Louis Jacobs
Encyclopedia
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
– 1 July 2006, 5 Tammuz 5766 in the Hebrew calendar
Hebrew calendar
The Hebrew calendar , or Jewish calendar, is a lunisolar calendar used today predominantly for Jewish religious observances. It determines the dates for Jewish holidays and the appropriate public reading of Torah portions, yahrzeits , and daily Psalm reading, among many ceremonial uses...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
) was a Masorti
Masorti
The Masorti Movement is the name given to Conservative Judaism in Israel and other countries outside Canada and U.S. Masorti means "traditional" in Hebrew...
rabbi
Rabbi
In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...
, the first leader of Masorti Judaism (also known as Conservative Judaism
Conservative Judaism
Conservative Judaism is a modern stream of Judaism that arose out of intellectual currents in Germany in the mid-19th century and took institutional form in the United States in the early 1900s.Conservative Judaism has its roots in the school of thought known as Positive-Historical Judaism,...
) in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, and a leading writer and thinker on Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
. He also became known as the focus of events in the early 1960s sometimes referred to as "The Jacobs Affair".
Early career
Jacobs studied at Manchester Yeshivah, and later at the kolel in Gateshead. His teachers included Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler, an orthodox expositor of Jewish moral and theological teachings. Jacobs was ordained as an OrthodoxOrthodox Judaism
Orthodox Judaism , is the approach to Judaism which adheres to the traditional interpretation and application of the laws and ethics of the Torah as legislated in the Talmudic texts by the Sanhedrin and subsequently developed and applied by the later authorities known as the Gaonim, Rishonim, and...
rabbi at Manchester Yeshivah. Later in his career he studied at University College London
University College London
University College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and the oldest and largest constituent college of the federal University of London...
where he gained his PhD
PHD
PHD may refer to:*Ph.D., a doctorate of philosophy*Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*PHD finger, a protein sequence*PHD Mountain Software, an outdoor clothing and equipment company*PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
, on the topic of "The Business Life of the Jews in Babylon
Babylon
Babylon was an Akkadian city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad...
, 200-500 BCE". Jacobs was appointed rabbi at Manchester Central Synagogue in 1948. In 1954 he was appointed to the New West End Synagogue
New West End Synagogue
The New West End Synagogue, located in St. Petersburgh Place, Bayswater, London, is one of the Oldest synagogues in the United Kingdom still functioning. It is one of two synagogues which have been awarded Grade I listed status by the British government and has been described by English Heritage as...
in London.
He became Moral Tutor at Jews' College
Jews' College
-Origins and Remit Today:Jews' College, now known as the London School of Jewish Studies , was opened in Finsbury Square, London as a rabbinical seminary in 1855 with the support of Chief Rabbi Nathan Adler and of Sir Moses Montefiore, who had conceived the idea for such a venture as early as...
, London, where he taught Talmud
Talmud
The Talmud is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history....
and homiletics
Homiletics
Homiletics , in theology the application of the general principles of rhetoric to the specific department of public preaching. The one who practices or studies homiletics is called a homilist....
during the last years of Rabbi Isidore Epstein
Isidore Epstein
This article is about the distinguished rabbinical scholar. For the noted astronomer of a similar name see: Isadore Epstein Rabbi Dr. Isidore Epstein , was an Orthodox rabbi and rabbinical scholar in England, who served as the longtime principal of Jews' College, London. Ezekiel Isidore Epstein...
's tenure as principal. By this time Jacobs had drifted away from the very rigid traditional approach to Jewish theology that had marked his formative years. Instead he struggled to find a synthesis that would accommodate Orthodox Jewish theology and modern day higher biblical criticism. Jacobs was especially concerned with how to reconcile modern day Orthodox Jewish faith with the documentary hypothesis
Documentary hypothesis
The documentary hypothesis , holds that the Pentateuch was derived from originally independent, parallel and complete narratives, which were subsequently combined into the current form by a series of redactors...
