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Jonathan Sacks
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Rabbi Sir Jonathan Henry Sacks (born 8 March1948, London) is the Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom. His official title is Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth. His Hebrew name is Yaakov Zvi.
As the spiritual head of the United Synagogue, the largest synagogue body in the UK, he is the Chief Rabbi of the mainstream British orthodox synagogues, but not the religious authority for the Federation of Synagogues or the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations or the progressive movements, Masorti, Reform and Liberal Judaism.
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Encyclopedia
Rabbi Sir Jonathan Henry Sacks (born 8 March1948, London) is the Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom. His official title is Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth. His Hebrew name is Yaakov Zvi.
As the spiritual head of the United Synagogue, the largest synagogue body in the UK, he is the Chief Rabbi of the mainstream British orthodox synagogues, but not the religious authority for the Federation of Synagogues or the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations or the progressive movements, Masorti, Reform and Liberal Judaism. However, he is recognised by the majority of UK Jews of all denominations as the Chief Rabbi, hence his formal title and, in addition, there is widespread recognition for the office holder's role as a spokesman and ambassador for the Jewish community. Sacks is also still recognised as the Chief Rabbi of the Hong Kong Jewish community, a role he was asked to retain after Hong Kong returned from British to Chinese rule.
Education
Sacks was educated at St Mary's Primary School and Christ's College Finchley, Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge (MA), New College, Oxford, King's College London (PhD), Jews' College London and Etz Chaim Yeshiva (London).
Sacks studied philosophy for his PhD. He has also been awarded honorary doctorates from the universities of: Cambridge; Glasgow; Haifa; Middlesex; Yeshiva University; Liverpool and St. Andrews, and is an honorary fellow of Gonville and Caius and King's College London.
Career
Sacks heads the Chief Rabbi's Cabinet consisting of fourteen other rabbis who advise him on a number of areas, such as Jewish education, Israel, Jewish-Christian relations, matters relating to the Beth Din (Jewish court), and several other areas of concern to the Jewish community. The Chief Rabbi's Cabinet meets on a quarterly basis and its members are entitled to represent the Chief Rabbi at public events.
Sacks had been Principal of Jews' College, London, the world's oldest rabbinical seminary, as well as rabbi of the Golders Green (1978–82) and Marble Arch (1983–90) Synagogues in London. He gained rabbinic ordination from Jews' College as well as from London's Etz Chaim Yeshiva (London).
Praise and Recognition
More recently Sacks has been praised for building positive relationships with the Progressive community and notably is the first Chief Rabbi to sit with a Reform Rabbi as a joint President of the Council of Christians and Jews in the UK.
In September 2001, the Archbishop of Canterbury conferred on him a doctorate of divinity in recognition of his first ten years in the Chief Rabbinate of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth.
In 2004, his book "The Dignity of Difference" was awarded the Grawemeyer Award for Religion.
Sacks was knighted in the Queen's Birthday Honours List in 2005 'for services to the Community and to Inter-faith Relations'.
Also in 2005, Sacks visited the Jewish student organisation at the University of Cambridge, appearing as a guest of Samuel Green on the student radio show Kol Cambridge and taking call-ins.
He was made an Honorary Freeman of the London Borough of Barnet in September 2006.
Controversies
Orthodox Opposition
A group of rabbis, most notably Rabbi Bezalel Rakow, accused Sacks of heresy against the tradition of Orthodox Judaism in his book "The Dignity of Difference," where he wrote words that implied that Judaism is not the sole true religion. This forced him to amend the book for its next edition, though he refused to recall books already in the stores.
Rabbi Gryn and Rabbi Jacobs
Sacks provoked considerable controversy in the Anglo-Jewish community when he refused to attend the funeral service of the late Reform Rabbi Hugo Gryn and a private letter he had written in Hebrew, which some people suggested in translation claimed that Reform Jews are "dividers of the faith", was leaked and published. He rejected demands that he should resign for these comments, claiming to have been using rabbinical terminology. He did attend a memorial meeting for Gryn. A similar stance was taken by Sacks and his Beth Din when they prevented the retired rabbi Louis Jacobs, who had helped establish the British branch of the Masorti movement, from being called up for the Reading of the Torah on the Saturday before his granddaughter's wedding. The orthodox American Rabbi Shmuley Boteach saw these incidents as symptomatic of a form of ungenerous sectarian infighting that exists in Anglo-Jewry but not in its American equivalent.
Current positions
- Rabbi and Spiritual Leader, Western Marble Arch Synagogue, London (since May 1, 2004).
- Jakobovits Professor in modern Jewish thought, Jews' College London, 1982.
- Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom and Commonwealth (since September 1, 1991).
- Visiting professor of theology at King's College London.
- Honorary fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, 1993.
- Presentation (Honorary) fellow, King's College London, 1993.
Previous positions held
Sacks is also a frequent guest on both television and radio, and regularly contributes to the national press. He delivered the 1990 BBC Reith Lectures on The Persistence of Faith.
Works by Jonathan Sacks
- Traditional alternatives: Orthodoxy and the future of the Jewish people (1989)
- Tradition in an Untraditional Age (1990)
- Persistence of Faith (1991)
- Arguments for the Sake of Heaven (1991)
- Crisis and Covenant (1992)
- One People? (1993)
- Will We Have Jewish Grandchildren? (1994)
- Community of Faith (1995)
- Torah Studies: Discourses by Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson (1996)
- The Politics of Hope (1997 revised 2nd edition 2000)
- Morals and Markets (1999)
- Celebrating Life (2000)
- Radical Then, Radical Now (published in America as A Letter in the Scroll) (2001)
- Dignity of Difference (2002) (Grawemeyer Award winner)
- The Chief Rabbi's Haggadah (2003)
- To Heal a Fractured World - The Ethics of Responsibility (2005)
- The Home We Build Together - Recreating Society (2007)
- The Koren Sacks Siddur (2009)
External links
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