largely because other parts of the community don’t recognise a chief rabbi. And all that’s happened in England is they have agreed not to appoint a counter chief rabbi. Then you have a situation in which dynamism does not exist. And if you contrast that with the United States of America, where there is no chief rabbi. Where each synagogue has to rise and fall on the basis of its own leadership, of its own efforts. And where people theoretically can exercise independent judgement without fearing that some fundamentalist group is going to put you in line, you can thrive. And the result is that in America, Orthodoxy have thrived. And therefore in America, you’d ask, who is the Chief Rabbi of America? And of course, if you are a Satmar Hasid, it’s the Satmar rabbi. If you are Lubavitch, it would be the Lubavitch rabbi. If you’re a Conservative, it would be a Conservative rabbi. If it will be reform, it’d be reform rabbi. And that’s why there hasn’t been one. And that’s precisely why it’s rather like the old non-conformist Christian pioneers who travelled across the far west. Who were not supported by the Episcopalian Centralised Church who funded the church and funded their salaries, but had to make their own money by themselves to survive. And therefore, if they didn’t attract an audience, they would starve. These were the sort of people that built up religion, the Evangelical religion in the Midwest.
And it’s also why Chabad-Lubavitch have done so well, because they have this franchise system where they have to go out and do their best. And at this moment, they do not have a chief rabbi. But they regard the authority, the religious authority, as being invested in the writings and the ideas of the late Chief Rabbi, and that’s their chief rabbi. And therefore, I do not see what possibly we gain by having a chief rabbi, other than as a diplomatic representative. Other than having, as we did in the past, whether it was Reish Galuta, the administrative head of the exile, or whether it was Nasi, the President, so to speak. These people functioned on a diplomatic level, but it was the scholars who decided, and the mystics who decided, what religious leadership was. And to a large extent, that’s what we are now, because we all choose who our rabbi is going to be. We’re going to choose which rabbi we go to. Is he going to be a happy clappy? Is it going to be somebody who produces blessings for you? Is it somebody who you leave little marks in a little bits of paper in the wall for? Is it somebody who can perform magic? Who can tell you what to invest in? Who can tell you which hospital to go to? There are all these people zooming around, all these wonder leaders.
And they have their followers in their thousands and their thousands are growing all the time. You know, when you think of Anglo jury and the chief rabbi being a chief rabbi of, let’s say, 250,000. Not even that, because that wasn’t the Orthodox. The Orthodox amount to about 60,000, who would recognise him as their leader. And then you think of Satmar Hasidism, whose leaders and leaders are of hundreds of thousands. And when, for example, you look at whether it’s the New York Times, or any other journal in this country who says, “Who are the hundred most influential rabbis in this country?” How do you judge an influential rabbi? By the number of people in his pulpit? Well, if you do, none of the hundred come anywhere near those that command hundreds of thousands around the world. And so therefore, I don’t see what we would lose by scrapping the institution of chief rabbi. And I don’t see what we would lose scrapping the institution of state and religion. And so on that highly controversial level, I now throw it open to discussion and debate.
Q&A and Comments:
And I turn to the first question. Rita’s paying me a compliment, thank you very much.
Q: The Hebrew grammar book, says Philip. Was the Adler grammar textbook which was written by Hermann Adler?
A: Yes, these men were people who had scholarships and contributed. There was a Singer’s Prayer Book, the Chumash done by J. Hertz. Jacob Hertz was the first Chumash with an English commentary, gave reference to non-Jewish scholarship. Remarkable achievement. That was something which was the most popular prayer book in the Commonwealth, in the Empire, Australia, South Africa, England in my youth. Since then, it has been banished because the ArtScroll has taken over with its fundamentalist point of view.
Q: Mr. Seften, can you please clarify relation between Canadian jury and the chief rabbi in the Commonwealth? It seems Canadian community has no connection with the chief rabbi, but connection with American structural organisations?