. His ideas about the subject were published in a book entitled We Have Reason to Believe, published in 1957. The book was originally written to record the essence of discussions held on its title's subject at weekly classes given by Jacobs at the New West End Synagogue and was the subject at the time of some mild criticism, but not of any major censure.
We Have Reason to Believe
The purpose of Jacobs’s book We Have Reason to Believe is clearly stated in its Introduction.A true Jewish apologeticApologeticsApologetics is the discipline of defending a position through the systematic use of reason. Early Christian writers Apologetics (from Greek ἀπολογία, "speaking in defense") is the discipline of defending a position (often religious) through the systematic use of reason. Early Christian writers...
, eschewing obscurantism, religious schizophrenia, and intellectual dishonesty, will be based on the conviction that all truth, ‘the seals of the Holy One, blessed is He’, is one, and that a synthesis is possible between the permanent values and truth of tradition and the best thought of the day.
Jacobs therefore places himself in the line of expositors from Moses Mendelssohn
Moses Mendelssohn
Moses Mendelssohn was a German Jewish philosopher to whose ideas the renaissance of European Jews, Haskalah is indebted...
onwards who have sought to reconcile, or at least clearly contextualise, the concepts of Judaism with the prevalent thought and society of the modern world. The book is illustrated throughout with references and quotations from authorities both ancient and modern, both Jewish and Gentile, reflecting Jacobs’s broad interests and reading.
Most of the book, dealing with such topics as proof of God’s existence, pain, miracles, the after-life, and the idea of a ‘Chosen People’, is full of stimulating ideas which were however not in themselves controversial. Debate on the book was eventually to centre on chapters 6, 7, and 8: The Torah
Torah
Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five books of the bible—Genesis , Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers and Deuteronomy Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five...
and Modern Criticism, A Synthesis of the Traditional and Critical Views and Bible Difficulties.
In these chapters Jacobs took on discussion of ‘Modern Criticism’ of the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
, more specifically textual analysis of the Torah known as the ‘Documentary Hypothesis
Documentary hypothesis
The documentary hypothesis , holds that the Pentateuch was derived from originally independent, parallel and complete narratives, which were subsequently combined into the current form by a series of redactors...
’, which suggests that its texts derives from multiple sources, rather than having been given, as Orthodox Rabbinical traditions have it, complete in its present form by God to Moses
Moses
Moses was, according to the Hebrew Bible and Qur'an, a religious leader, lawgiver and prophet, to whom the authorship of the Torah is traditionally attributed...
during the period beginning on Mount Sinai
Mount Sinai
Mount Sinai , also known as Mount Horeb, Mount Musa, Gabal Musa , Jabal Musa meaning "Moses' Mountain", is a mountain near Saint Catherine in the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt. A mountain called Mount Sinai is mentioned many times in the Book of Exodus in the Torah and the Bible as well as the Quran...
and ending with Moses's death.
Jacobs comments: 'While Judaism stands or falls on the belief in revelation, there is no ‘official’ interpretation on the way in which God spoke to man'. He points out that ‘according to some Rabbis, [the Pentateuch] was given to Moses at intervals during the sojourn in the Wilderness’. But he also points out that given the arguments of textual criticism ‘no work of Jewish apologetics, however limited in scope, can afford to fight shy of the problem’. Here there is an implied rebuke of the tendency of many Jewish authorities of the period simply to gloss over the inconveniences of the thoughts of the ‘modern critics’ – a rebuke which perhaps rankled with some.
Jacobs continues with some considerations of textual criticism by treating of the process of Masoretic emendation, which has proved acceptable and even desirable. This acceptability itself negates the idea, most ably expounded by Maimonides
Maimonides
Moses ben-Maimon, called Maimonides and also known as Mūsā ibn Maymūn in Arabic, or Rambam , was a preeminent medieval Jewish philosopher and one of the greatest Torah scholars and physicians of the Middle Ages...
