How Haredim Took Great Britain

Of the four rabbinic judges who make up the Beth Din today, only one has a college education and three daven in haredi shuls.

Op-Ed: How Chief Rabbi has sold off US autonomy   
By Stephen Games • Jewish Chronicle

Does the Chief Rabbinate have a future?

The question is usually framed in terms of whether it is fair for the head of the United Synagogue to act as if he represented the whole of Anglo-Jewry.

That is an important issue because, as Geoffrey Alderman noted in his book, Controversy and Crisis, although the United Synagogue is still the largest single denomination in Anglo-Jewry, it is now outnumbered in terms of members by seven other communal bodies.

But another question hangs over the Chief Rabbinate. Even if some new, cross-communal institution were to be formed to represent British Jews, and the Chief Rabbi shrank back into the United Synagogue, the United Synagogue still has to sort out what its leader stands for. At the moment, that is far from clear.

Three of the four United Synagogue Beth Din dayanim daven in non-United Synagogue shuls

A century-and-a-half ago, the Chief Rabbi was all powerful. Although Jews' College was set up in 1852 to train ministers, Nathan Adler jealously kept the title "rabbi" for himself, and dominated his Beth Din. Today, it is the Beth Din that dominates the Chief Rabbi and it's not a Beth Din that bears any relationship to Anglo-Judaism as we've known it.

Of the four dayanim who make up the Beth Din today, three daven in non-United Synagogue shuls. Menachem Gelley, the head of the Beth Din, leads the Beis Hamedrash Ohr Chodosh ("for young Bnei Torah baalei batim … and young mishpochos"). Yonason Abraham is rabbi of the New Hendon Beis Hamedrash. Shmuel Simons is mostly seen at Hagers shtibl. Only one - Ivan Binstock - has a United Synagogue pulpit: St John's Wood, where he has been since 1996.

The implication is that United Synagogue shuls are too compromising for the dayanim who serve them. This is not surprising, given their background. Only one - Dayan Binstock again - has a university education. Dayans Gelley and Simons both studied at Ponevezh, Israel's hardline Lithuanian yeshivah, before moving to the Gateshead Kollel; Dayan Abraham went from Gateshead Yeshivah to Lakewood in New Jersey.

They may be the best men for the job, but three of the four leading rabbis of the United Synagogue have therefore grown up in an educational atmosphere in which women don't exist, and in which the fruits of Western civilisation are scorned as secular aberrations designed to tempt the holy from Torah.

No wonder the problem of agunah has dragged on for so long (it's not a condition men suffer from). No wonder Orthodox women have been left to start support groups for SEN children (their husbands are too busy learning). No wonder, too, that the Beth Din has told converts that they should live only in Hendon or Golders Green and that female converts must wear wigs and cannot wear trousers.

The paradox for the United Synagogue is that it is the gulf the dayanim have opened up between themselves and the United Synagogue's more open Orthodoxy that qualifies them as its gate-keepers. Thanks to the Beth Din, the United Synagogue retains a place - lowly, admittedly - in the world network of Orthodox communities, in spite of the relative laxity of its members.

On the other hand, membership of that network means bowing to the authority of foreign rabbis with no reciprocal interest in Anglo-Jewry other than regarding it as a vassal. It is like being part of the Roman Empire: the Pax Judaica brings benefits but at the cost of one's own once proud autonomy.

Rank-and-file members of the United Synagogue have grumbled about this for years. That is why Jonathan Sacks was so welcome in 1991. He didn't come from a rabbinic family, wasn't born abroad, had a glittering academic CV, and gained his religious training entirely in London. He looked like one of us, and seemed all set to rebuild the United Synagogue in its own image.

He failed. Meir Persoff, in Another Way, Another Time, reminds us that Lord Kalms blamed the United Synagogue for not giving the Chief Rabbi the power of earlier Chief Rabbis - a repetition, he argues, of the bureaucratic small-mindedness that crippled Lord Jakobovits. But the Chief Rabbi, and the executive of the United Synagogue, have been equally hobbled by their submission to Orthodox intimidation. An example can be found from the charedi website Dei'ah veDibbur, which some years ago scolded Lord Sacks and the executive for wanting to engage with Liberal, Reform and Masorti groups. The author warned the United Synagogue and its Chief Rabbi to back off and defer to its disapproving dayanim, or risk being delegitimised by the Orthodox community. And they did.

It is this atmosphere of threat that has turned Lord Sacks's incumbency into one of appeasement. In the Hugo Gryn affair, the Dignity of Difference affair, and the JFS affair, to name but three, the figurehead of Anglo-Jewry could have shown that there are higher virtues than primitive religious piety, but flunked it.

We have to do better than this. We don't want to cut our ties with Orthodoxy but we can't go on pretending that Western Enlightenment didn't happen. Lord Sacks retires in 2013. His successor must be someone who dares call the charedi bluff.

Stephen Games is a writer and United Synagogue member. His latest book is 'Pevsner: The Early Life, Germany and Art' (Continuum)

Comments

[harold]

Stephen Games is a writer and United Synagogue member

No wonder why he wants all rabbis to be United Synagogue members. As to being college educated, they can't all be like the Lubavitch rebbe. A rabbi needs semicha just like an electrical engineer needs an EE degree, not a degree in biology, although it can't hurt. Knowledge is good, the more you know the better, but the way things work is that every field of endeavor has its requirements and if someone studies and meets the requirements he is rewarded by being able to work in that field.