A: Good question. First of all, there was never an overall Chief Rabbi of Canada. Canada always, as a member of the Commonwealth, or the Empire and the Commonwealth, accepted the official authority of the Chief Rabbi in England. But there was initially the breakaway of the Montreal Jewish community, who insisted on having a chief rabbi of their own. And by large, Anglo jury left Canada alone to its own devices. And of course, because of Canada’s proximity to United States of America, it’s much closer to America than it ever was probably to England. Leaving aside the whole question of the French and their alliance to a different linguistic and religious leadership as well. And not to mention the growing Sephardi community, which as in New York, has its own independent synagogue and set up.
Q: Harry asks, isn’t this situation in the Talmud?
A: Well then, nobody was called a chief rabbi in the Talmud, Harry. They were given important positions. But these positions of those who went to speak to the Roman authorities and others were called the Nasi. They were important leaders, but they weren’t what we call chief rabbis. They did attend the academy. Some of them were quite heads of the academy. But they didn’t have this position that you are automatically the voice of religious authority. The voice of religious authority was voted on. On issues, on issues, not by permanent appointments or by permanent statements.
David Friend, you haven’t mentioned the Masorti Movements started by sponsor Rabbi Louis Jacobs, please discuss. Well, I think I did discuss, but nevertheless, let me say this. Rabbi Louis Jacobs was never in favour of the establishment of the conservative movement, even for most of his life, the Masorti movement in England. He was very much part of the Anglo Jewish aristocratic tradition. And the services that he had were not services that very Orthodox people found comfortable, mixed choir. He also wore certain canonicals. He liked the traditions of the United Synagogue and wanted to maintain it. And that’s why although the people who supported him in his fight with the chief rabbinate did want to establish a conservative movement, they couldn’t for two reasons. Number one, because none of the Orthodox rabbis even if they agreed with him, would give up their jobs to join him. And on the other hand, because he himself didn’t want to be identified with the conservative movement. It’s very interesting that for all the people who rejected him in England, the Lubavitch rabbi in New York was very close to him. So much so that when he had a court case in the United States of America, and he needed witnesses who understood what Hasidism was, he called on Louis Jacobs to come over and give evidence in the United States of America on his behalf.
So it was just the lunacy of Anglo jury and its chief rabbis who put him in this state of boycott because, as again, they couldn’t stand up to the right wing. It was Louis Jacob’s son, a lovely man, a man. I mean, I loved Louis Jacobs and I adored him and respected him. His son set up, and helped set up, what became known as the Masorti Movement. It didn’t call itself a conservative movement. It’s a Masorti Movement, which is pretty close to the conservative movement. But as in Anglo jury, everything is a bit more traditional, so that even the reform in England is much more traditional than many of the reform communities in the United States of America. But neither reform, nor conservative, nor Masorti, nor reform, have been able to take over from the United Synagogue, even though the United Synagogue has shrunk dramatically from 500,000 about 50, 60 years ago to about, probably only, much less than 100 today. However, the Haredi world, as here, as everywhere else, is booming and is on the way to overtaking it. I must say, I think the present Chief Rabbi, Rabbi Mirvis, is doing a very good diplomatic job. And he’s trying his best to be the leader to his constituency, which is the middle ground constituency. That’s a constituency that his role has to play towards.
Q: James asked, is the function of chief rabbi different in Israel and the continent?
A: Yes, it is, because in Israel, it is an official governmentally appointed institution bureaucracy, which has control over many departments of life in Israel, from kashrut to Shabbat, to marriages, to divorce, to burials. Everything in Israel goes through the chief rabbinate. It is a state sanctioned bureaucracy. Whereas on the continent, if you don’t want to belong to a synagogue, or in Europe, you don’t have to. And you don’t have to accept anybody’s authority. And so it’s a very different kind of institution.
Q: Marilyn, who runs kashrut authority in the USA?
