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Le rapprochement du Grand Rabbinat et de l’Église catholique contre “ la théorie du genre ” : union sacrée ou stratégie politique ?
Translated Title: The rapprochement of the Chief Rabbinate and the Catholic Church against “the theory of gender”: sacred union or political strategy?
Author(s): Gross, Martine
Date: 2015
Topics: Gender, Jewish - Christian Relations, Main Topic: Other, LGBT, Politics, Chief Rabbinate
Autoritet og autoritetens grenser. Den ortodokse rabbineren som religiøs leder i Det Mosaiske Trossamfund
Author(s): Stene, Nora
Editor(s): Døving, Cora Alexa; Thorbjørnsrud, Berit
Date: 2012
Topics: Rabbis, Chief Rabbinate, Jewish Leadership, Main Topic: Other
The British Chief Rabbinate: A Model for Leadership or Decline?
Author(s): Freud-Kandel, Miri
Date: 2015
Topics: Orthodox Judaism, Chief Rabbinate, Jewish Leadership, Main Topic: Other
Abstract: Extract:

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.1 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.2 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.
“I vote, therefore I am:” Rituals of Democracy and the Turkish Chief Rabbi
Author(s): Brink-Danan, Marcy
Date: 2009
Topics: Chief Rabbinate, Democracy, Elections, Ethnography, Main Topic: Other
Abstract: This article describes how the election and investiture of a chief rabbi in 2002 created a unique space for Turkish Jews to debate the meaning of democracy. I document current Turkish Jewish discourses about democracy by combining ethnographic observations of the election season with an analysis of the production and reception of local narratives (speeches, news articles, and interviews) about the process. I then analyze the election and inauguration as a “politics of presence” in which democracy is seen not only as a practice through which to debate ideas but a discursive move to represent collective difference in the public sphere. As such, this article contributes to discussions about the performative nature of minority politics and how these alternative discursive spheres relate to the broader contexts in which they occur.
The Chief Rabbi’s View on Jews and Poland
Author(s): Schudrich, Michael
Date: 2006
Topics: Jewish Community, Chief Rabbinate, Antisemitism, Jewish - Muslim Relations, Jewish Heritage, Restitution and Reparations, Main Topic: Other
Abstract: At least twenty thousand Jews live in Poland. The two leading organizations, the Union of Jewish Communities and the Cultural and Social Association of Jews, each have about two thousand members.
The subject of Jews and Poland involves three interrelated matters. The first concerns what is currently happening to the Jews living in Poland. The second is Poland’s Jewish heritage, including its physical remnants: cemeteries, synagogues, communal and private property. The third has to do with the nature of Polish- Jewish relations.
Poland is still in a major state of flux. Since 1989, official Poland has wanted to reexamine its relations with the Jews. The main reasons for this are the teachings of Pope John Paul II, Poland’s admiration for the United States, and the rejection among the younger generation of everything their parents and grandparents stood for.
Although the main government force, the Law and Justice Party, is not anti- Semitic, the coalition now contains an anti-Semitic party, the Polish Families League, whose leader, Roman Giertych, is deputy prime minister and minister of education. This poses many dilemmas for the Jewish community, and Israel is boycotting Giertych.
The British Chief Rabbinate: A Viable Institution?
Author(s): Freud-Kandel, Miri
Date: 2011
Topics: Orthodox Judaism, Chief Rabbinate, Main Topic: Other
Abstract: Is the British Chief Rabbinate still a viable institution? Two recently published books on
Anglo-Jewry construct differing arguments about the influence and power of the office of
chief rabbi. This paper examines the positions presented in these works and considers how
changes in theology, cultural identity, and demography among Jews in Britain could lead
to a reconsideration of the nature of the chief rabbinate. It questions whether Britain’s
chief rabbis have influenced the religious direction of Anglo-Jewry or merely overseen inexorable
religious shifts that reflect the growing stringency to be found in Orthodox Judaism
beyond British shores. While some measure of theological consistency may be identified in
Orthodoxy on interpretations of the principle of Torah min hashamayim, is this a sufficient
criterion for arguing against any evidence of religious shifts? More broadly, the role of
theology and religious leaders in determining how a religious community develops is
worth considering. These can be contrasted with the influence of social, cultural, and historical
factors. Even if the chief rabbinate has been a force for good in the past, this paper
examines whether the current state of Anglo-Jewry calls for a rethink of how the post should
function as it moves forward.
