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The British Chief Rabbinate: A Model for Leadership or Decline?

A striking feature of the debates associated with appointing a new chief rabbi in Britain at the end of the term of Emeritus Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks was a clear sense of the contribution the role makes to Jewish life both in Britain and more broadly. This was widely noted, also, in the specific praise and reflection on the achievements of the outgoing chief rabbi which accompanied his retirement. On both a national and international plane, the British chief rabbinate is perceived to have acquired a wide-ranging voice and influence. The reach of the office is seen to extend both to Jewish communities outside Britain and in a British context to the wider society beyond the Jewish community. The possibility of abolishing the post and replacing it with some sort of body that could serve in its place was given only the most cursory consideration. This was despite the fact that it is a role that has its origins in nineteenth-century Victorian Britain, when it was designed under Anglican influences to serve a very different community with markedly different needs. The instinct to retain the post in its current form also ignores the fact that the chief rabbinate itself has rather limited real powers, a product of its evolutionary development rather than being a particularly clearly thought out office from the outset. Moreover, the reality of the British chief rabbinate is that notwithstanding the varied types of ‘‘success,’’ however we may choose to define this notion, that different chief rabbis have enjoyed in Britain, it has also consistently been a cause of division and disagreement—as much a source of controversy as it has been a source for leadership and representation. At the time of Jonathan, now Lord, Sacks’ appointment to the British chief rabbinate genuine hope was invested in him and his potential to exert an influence. This showed considerable optimism considering the controversies and growing religious polarization that had characterized British Jewry during the chief rabbinates of his two predecessors, Immanuel Jakobovits and Israel Brodie. Somehow there appeared in some quarters to be a genuine belief that the new incumbent possibly could be an individual gifted with the ability to invigorate the post. Someone who could bring real leadership to the