Judaism and Jewish Life
2 total works
British Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks 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, Persoff demonstrates how, repeatedly, the Chief Rabbi said 'irreconcilable things to different audiences' and how, in the process, he induced his kingmaker and foremost patron 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, "Another Way, Another Time" 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.
Prior to the latest Chief Rabbinical selection process, seven eminent rabbis were appointed to British Jewry's highest ecclesiastical post. In the end, only six were installed to see out their terms of office. The manner of these appointments was invariably colored by intrigue, in-fighting, and a host of other competing influences. Not the least was an increasingly potent input by the dayanim of the London Beth Din, themselves not immune to strategic self-interest. Persoff's scholarly yet accessible account of these seven appointments draws on a profusion of hitherto unavailable and unpublished material, and on the personal stories of many of the protagonists involved. Including, in fascinating detail, those who by means fair and foul, failed to gain (or chose to reject) the coveted prize.