Another Way, Another Time: Religious Inclusivism and the Sacks Chief Rabbinate
Author(s): Persoff, Meir
Date: 2010
Topics: Orthodox Judaism, Chief Rabbinate, Pluralism, Main Topic: Other
Abstract: British Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks - now Baron Sacks of Aldgate in the City of London - launched his tenure of office in 1991 with the aim of an inclusivist Decade of Jewish Renewal. Within a few years, fulfilling his installation prediction that 'I will have failures, but I will try again, another way, another time,' he was attracting calls, from opponents and supporters, for his resignation and the abolition of his office. Reviewing Sacks' early writings and pronouncements on the theme of inclusivism, Another Way, Another Time demonstrates how, repeatedly, the Chief Rabbi said 'irreconcilable things to different audiences' and how, in the process, he induced his kingmaker and foremost patron, Lord (Stanley) Kalms, to declare of Anglo-Jewry: 'We are in a time warp, and fast becoming an irrelevance in terms of world Jewry.' Citing support from a variety of sources, this study contends that the Chief Rabbinate has indeed reached the end of the road and explores other paths to the leadership of a pluralistic - and, ideally, inclusivist - community. 
Orthodox Judaism in Britain Since 1913: An Ideology Forsaken.
Author(s): Freud-Kandel, Miri
Date: 2006
Topics: Orthodox Judaism, Chief Rabbinate, Main Topic: Other
Abstract: In 1991, just as Jonathan Sacks was acceding to the post of Chief Rabbi, the United Synagogue, the largest synagogal institution in British Jewry, commissioned a report entitled "A Time for Change". This report identified the significant difficulties in which many of the Orthodox institutions of British Jewry found themselves: the United Synagogue itself, the Chief Rabbinate, and the Bet Din - its religious court. It suggested that the root cause of the problems was a shift away from 'minhag Anglia, a celebration of the twofold blessing of being Jewish and British'. This work examines the thought and influence of the three Chief Rabbis whose terms in office have begun and ended during the twentieth century. It follows the theological shifts that have occurred amongst the religious leadership of Orthodox Judaism in Britain and assesses the influence of factors such as immigration and the so-called 'Jacobs Affair' in effecting these changes. The Jewish community in Britain provides a model of a religious minority group's attempt to secure its survival in the midst of a host society that espouses alternative values derived either from secularism or an alternative religious system.
Through an in-depth analysis of the theology of Chief Rabbi Joseph Herman Hertz, this work identifies a paradigm that was established for Jews in Britain of a strong and confident Orthodoxy that champions interaction in the host society. The Chief Rabbinates of Israel Brodie and Immanuel Jakobovits were each influenced in different ways by the burgeoning influence of alternative models for Orthodox Judaism. This work considers how this facilitated the displacement of the community's fervour for unity with religious polarisation; and analyses how its religious leadership adopted a theology which seemed to call on Anglo-Jewry to forsake its ideology of meaningful interaction to secure its religious identity. 
Controversy and Crisis: Studies in the History of the Jews in Modern Britain.
Author(s): Alderman, Geoffrey
Date: 1999
Topics: Jewish Community, Divisions, Jewish Communal Politics, Pluralism, Jewish History, Chief Rabbinate, Main Topic: Other
Abstract: Professor Geoffrey Alderman is the acknowledged authority on the history of the Jews in modern Britain. During an academic career spanning forty years he has produced some of the most authoritative and controversial studies in this field, lighting up the dark corners of the Jewish existence in Great Britain and revealing secrets the Anglo-Jewish communities would rather have kept from public view. In Controversy and Crisis, Alderman presents sixteen of these essays, covering fields as disparate as the history of the Jewish vote in the UK, the true story of the British Chief Rabbinate, and the uneasy tenure of Sir Jonathan Sacks in that office. He also considers the role of the historian in Anglo-Jewish life, and the troubled careers of some of its leaders and scholars.