A: Nobody does. This is the advantage in one way of England where kashrut is centralised under the Beth Din, and you know for definite who they are, and they maintain a job, as is conversion. The disadvantage is that they set standards that many people think are excessive, and it makes it very difficult for the ordinary person to abide by. In the United States, there is no central control, even government attempts to regulate. So every individual kashrut authority, and there’s something like 30 of them, each one has their own little label, and each one you’ve got to go into and find out how reliable on they are. Some of them are not all reliable, some of them are. It’s quite chaotic. But in that sense, it’s individualistic. It’s laissez-faire. It’s less controlled. So you have a choice, what would you rather? Control even if you don’t like the controllers? Or chaos, if you don’t have controllers? And to be honest, I think I prefer chaos. I prefer freedom and choice.
Q: Eva Davis, what leadership, if any, represents US jury? Many thanks for an informative talk.
A: There is no leadership that represents American jury. On the religious side, each Jewish community is independent. If a group of rabbis come together, it’s just that group of rabbis coming together, and no other group of rabbis coming together. If lay leaders come together and appoint a council of presidents or whatever it is, that’s them appointing, self appointing an institution. In the same way, whether it’s the, any of the social organisations that we might talk about. Let’s talk about the Wiesenthal Centre. Or let’s talk about, what’s it called? I’m having these senior moments all the time and I don’t remember what it’s called. The Anti-Discrimination League, or whatever it is. So in other words, there is no leadership. And I regard that as a strength. It might be confusing for the President of the United States who has one guy on the left in one ear as a Jew, the other guy on the other in the right ear speaking Jew, and he doesn’t know which one to choose. Up to now they’ve gone by numbers, but that’s not a very effective system. And this is the problem. But in the United States, everything goes by what goes on in Washington. And Washington is a system based on vested interests, all of them campaigning. And whoever campaigns best with the most money and the loudest voice gets what he wants. Is it good? Is it bad? Well, it’s your choice. But as I say, I prefer chaos.
Q: Who is the authority with regards to conversion? The Chief Rabbi of Israel?
A: Absolutely, it’s the Chief Rabbi of Israel, the Chief Rabbinate who decide the standards of conversion, who can get converted, how can get converted. And they fight against any other group of rabbis. And there are a lot of them who are fighting against the Chief Rabbinate in Israel. Who are fighting for a more European American type of rabbinic leadership, who want to be more inclusive. But the chief rabbi has its lock hold on it, and I think that’s very dangerous. Ruth, when I was a child in Liverpool of 40s, early 50s, I had Chief Rabbi of Liverpool. We honoured Chief Rabbi Unterman attending. Yes, Rabbi Unterman went from being the Rabbi of Liverpool, not the chief rabbi, to being the Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv, and then the Chief Rabbi of Israel. If he called himself at that stage a chief rabbi, then he was taking on a title he didn’t really have. It’s not the Chief Rabbi is a problem, it’s his Beth Din.
Q: Without the Central Beth Din, how could you go about recognising conversion mashgiach kashrut in the UK?“
A: Well, in the UK, the Beth Din officially is subject to the chief rabbi. Under Hertz, the Beth Din would not move without the approval of the chief rabbi. And the chief rabbi conducted every meeting of the Beth Din. By the time it got to Brodie, and the chief rabbi was a weak man, he allowed Beth Din to take a more dynamic control. He could’ve reign them in, but he wasn’t strong enough to. The only guy who might have is after he died. And this is another interesting story. After Brodie died, the man that almost everybody wanted to be the Chief Rabbi of England at that stage was the son of the Chief Rabbi of Israel, Isaac Herzog. His name was Yaakov Herzog. Yaakov Herzog was the Director of the Prime Minister’s office in Israel. He was a PhD, he was a diplomat, he was a scholar, he was a rabbinic scholar. He had every single quality you could look for. He was charming, he was intellectually bright. He encountered when he was ambassador to Canada, he debated in public with Toynbee, the anti-Jewish historian and mashed him into pieces. He was magnificent. And thanks to the first, and this is the first head of the United Synagogue, who was reasonably traditional, Isaac Wolfson, in the 50s. Before that, no head of the United Synagogue could be in traditional, they were all English, the royal families in England, the Anglo families.