, of the perfection and immutability of the written text of the Torah; from which Jacobs concludes ‘there is nothing to deter the faithful Jew from accepting the principle of textual criticism’. He is aware that ‘to talk about ‘reconciling’ the Maimonidean idea and the Documentary Hypothesis […]is futile, for you cannot reconcile two contradictory theories. But to say this is not to preclude the possibility of a synthesis between the old knowledge and the new knowledge’.
Jacobs provides numerous examples from the Talmud and from other rabbinical writings indicating acceptance of the idea of Divine intervention in human affairs, with ‘God revealing his Will not alone to men but through men’. He concludes that, even if the Documentary Hypothesis is partly (or even entirely) correct,
God’s power is not lessened because He preferred to co-operate with His creatures in producing the Book of Books […] We hear the authentic voice of God speaking to us through the pages of the Bible […] and its message is in no way affected in that we can only hear that voice through the medium of human beings.
The "Jacobs Affair"
It had been widely assumed that after Epstein's retirement as principal of Jews' College he would be succeeded by Jacobs. When this assumption was translated into a definite invitation by the College's Board of Trustees in 1961, the then Chief RabbiChief Rabbi
Chief Rabbi is a title given in several countries to the recognized religious leader of that country's Jewish community, or to a rabbinic leader appointed by the local secular authorities...
of the United Kingdom, Israel Brodie
Israel Brodie
Sir Israel Brodie KBE was the Chief Rabbi of Great Britain and the Commonwealth 1948–1965.He was educated at Balliol College, Oxford. He served as a Rabbi of Melbourne Hebrew Congregation in Australia from 1923-1937, was evacuated from Dunkirk, and finished the War as Senior Jewish Chaplain...
, interdicted the appointment "because of his [Jacobs's] published views". This was a reference to We Have Reason to Believe (four years after it had been first published).
The British newspaper, The Jewish Chronicle
The Jewish Chronicle
The Jewish Chronicle is a London-based Jewish newspaper. Founded in 1841, it is the oldest continuously published Jewish newspaper in the world.-Publication data and readership figures:...
, took up the issue and turned it into a cause célèbre
Cause célèbre
A is an issue or incident arousing widespread controversy, outside campaigning and heated public debate. The term is particularly used in connection with celebrated legal cases. It is a French phrase in common English use...
which was reported in the national press, including The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
. When Jacobs wished to return to his pulpit at the New West End Synagogue Brodie vetoed his appointment. A number of members then left the New West End Synagogue to found the New London Synagogue.
Public interest in Dr. Jacobs's differences with the Anglo-Jewish establishment is also demonstrated by the television interview of Dr. Jacobs of 1966 conducted by Bernard Levin
Bernard Levin
Henry Bernard Levin CBE was an English journalist, author and broadcaster, described by The Times as "the most famous journalist of his day". The son of a poor Jewish family in London, he won a scholarship to the independent school Christ's Hospital and went on to the London School of Economics,...
.
The New London Synagogue
The defecting congregation purchased the old St. John's Wood synagogue building, and installed Jacobs as its rabbi — a post which he held until 2000 and to which he returned in 2005. This congregation, The New London Synagogue, became the "parent" of the Masorti movement in the United Kingdom, which now numbers several congregations.While holding the position of Rabbi at the New London Synagogue, Dr. Jacobs was also for many years Lecturer in Talmud and Zohar
Zohar
The Zohar is the foundational work in the literature of Jewish mystical thought known as Kabbalah. It is a group of books including commentary on the mystical aspects of the Torah and scriptural interpretations as well as material on Mysticism, mythical cosmogony, and mystical psychology...
at the Leo Baeck College
Leo Baeck College
Leo Baeck College is a rabbinical college and centre for Jewish education located in north London. As well as being the smallest academic college in England, it is also the largest Jewish Progressive University and Rabbinic College in Europe....
