SHULA JACOBS,
NEW and BRILLIANT Upload!The infamous Lubavitch Rebbe's Case in New York with Rabbi Jacobs as expert witness, marks the Yahrzeit of the Rebbe's death. Simon Eder explores the case that dominated so much of his life and caused such division within the Chabad family. The ... Continue Reading ➨
Character, Capitalism and Catastrophe
'Why can't we all just be nice and get along?' feels like a quaint and faintly absurd response to the political storms we are living in. But in this new series of talks, Elie Jesner will be exploring the wisdom of this suggestion, arguing that at ... Continue Reading ➨
Judaism and The Land – Holy or Unholy Alliance?
with David Newman OBE and Colin Shindler With the birth of modern Zionism, the concept of Jewish nationhood surfaced for the first time in a few millennia, and has since re-shaped Judaism beyond recognition. The Zionist movement initially faced ... Continue Reading ➨
Beyond the Law – Transitioning from Halakha to Ethics
Presented by Professor William Kolbrener and Chaired by Elie Jesner ... Continue Reading ➨
Louis Jacobs 10th Memorial Events
“Religious Authority and Individualism: can they co-exist?” Keynote Speaker – Rabbi Jeremy Rosen Chaired by Rabbi Jeremy Gordon Monday, 11th July 2016, 7.45pm, JW3 at the main hall, Finchley Road, NW3 (preceded by mincha at 7.15) Jeremy Rosen, a ... Continue Reading ➨
Saving God from the True Believers
Can we have religious passion without Fanaticism? A rare UK opportunity to hear Rabbi Herzl Hefter, a great modern orthodox scholar! Elie Jesner will chair the event Religion speaks to some of humankind's deepest passions and endeavours to help ... Continue Reading ➨
Passover, remembering, and pursuing the quest
Dear Friends, How time flies! I took the opportunity in my last blog post to wish you all a purim sameach. Now pesach is upon us! That time, fortunately, has been well spent. We've been uploading dozens of new articles on a weekly basis, ... Continue Reading ➨
The Louis Jacobs Foundation and ‘Scrapbook’
During the summer several new uploads have been made to the "Scrapbook" including several books reviewed by Rabbi Jacobs. The site is being regularly reviewed and updated, incorporating the comments our readers have made. The books in the ... Continue Reading ➨
Experiencing the Divine
Originally published in the early 1960s. A less familiar but none the less significant name for Yom Kippur is Yom Ha-Kadosh - the "Holy Day." The word atonement and the word holy are hardly part of our normal vocabulary. These words express ideas ... Continue Reading ➨
New Videos in Quest and Oxford Centre sections
Many videos have been added. Please see the Quest and Oxford Centre video sections. Also have a look at the Honest Theology Project area. This already contains videos of the first lecture held at JW3 on July 12th 2015. ... Continue Reading ➨
Simon Eder’s Summary and Response to Elie Jesner’s Opening Lecture in the Honest Theology Project
I remember vividly the late Rabbi Jacobs once paraphrasing GK Chesterton - "the good thing about being in hot water is that you stay clean". It was certainly in this spirit that "the Quest" - the initiative of The Friends of Louis Jacobs, was begun ... Continue Reading ➨
Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence
Light refreshments will be served. Pay online at www.newlondon.org.uk/quest or on the door. NEW LONDON SYNAGOGUE 33 Abbey Road • London NW8 0AT • 020 7328 1026 • www.newlondon.org.uk • office@newlondon.org.uk Quest are delighted that Karen ... Continue Reading ➨
New and updated content!
The entire website has now been revised and have many new videos added. There are 70 videos available to watch on the website. Two of the video sections are for Rabbi Jacobs Teaching and Continuing the Quest. There is a new section "Arguments ... Continue Reading ➨
Tikkun Leil Shavuot – The Jewish All Nighter
The custom is based on a passage in the Zohar which speaks of the great significance of this night as the time of preparation for the marriage of God and Israel, when the Torah is given again, as it were, on Shavuot. Actually the Zohar refers to the ... Continue Reading ➨
Passover and Permissiveness
Originally published in 1971. Judaism is the only religion which has a festival to celebrate freedom. But the freedom which the Children of Israel achieved with their departure from Egypt was liberty for the group. Liberty for the Individual is of ... Continue Reading ➨
Oxford Seminar in Advanced Jewish Studies
The first Oxford Seminar in Advanced Jewish Studies took place at Yarnton from January to June 2013, on the theme of ‘Orthodoxy, Theological Debate and Contemporary Judaism: Exploring Questions Raised in the Thought of Louis Jacobs’. The Seminar was ... Continue Reading ➨
Orthodoxy, Theological Debate and Contemporary Judaism: A Critical Exploration of Questions Raised in the Thought of Louis Jacobs
Orthodoxy, Theology and Louis Jacobs Dr Miri Freud-Kandel University of Oxford What happens when you bring a group of academics to Oxford to study Orthodoxy and Theology in modern and contemporary Judaism? There were certainly more men seen ... Continue Reading ➨
Halakhah and Aggadah: The Modern Conversion Controversy in Light of Louis Jacobs’s Philosophy
Professor Arye Edrei University of Tel-Aviv Louis Jacobs’s main concern in his monumental work, A Tree of Life, was halakhah, ‘Jewish law’, in a changing reality. This lay at the heart of his concerns throughout his life, in his literary, ... Continue Reading ➨
What is ‘Modern’ in Modern Orthodoxy?
Professor Alan Brill Seton Hall University, New Jersey In my current book-project, on the ‘Varieties of Modern Orthodoxy’, I explore the differences between Orthodox groups entering modernity and the wide variety of interactions between modernity ... Continue Reading ➨
Theology and Conversion, Converts and Theology – The Picture in Britain
Dr Nechama Hadari The seminar in which we worked at the Centre has worked in the shadow of two questions that have often remained unspoken: first, can Louis Jacobs himself be called Orthodox? And second, can ‘theological debate’ itself be considered ... Continue Reading ➨