He persuaded Yaakov Herzog to take the job. And Yaakov Herzog, being a nice man, initially said, "Okay.” But then, a lot of people. I like to say, me included, said to him, “Don’t be crazy. This is an impossible job. It’s a political job. You’re going to be hounded from left to right.” And I read to him what Rabbi Soloveitchik had written about the job of the chief rabbi. Nevertheless, initially he accepted it. But finally, he realised this was not the job for him. No sane person would take it on unless they had other ambitions, or were prepared to muzzle themselves. And the result was that he resigned. The official excuse he gave was that he was sick. He was ill, had a serious illness, and that was why he resigned. But he went back to working in the Prime Minister’s Office and he was there for another eight or nine years. And then sadly, he did die prematurely, very prematurely. So the straight answer is the chief rabbi could stand up if he wanted to take it on. But if chief rabbis are worried about their job, and about their status, and are ambitious, then they won’t. They won’t do it. And that’s again, the weakness. So, ever talented a man may be, if he hasn’t got the character to stand up, or the confidence to stand up, will fail as a chief rabbi. He might be the most successful person as something else.
I got married, says Rosalind. In an independent provincial Orthodox shul. When I sought divorce, we had to go to the Beth Din in London. This didn’t make any sense to me and the experience was appalling.“ Yes, because the Beth Din, although officially. Although officially, the chief rabbinate is only the chief rabbi of the United States in London, the other synagogues around the country began over time to capitulate. My first job as a rabbi was the rabbi of the biggest community in Glasgow in Scotland. It was independent of the chief rabbi. And that’s precisely why I took the job, because I didn’t want the chief rabbi, at the time, breathing down my neck. On the other hand, Beth Din. Glasgow had a Beth Din of its own. And this Beth Din of its own was headed by a very well-known rabbi, Dr. Gottlieb, whose daughter, Avivah, is one of the major Jewish scholars of the world today, and lives in Israel. And they had an independent Beth Din. So too did Manchester. Other centres did. But those who for whatever reason didn’t, all of them deferred to London. And that’s why they had to go in Liverpool to London, ‘cause Liverpool at that stage did not have a Beth Din in the way Manchester and Glasgow did. It wasn’t clear that Hermann Adler was the author of the Hebrew Grammar Textbook.
I can’t answer that. I’m afraid I don’t have it in front of me, so I can’t tell you. Maybe he just gave it as imprimatur. Rabbi Louis Jacobs was now represented his synagogue at the establishment, what was called the Masorti Assembly of Synagogues.
Thank you, Ed, thanks for putting that right. I’m glad you’ve corrected me.
Q: Michael, would you not consider it essential for a Jewish voice to be presented to the popular?
A: Yes, but I think the people who presented have a job as presenting it, and they’re often not the best people to be religious leaders. They are diplomatic leaders. A diplomacy is a totally different role. Actually, people say a diplomat is somebody who’s sent abroad by his government to lie for his country. So yes, I think there need to be representation, but that’s a diplomatic role. And I don’t think, usually, rabbis are very good at it.
Q: How do you rate Rabbi Jonathan Sacks as chief rabbi, as opposed to being a brilliant individual?
