Rabbi Harris M. Lazarus today accepted the invitation of the United Synagogue of Great Britain to become acting Chief Rabbi of the British Empire, succeeding Chief Rabbi Joseph H. Hertz, who died earlier this week.
Rabbi Lazarus, who had retired last year, at the age of 66, was born in Riga, Batvia, and became a naturalized British subject in 1904. In a statement today he said: “I have always been a Socialist, and I am happy that the Labor Government will be able to put its ideals into practice. I am certainly confident that the people will rise to the occasion in the matter of reconstruction, as they have risen to the opportunity of regaining the freedom of man.”
Previous to his retirement, Rabbi Lazarus served on the Beth Din, a rabbinical court which settled Jewish legal and jurisdictional matters. Together with Rabbi Hertz and Dr. Solomon Schonfeld, he served on the executive of the Chief Rabbi’s religious Emergency Council of Great Britain. He has also been the rabbi of the Grondesbury Synagogue, and the president of the Sabbath Observance Employment Bureau, as well as president of the Union of Young Israel Societies.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