One of the characteristics of a leader is the ability to seek out help when an issue crosses his table that he does not have the expertise with. Look at the members of the government, the President, the members of the Senate, they surround themselves with experts and they seek experts on issues that they are to rule on that go beyond what they studied in school on came across in their previous careers. So lighten up on the “University” requirement. Would it help if a rabbi has a university degree in music?

[Shmarya]

Posted by: harold | November 12, 2010 at 07:45 AM

Would it help if a rabbi has a university degree in music?

The shoteh of Long Island babbles on.

Yes, it would help because that rabbi would have learned theory as well as practice, and he would have taken and passed science, math, history, language and civics classes.

A rabbi needs semicha just like an electrical engineer needs an EE degree, not a degree in biology, although it can't hurt. Knowledge is good, the more you know the better, but the way things work is that every field of endeavor has its requirements and if someone studies and meets the requirements he is rewarded by being able to work in that field.

Idiot.

Part of a rabbi's required knowledge is secular. The Vina Gaon discusses this as do others.

[Garnel Ironheart]

This is the standard Modern Orthodox whinge - the Chareidi are taking everything over!
The Dati Leumi in Israel are doing the same thing: they took the Rabbanut away from us!
You want something? Fight for it. The Chareidim clearly want control over as much of Jewish life as possible and are prepared to push their way to where they want to be. If you're not prepared to push back, don't complain.

[jancsibacsi]

shmarya- you heard of the saying shoteh anoi margish, a shoteh does not feel or think rationaly he is a shoteh

[IH]

There are multiple issues here about which many reasonable opinions can be expressed.

But, the degree to which the United Synagogue Beth Din becomes unrepresentative of their constituents, people will just stop using them where possible and this will be a loss to the unity of the small (only 270,000) Jews in the UK.

Rabbi Sacks has a silver tongue, but lead feet. His biggest "success" in the last few years has been the faith school mess he brought on. But, his books sell well...

[the usual chaim]

"This is the standard Modern Orthodox whinge - the Chareidi are taking everything over!
The Dati Leumi in Israel are doing the same thing: they took the Rabbanut away from us!
You want something? Fight for it. The Chareidim clearly want control over as much of Jewish life as possible and are prepared to push their way to where they want to be. If you're not prepared to push back, don't complain."

agreed. if more liberal people were half as aggressive with their views as haredim the problem would be solved. the problem is that only haredim care enough to act on what they believe however twisted it is.

[Lawrence M. Reisman]

Some historical context is in order. In 1932, Chief Rabbi J. H. Hertz (a graduate of the Jewish Theological Seminary in its pre-Schechter days) appointed Rav Yechezkel Abramsky, an East European Charedi, as head of the Beth Din. Since then, the head has always been a Charedi Rav. Rav Gelley succeded Rav Chanoch Ehrentrau, who was appointed in 1984.

The placement of Charedi rabbonim on the Beth Din has been going on for some time. It is not a recent phenomenon.

[A E ANDERSON]

It astounds how, in this day and age, Jews would want to be represented by dated haredi ostjuden and refugee types with sidelocks, outlandish costumes and ever more reactionary religious ideas.

Don't get me wrong: haredim have their place, in cloistered, monastic communities where they can out-humra each other ad nauseam with their interminable "I'm frummer than you" exhibitions. But their brand of Judaism stops at the ghetto or yeshiva wall because it is not sustainable in the real world. Haredi Judaism must therefore always be in cycles of rise and decline. The offspring of haredi Judaism cannot over time be absorbed into the hardi communities, and will need a United Synagogue to service their traditionalist sensibilities as they reject rigid haredism and rigid haredism rejects them. Yredot hadorot should be contrasted to the normal and constantly repeated cycle of rise and decline that accompanies religious revivials and great awakenings.

[Yoel Mechanic]

>As to being college educated, they can't all be like the Lubavitch rebbe.

Um, you're joking...right? The question should be phrased: can *any* be college educated...like the LR? How many? Let's just say..only 80% or so... would that be good enough?

[Yochanan Lavie]

"There is no England anymore..." the Kinks.

[Bassy the Haredi Slayer]

There is no England anymore..." the Kinks.

God Save the Beis Din
and the Fascist regime
....
No Future and England Dreaming...

The Sex Pistols

Lord Sucks is a Modern Orthodoxy on the outside and a Tropper's pet on the inside.

Few years back he refused to accept an Israeli Orthodox conversion (rabbanut) because he and Tropper did not like the rabbi in the city in Israel the couple lived

[Chicago Sam]

Sacks is a coward--plain and simple. He writes like a good liberal, but his halachic thinking could not be more draconian. Sacks lives in a perpetual state of fear and conformity. I find it hard to respect the man behind the Chief Rabbinate of GB.

[Yochanan Lavie]

Sacks is a better philosopher than he is a rabbi, IMO. His books are very good, but halachically, he always looks over his right shoulder. He is the opposite of Ovadia Yosef, who opines terribly but poskins humanely (most of the time).

[R]

i have no respect for sacks. I wonder what the new one will be like and maybe it's about time to get rid of the chief rabbinate of GB, or just admit that all he is is a political figurehead and just appoint someone based on those points, but don't use them to pasken anything.