A: Well, you know, if there’s a good example, there’s no question that Rabbi Sacks was a brilliant individual and one of the most successful teachers and publicizers of Judaism to the Jewish and the non-Jewish world. But alas, he did not stand up to his right wing masters. He censored his own book at their behest. He did not give the sort of respect that I would’ve expected him to give to Rabbi Louis Jacobs or to the reform rabbis of his era. And so, however great he was, this wasn’t the job for him. Now, whether that was a mistake or not is neither here nor there. But that’s another reason why I say you can’t have somebody who’s good at everything. A jack of all trades. It doesn’t really work. The same way you could take Herzl. Herzl was a wonderful spokesman. He wasn’t a religious man in any way. He wasn’t born a Zionist, but look what a spokesman he was. Look what he managed to achieved. Or even if you would take somebody like Chaim Weizmann. You might even go for Belkin as a great orator. But would he have been the great, shall we say, compromiser? Very difficult in all these cases.
Eleanor, thank you so much for your defence of Rabbi Jacob. He’s a wonderful, inspiring rabbi. As first woman chairman of the synagogue, the US should be ashamed of their treatment of this fantastic scholar. Yes, I think that’s right. The Chief Rabbi of the United Synagogue played a great role in charge. Yes, I mean the present, I think the present Chief Rabbi, in my opinion, is not as charismatic or dynamic a character as his as his predecessor. But I think in terms of being a representative, saying the right thing, he’s the right guy. But even he has to be very careful of what he says for fear of offending the right.
Q: Can you comment on the Federation’s position in the United case and how it was formed?
A: That’s interesting, Mickey Meyer, because my father was the Principal Rabbi of the Federation at the time of Chief Rabbi Hertz. The Federation was set up by Lord Swaythling, a wealthy Jew at the end of the 19th century, to meet the needs of the Jews coming from Eastern Europe. Unlike the United Synagogue, were too English for them and they didn’t like, and they didn’t want anyway, initially, to hear sermons in English, they wanted in Yiddish. And it was mainly a conglomeration of rabbis in the East end of London, small little synagogues dominated by lay leaders who actually, in the end, turned out in the 50s and the 60s to be very, very corrupt. Now, in 1944, my father was the chief rabbi, so to speak, the common rabbi of Glasgow. He was a young man, he was in his late 20s. And Rabbi Hertz contacted him and said, "Look, I’m not strong, I’m not well. I don’t know how long I have to be. I want somebody to take the fight on for Judaism, and to fight for Zionism in London. So would you please come down to London? The trouble is the only job I can offer you. You can’t get a job in the United Synagogue, 'cause the United Synagogue will only appoint somebody who went to Jews’ College, and you went to a Yeshiva in Eastern Europe. All I can offer you is the Federation of Synagogues. And I can’t call you the Chief Rabbi of the Federation of Synagogues, because we have an agreement with the United Synagogue that although we can appoint somebody to be the top guy, we have to call him something different to Chief Rabbi.” So it’s Rav Rashi in Hebrew, which means head rabbi, but we can’t call you the chief rabbi. My father came down, brought us all to London, and he had this massive fight. And actually, he was so charismatic, and he was so popular, that he was a candidate to succeed Hertz.
The trouble was he had a mind of his own. Apart from being far too young, he was 32 at the time. And the United Synagogue decided we’ve had enough fighting with Chief Rabbis, let’s have somebody nice and quiet who won’t cause any trouble, and we’ll appoint Rabbi Brodie. So my father left the Federation of Synagogues. And he left it, and there were a series of rabbis that came after. But the hands of the United Synagogue was in the hands of a particular family that was a particularly corrupt family. I won’t mention any names. And as a result, it didn’t grow into a rival in a serious way, but did have a significant position. And it still has a significant position as an independent synagogue, Orthodox synagogue, in London to this day, to the right of, to the right of the United Synagogue. There are a whole series of it, whether it’s the Adas, which is founded by the Schonfelds, or whether it’s the Federation, or whether it’s all these different Hasidic movements. And indeed by and large, Habad tend to ally with these ones rather than with the United Synagogue ones. They all exist. And, if I may say, it is in much better financial hands nowadays because a president of the Federation of Synagogues happens to be a first cousin of mine. So, Anti-Defamation is what I think.
