Rabbi Nathan Adler and the Formulation of the Chief Rabbinate in Britain, 1845-1890

The paper investigates the role Rabbi Nathan Adler played in the institutionalisation of the English Chief Rabbinate. It focuses on his appointment to Chief Rabbi and on his activities in instituting the various roles of Chief Rabbi in the post-emancipation Anglo-Jewish community. Rabbi Adler's complicated relations with early Reform Judaism in England are also dealt with. When Rabbi Adler came to London he had an image of Reform Judaism as he knew it in Hanover, where he came from. In a short period he understood the uniqueness of the English Reform Movement, and adjusted his politics towards it accordingly. Continuing the dominance of German Rabbis heading the English Chief Rabbinate, Rabbi Adler brought with him to England a new mode of modern German Rabbinate, established in the mid nineteenth century. Rabbi Adler adapted, with considerable success, the German model to the British reality. Rabbi Adler was a very close associate of Sir Moses Montefiore. Their close relationship was an important factor in Rabbi Adler's success in the formulation of the Chief Rabbinate in the nineteenth-century United Kingdom

Archaeology · Dominance (genetics) · Emancipation · German · Institutionalisation · Judaism · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Theology · Classics · History · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies · Law · Philosophy · Religious studies