, a rabbinical college preparing students to serve as Masorti, Reform and Liberal rabbis in the UK and Europe. Rabbi Jacobs served as Chairman of the Academic Committee for some years.
Since the founding of the New London Synagogue, Jacobs and the Masorti movement were subject to consistent hostility from Orthodox British Jewish institutions. On his 83rd birthday, in the Bournemouth
Bournemouth
Bournemouth is a large coastal resort town in the ceremonial county of Dorset, England. According to the 2001 Census the town has a population of 163,444, making it the largest settlement in Dorset. It is also the largest settlement between Southampton and Plymouth...
(Orthodox) synagogue on the sabbath before his granddaughter's wedding, Jacobs was not provided the honour of an aliyah customarily given to the father of the bride, which gave rise to heated correspondence in the Jewish press including accusations of pettiness and vindictiveness. The Chief Rabbi, Sir Jonathan Sacks
Jonathan Sacks
Jonathan Henry Sacks, Baron Sacks, Kt is the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth. His Hebrew name is Yaakov Zvi...
, and the head of the London Beth Din, Dayan Chanoch Ehrentreu
Chanoch Ehrentreu
Dayan Chanoch Ehrentreu served for many years as the head of the United Synagogue's Beth Din. He retired from the post in December 2006.-Early life:...
, responded that, because of what they considered to be Jacobs's heretical beliefs, "they believed that had Jacobs uttered the words 'Our God […] who gave us the Torah of truth […] ', he would have made a false statement".
In December 2005, a poll by The Jewish Chronicle of its subscribers, in which 2,000 readers made their nominations, voted Jacobs the 'greatest British Jew' in the community's 350-year history in England. Jacobs commented "I feel greatly honoured - and rather daft." Nevertheless, reports that Louis Jacobs had been nominated greatest British Jew, received wide press coverage in Britain.
A few months before his death he donated his great book collection to the Leopold Muller Memorial Library at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies
Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies
The Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies is an independent institution which is part of the University of Oxford. Its research fellows teach on a variety of Bachelors and Masters degrees in Oriental Studies, and it publishes the Journal of Jewish Studies.-History and Case Statement:The...
.
Selected publications
- Jewish Prayer
- We Have Reason to Believe (1957, revised editions in 1961 and 1965)
- Jewish Values
- Jewish Thought Today (Chain of Tradition Series, Vol. 3)
- Studies in Talmudic Logic (and Methodology) (1961)
- A Jewish Theology
- Jewish Ethics, Philosophy and Mysticism
- The Book of Jewish Belief
- What does Judaism say about ...? (The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
Library of Jewish knowledge) - The Jewish Religion: A Companion, (1995), Oxford University PressOxford University PressOxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...
, ISBN 0-19-826463-1
Louis Jacobs online
Two websites exist with information about Jacobs's writings and thought, and to provide a forum for discussion of his ideas:Sources
- Jacobs, Louis. Helping With Inquiries (autobiography) (1989) ISBN 0-85303-231-9
- Jacobs, Louis. We have Reason to Believe (3rd edition). Valentine, Mitchell: London (1965)
- Obituaries (see below)
Further reading
- Elliot J. Cosgrove (2008), "Tekyu: The Insoluble Contradictions in the Life and Thought of Louis Jacobs", vol 1, vol 2, PhD Thesis, University of ChicagoUniversity of ChicagoThe University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
.
External links
- Obituary The Times, July 4, 2006
- Obituary The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, July 5, 2006 - Obituary The ForwardThe ForwardThe Forward , commonly known as The Jewish Daily Forward, is a Jewish-American newspaper published in New York City. The publication began in 1897 as a Yiddish-language daily issued by dissidents from the Socialist Labor Party of Daniel DeLeon...
(New York), 7 July 2006 - Obituary The IndependentThe IndependentThe Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
, 11 July 2006 - Obituary The Daily TelegraphThe Daily TelegraphThe Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
, July 15, 2006 - Obituaries and tributes, New London Synagogue