Jonathan Sacks
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Jonathan Sacks
Chief Rabbi Professor Sir Jonathan (Henry) Sacks (born 1948, London) is the Orthodox chief rabbi of the United Kingdom's Orthodox Jewish community. His official title is: Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth.
Strictly speaking, he is the Chief Rabbi of the United Synagogue and those other synagogues that accept his authority and contribute to the upkeep of his office. This includes the majority of orthodox synagogues, but not the Federation of Synagogues or the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations. He is also recognised by the majority of orthodox synagogues throughout the Commonwealth, hence his formal title.
Rabbis Sacks heads the Chief Rabbi's Cabinet [1] consisting of over twenty 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 "religious court"), and several other areas of concern to the Jewish community.
Rabbi 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 Yeshivat Etz Chaim (a yeshiva).
Rabbi Sacks studied philosophy and obtained the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. 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.
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.
Rabbi Sacks provoked considerable controversy in the Anglo-Jewish community when he refused to attend the memorial service of the late Reform Rabbi Hugo Gryn and a private letter he had written in Hebrew, saying 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 was knighted in 2005.
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Education
Rabbi Sacks was educated at Christ's College Finchley, Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge (MA), New College, Oxford, University of London (PhD), Jews' College London and Yeshivat Etz Hayyim London.
Current positions
- Jakobovits Professor in modern Jewish thought, Jews' College London, 1982.
- Chief rabbi of the United Kingdom (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
- Lecturer in moral philosophy, Middlesex Polytechnic, 1971-3.
- Lecturer, Jews' College London, 1973-1982; director of its rabbinic facility, 1983-90; Principal, 1984-90.
- Visiting professor of philosophy at the University of Essex, 1989-90.
- Sherman lecturer at the University of Manchester, 1989.
- Riddell lecturer at the University of Newcastle.
- Cook lecturer at the University of Oxford, University of Edinburgh and the University of St Andrews.
- Visiting professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
The Chief Rabbi 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.
Books by Jonathan Sacks
- 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)
- The Chief Rabbi's Haggadah (2003)