Originally published in The Jewish Chronicle. Rabbi Jacobs on views of Anglo-Jewish youth Jewish Chronicle Reporter A forecast that the future of the Anglo-Jewish community would lie with thinking people who adopted a “middle-of-the-road” ... Continue Reading ➨
Media Coverage
English Jews were certainly not used to seeing such tumult within their own religious establishment. Nor had rabbis ever taken hold of newspaper headlines for so long. Media coverage of the Jacobs Affair - between Jacobs' resignation from Jews' College in September 1962 and the clash between the United Synagogue and the Board of Management of the New West End Synagogue throughout the year 1964 - was extensive, and often, inflammatory. Between articles and opinion columns, the issue captivated the hearts and minds of a large portion of Anglo-Jewry, causing a split within its ranks that remains to this very day.
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 ➨
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 ➨
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 ➨
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 ➨
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 ➨
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 ➨
‘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 ➨
Reflection on the Affair in the Jewish Telegraph, 1980
Originally published in the Jewish Telegraph, 5 September 1980. Aubrey Rosen examines the split which rocked Anglo-Jewry 20 years ago. It is about twenty years ago that Louis Jacobs all but succeeded in splitting the Anglo-Jewish community over his ... 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 ➨
