SHULA JACOBS,
NEW and BRILLIANT Upload!Originally published in The Jewish Chronicle, 31 December 1993, p. 19. Does anyone remember the Jacobs Affair? If people have forgotten, they are likely to be reminded in the coming months. The affair erupted in 1962, when Rabbi Dr Louis Jacobs ... Continue Reading ➨
The "Jacobs Affair"
Norman Cohen, ‘The Religious Crisis in Anglo-Jewry’
Originally published in Tradition: A Journal of Orthodox Thought, 8:2 (Summer 1966), pp. 40-57. Norman Cohen The Jacobs affair has become a cause celebre, repercussions of which are still felt far beyond the confines of Great Britain. In this ... Continue Reading ➨
The Jacobs Affair – Report in Commentary Magazine by Alfred Sherman
Originally published in Commentary, 38:4 (1 October 1964), pp. 60-4. The fundamentalist tenet that God actually dictated the whole Torah—including the Talmud—verbatim and in its authorized text to Moses on Mount Sinai would seem an unlikely matter ... Continue Reading ➨
Bernard Spears, Letter to the Editor of Tradition about the Jacobs Affair
Originally published in Tradition 8:4 (Winter 1966). Jacobs Affair To the editor of TRADITION: Mr. Norman Cohen (“The Religious Crisis in Anglo-Jewry,” Tradition, Summer, 1966) purports to tell the inside story of “the Jacobs affair” and in ... Continue Reading ➨
‘In Defence of Tradition’ by Rabbi Jeffrey M. Cohen
Originally published in 1965 by Hampstead Garden Suburb Synagogue. It is because of the reception it has received and the possible adverse effect that the opinions expounded therein might have upon the less informed, that it is necessary that the ... Continue Reading ➨
Questions of Personal Status
Originally published in New London Forum: Journal of the New London Synagogue, 1:2 (September 1983). The Editorial Board is most grateful to the Congregation for the welcome it accorded to the first issue and now places before it a symposium on ... Continue Reading ➨
Are There Two Ways to Jewish Faith?
Originally published in World Jewry 5:2 (1962), pp. 5-8. The conflict over the pending appointment of a new principal of London’s Jews’ College has become a matter of widespread public debate within the Anglo-Jewish community and press. Dr. Louis ... Continue Reading ➨
‘Jacobs book put on approved list’ – We Have Reason to Believe in the JC
Originally published in the Jewish Chronicle. Rabbi Dr Louis Jacobs’s controversial book, “We Have Reason to Believe,” is recommended as “a popular work on Jewish religious thought” in a new United Synagogue publication, “Your Jewish ... Continue Reading ➨
Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg – The Jacobs Affair taught us we need to talk together
Originally published in The Jewish News, 6th March 2014. Fifty years ago, in February 1964, the Board of the New West End wrote to the president of the United Synagogue to protest the decision of the Chief Rabbi “to withhold consent to the recall ... Continue Reading ➨
Why Masorti marriages are valid
Originally published in November 1995. After a number of unhelpful and ambiguous statements by the Chief Rabbi’s office regarding the validity of marriages and conversions carried out under the aegis of Masorti synagogues, there is still much ... Continue Reading ➨
We are as they were
Originally published in Masorti Magazine (1993). Rabbi Jacobs, the first speaker, contrasted the attitude of the United Synagogue at the present day, with that of its past. “If you look into its history”, he said, “the United Synagogue was once ... Continue Reading ➨
Statement by Sir Isaac Wolfson, President of the United Synagogue – April 1964
STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED SYNAGOGUE SIR ISAAC WOLFSON BT. FRS. Hon.LLD (London); Hon. LLD (Glasgow); Hon. FRCP Hon. DCL (Oxford) TO THE COUNCIL OF THE UNITED SYNAGOGUE AT A SPECIAL MEETING HELD ON 23rd April 1964 — 11th Iyar ... Continue Reading ➨
William Frankel – “In the Eye of the Storm: Reflections on the Jacobs’ Affair”
Manuscript written by William Frankel, former editor of the Jewish Chronicle, c. 2000. The tumult and the shouting over, the so-called Jacobs affair, which deeply divided Anglo-Jewry some 40 years ago, have long since died, though the echoes ... Continue Reading ➨
Ignaz Maybaum, ‘The Jacobs Affair: Anglo-Jewry in Crisis’
Originally published in Judaism: A Quarterly Journal of Jewish Life and Thought, (Fall) 1964. Ignaz Maybaum, formerly Communal Rabbi of the Berlin Jewish Congregation, is Minister Emeritus of the Edgware and District Reform Synagogue in England. ... Continue Reading ➨
Sefton Temkin, Letter to the Editor of Tradition about the Jacobs Affair
Originally published in Tradition 8:3 (Fall 1966). Jacobs Affair To the editor of TRADITION: In the course of his eminently readable account of the situation in Anglo Jewry published in the summer issue of TRADITION, Mr. Norman Cohen honors ... Continue Reading ➨
The Abuse of Halacha
Originally published in Masorti Matters, February 1994. Rabbi Jacobs gave a comprehensive lecture on this subject. Because of the importance of the topic Rabbi Jacobs will be writing a paper which will be published by Masorti. The following is a ... Continue Reading ➨
Comment on the Brichto Proposals
Originally published in the Jewish Law Annual, vol. 8 (1989): 253-8. Proposals on the lines suggested by Rabbi Brichto, to be acceptable to Orthodoxy, must first be shown to have halakhic validity. Granted their basic premiss that halakhah is an ... Continue Reading ➨