Hats in the Ring: Choosing Britain's Chief Rabbis from Adler to Sacks

Prior to the latest Chief Rabbinical selection process, seven eminent rabbis were appointed to British Jewry’s highest ecclesiastical post, although only six were installed and saw out their terms of office. The manner of their appointment was invariably coloured by intrigue, in-fighting and a host of other influences, not least an increasingly potent input by the dayanim of the London Beth Din, themselves not immune to strategic self-interest. Meir Persoff’s scholarly yet accessible account of these seven appointments draws on a wealth of hitherto unaccessed and unpublished material, and on the stories of many of the protagonists involved, including in fascinating detail those who, by fair means and foul, failed to gain (or chose to reject) the coveted prize.

Meir Persoff (PhD Middlesex University, London), now a freelance writer and editor, edited the London Jewish Chronicle’s news, features, arts, Judaism, letters and obituaries sections during a distinguished 40-year career on the paper. He has written extensively on Jewish topics―notably Jewish art and Judaica―and served on the Jewish Book Council and as president of the Israel-Judaica Philatelic Society. A Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a Life Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, he earned his PhD from Middlesex University, London, for his research into the British Chief Rabbinate’s relationship with the non-Orthodox movements. Dr. Persoff’s previous work, Another Way, Another Time: Religious Inclusivism and the Sacks Chief Rabbinate (Academic Studies Press, 2010), received widespread international acclaim.