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. In the end, only six were installed to see out their terms of office. The manner of these appointments was invariably colored by intrigue, in-fighting, and a host of other competing influences. Not the least was an increasingly potent input by the dayanim of the London Beth Din, themselves not immune to strategic self-interest. Persoff’s scholarly yet accessible account of these seven appointments draws on a profusion of hitherto unavailable and unpublished material, and on the personal stories of many of the protagonists involved. Including, in fascinating detail, those who by means fair and foul, failed to gain (or chose to reject) the coveted prize.