Yes, that’s right, the Anti-Defamation, thank you. I get these blocks sometimes. It happens so much at my age, and I don’t remember the ones I want to say. Forgive my use, a Beth Din simply means a court, it’s a religious court that deals with the technicalities of religious law. So for example, all very religious people like to sort out their financial problems with a Beth Din, with a court of law. All marriages and divorces go through a court of law. So Beth Din literally means a court of law. If you don’t like it, you’ll do a spoonerism and call it a death bin. But otherwise, every Jewish community has a Beth Din. There’s a Beth Din in New York, a Beth Din in every country, where as a Jewish community, you have a Beth Din. Sometimes they’re full-time, sometimes they’re part-time. Sometimes they’re paid as they are in in America, and on the same level as other judges.
Q: Do you think Rabbi Sacks who had think of what happened, is afraid of fighting with Beth Din?
A: Yes, I think Rabbi Sacks did not want to offend the Beth Din and he did not want to affect be in poor. He thought it would damage his status and position if he offended the right wing fundamentalist. So he was careful not to offend them, and not to say anything, or to express a view that might offend them. And it was only after he left the chief rabbinate, and was independent, he could say things that he couldn’t say before.
Q: Was Sacks not contentious and well-respected Chief Rabbi Orthodox, do you agree?
A: No, unfortunately Jonathan Sacks was not recognised by the ultra Orthodox. And they were, if you like, did not like the fact that somebody else was considered top rabbi in Britain. They felt offended by it. But, you know, people are going to be offended by somebody no matter who he is. You know, as Hillel said in the Talmud many years ago, “A name made is a name destroyed.” That if you rise, there are always people who are going to try and pull you down. Edward, in Italy, each main city had a chief rabbi with Rome having the Chief Rabbi.“ That’s right, Chief Rabbi of Toaff So, that’s correct. What’s the Toaff, died a while back. I can’t remember the name of the present. Well, I remember it begins with an S, but I can’t remember. If anyone remembers the present Chief Rabbi, I can’t remember it, but nice guy.
Q: Webinar claimed that the Beth Din threatened to fire Jonathan Sacks twice if the rabbi didn’t tow the line, is this a fact?
A: I believe so. I mean, they couldn’t. They hadn’t the power to. He wasn’t employed by them. He was employed by the United Synagogue. The United Synagogue would never have fired him, but they threatened him. You know, they made a noise. And poor guy, he capitulated. Who knows what one does when one’s faced by that? That’s one of the reasons why I would never have put myself in that position, apart from the fact that I don’t like to control my mouth. As usual, fascinating.
Q: Can you expand what you refer to corruption?
A: Well, corruption, unfortunately, is when a court is influenced by wealthy people. That’s one example of corruption. Another example of corruption is where you won’t convert somebody if they come from a poor family, but you will convert them if they come from a wealthy family, it’ll give you a lot of money. And there’s so much that around, I’m embarrassed to go any further into it.
Q: What’s the significant two competing Hasidic rabbis of Kiev?
A: Well, because Kiev has, on the one hand, a lot of Habad Lubavitch rabbis who were involved in Russia for many, many years. And just as in Moscow, you had on the one hand, Rabbi Goldschmidt, who was a non-Habad chief rabbi. And you had Rabbi Lazar who was a Habad chief rabbi. And they fought with each other and competed. So you have in Kiev, you have different groups because each religious group thinks he’s the guy. Why shouldn’t I be in charge? There’s so many different Hasidic groups. Bratslav, Breslov, is one of the biggest Hasidic groups that comes to Ukraine. They don’t want to be part of a chief rabbi. They want to be independent. Rabbi Sacks was not all supportive of the gay community. No, he wasn’t and unfortunately, again, I’m sure he might well have been if you would’ve spoken to him privately. But because the guy was frightened of what other people would say, that’s the problem.
So QED, I rest my case. I wish you all the best until the next time. Thank you.