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Showing posts from August, 2008

JONATHAN SACKS AND THE MASORTI MOVEMENT

To mark the publication of Controversy and Crisis – my book of collected essays (published last month by the Academic Studies Press) : that cover some of the most sensitive and divisive issues to have confronted British Jewry in recent times – I am, in the interests of historical research, commencing the electronic publication of original documents in my possession related to these events. The first, which I published on 7 August and which you can view at http://www.geoffreyalderman.com/pdf/deed.pdf , is the Deed of Submission (13 May 1985) that authorized the establishment of a special Beth Din [Ecclesiastical Court] to adjudicate on the dismissal from the staff of Jews’ College of the senior teacher of Talmud, Rabbi Simche Lieberman. I now publish the second [ www.geoffreyalderman.com/pdf/Masorti.pdf ], which consists of two contrasting views of the Masorti movement by two successive British Chief Rabbis, Immanuel Jakobovits and Jonathan Sacks. On 24 September 1981 Jakobovits ...

DOCUMENTS ON THE HISTORY OF THE JEWS IN MODERN BRITAIN

To mark the publication of Controversy and Crisis – my book of collected essays that cover some of the most sensitive and divisive issues to have confronted British Jewry in recent times – I am, in the interests of historical research, commencing the electronic publication of original documents in my possession related to these events. The first, which you can view at http://www.geoffreyalderman.com/pdf/deed.pdf , is the Deed of Submission (13 May 1985) that authorised the establishment of a special Beth Din [Ecclesiastical Court] to adjudicate on the dismissal from the staff of Jews’ College of the senior teacher of Talmud, Rabbi Simche Lieberman. This cause celèbre forms the subject-matter of ‘Albert Road: An Everyday Story of Jewish Folk,’ which was published as an appendix to my University of London Inaugural Lecture (1989) after having been banned by the Federation of Synagogues. The text of the lecture, and the banned appendix, are reproduced in full in Controversy and Crisis...