Sir Immanuel Jakobovitz, chief rabbi of the British Common wealth, has been elevated to the House of Lords. But Britain’s normally close-knit Jewish community is of different minds over the singular honor bestowed upon its official religious leader and mentor.
Jakobovitz, who will be 67 next month, was one of only three new barons on the Queen’s New Year Honors List announced Friday. He will sit in the 1,200-member upper house of Parliament, along with the archbishops of Canterbury and York, the leaders of the Church of Scotland, the Methodists and other free churches.
He is the first chief rabbi so honored. But this has raised charges in some Jewish and non-Jewish quarters that his accession was due to a political and social outlook shared by Britain’s Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. It is Thatcher who compiles the yearly honors list on behalf of Queen Elizabeth II.
Differences of opinion have arisen within the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the overall representative body of Anglo-Jewry. Its president, Dr. Lionel Kaplowitz, hailed the new Lord Jakobovitz as a spokesman for the nation. In his 21 years as chief rabbi, Jakobovitz has "changed the face of British Jewry," Kaplowitz declared.
But Dr. Geoffrey Alderman, an Orthodox university don and member of the Board of Deputies, took another view. Speaking for a small but vocal group, who contend that the Jewish community made an unacceptable concession on shehita (ritual slaughter), following a recent government report on animal welfare, Alderman said by giving Jakobovitz a peerage, the prime minister delivered a "slap in the face" to the Jewish community.
ADMIRED BY THATCHER
It is generally believed Jakobovitz owes his barony less to his work for the Jewish community than to his public pronouncements and writings on secular matters that endeared him to Thatcher. He appears to embody many of the Victorian values on family purity and the work ethic cherished by the prime minister.
His opinions on homosexuality, acquired immune deficiency syndrome, urban poverty and terrorism were in many cases more to her liking than those by leaders of the Church of England.
While Jakobovitz’s admirers in and out of the Jewish community are many, his critics fear that from now on, he will be viewed by the world as the spokesman of British Jewry on all issues.
The chief rabbi has been controversial in the past, mainly because of his outspoken criticism of some Israeli policies, notably during the Lebanon war, which alienated many Jews. Now he may have earned envy if not resentment, among Roman Catholics, whose bishops are currently excluded from the House of Lords.
Born in 1921 in Koenigsberg, East Prussia, Jakobovitz came to England as a refugee, shortly after the outbreak of World War II. The son of Rabbi Julius Jakobovitz, he continued his studies here at Jews College, London and Etz Chaim.
He served as chief rabbi of Ireland from 1949 to 1958 and then spent nine years in New York as rabbi of the Fifth Avenue Synagogue. He returned to Britain as chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of Great Britain and the Commonwealth in 1967. He is due to retire as chief rabbi when he reaches age 70, unless the United Hebrew Congregations changes its rules.
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