NOVEMBER 12 • 2020 | 39
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, former U.K. chief rabbi, dies at 72.
‘An Intellectual Giant’
R
abbi Jonathan Sacks, the
former chief rabbi of the
United Kingdom whose
extensive writings and frequent
media appearances commanded
a global following among Jews
and non-Jews alike, has died.
Sacks died Nov. 7, 2020, at
age 72, his Twitter account
announced. He was in the midst
of a third bout of cancer, which
he had announced in October.
Sacks was among the world’
s
leading exponents of Orthodox
Judaism for a global audience.
In his 22 years as chief rabbi,
he emerged as the most visible
Jewish leader in the United
Kingdom and one of Europe’
s
leading Jewish voices, offering
Jewish wisdom to the masses
through a regular segment he
produced for the BBC.
He had a close relationship
with former British Prime
Minister Tony Blair, who called
him “an intellectual giant” and
presented him with a lifetime
achievement award in 2018.
Sacks was also a prolific
author, addressing pressing
social and political issues in
a succession of well-received
books. His popular com-
mentary on the prayer book,
published by Koren, helped to
dethrone the more traditionalist
Artscroll Siddur as the preemi-
nent prayer book in American
Modern Orthodox synagogues.
Sacks was normally averse
to mixing religion and politics,
something he discussed, along
with his latest book Morality:
Restoring the Common Good in
Divided Times, with the JTA in
August.
“When anger erupts in a
body politic, there is quite often
a justified cause. But then the
political domain has got to
take that anger and deal with it
very fast,
” he told JTA
’
s opinion
editor Laura Adkins. “Because
anger exposes the problem but
never delivers the solution.
”
But he did take public stances
on two topics that were often
ensnared with European poli-
tics: Israel and antisemitism.
FIGHTING ANTISEMITISM
Sacks spoke out publicly as
Britain’
s Labour Party was
engulfed in an antisemitism
scandal under its previous
leader Jeremy Corbyn, calling
Corbyn an antisemite.
“We have an antisemite as the
leader of the Labour Party and
her majesty’
s opposition. That
is why Jews feel so threatened
by Mr. Corbyn and those who
support him,
” Sacks said in a
2018 interview with the New
Statesman.
That judgement paved the
way for the current British
Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis to
harshly condemn the Labour
Party, a precedent-setting event
in British Jewish life.
Corbyn was replaced in
April by centrist Keir Starmer,
who has apologized for how
antisemitism was allowed to
flourish in Labour’
s ranks
under Corbyn. Starmer, who
is married to a Jewish woman,
expressed his condolences to
“the entire Jewish world” in a
tweet on Saturday.
“He was a towering intellect
whose eloquence, insights and
kindness reached well beyond
the Jewish community,
” Starmer
wrote.
Sacks was also vocal in his
opposition to the forces that
lead to antisemitism on the far
left and the far right, as he wrote
in a JTA op-ed in January:
“
Antisemitism has little to do
with Jews — they are its object,
not its cause — and everything
to do with dysfunction in the
communities that harbor it.
”
In a 2017 YouTube video,
Sacks called anti-Zionism a new
form of antisemitism, arguing
that it denies Jews the “right to
exist collectively with the same
rights as everyone else.
”
The video was based on a
2016 speech Sacks gave that
helped pave the way to Britain’
s
adoption later that year of
the International Holocaust
Remembrance Alliance’
s defini-
tion of antisemitism.
The video became symbolic
of Sacks’
ability to reach main-
stream audiences. Rachel Riley,
a British Jewish game show
host, shared the video, telling
her over 600,000 Twitter follow-
ers that it is “the best explana-
tion of antisemitism I’
ve seen.
”
Sacks branched out beyond
religious and Jewish cultural
thought as well. In 2017, he
delivered a TED Talk about
“facing the future without fear”
and what he called a “fateful
moment” in Western history
after the election of Donald
Trump as president, citing
Thomas Paine and anthropol-
ogists to make an argument
about returning a culture of
togetherness.
Born in London in 1948,
Sacks studied at Cambridge
University. While a student
there in the ’
60s, he visited
Rabbi Menachem Schneerson
— the spiritual leader who is
credited with turning the cha-
sidic Chabad-Lubatvitch move-
ment into a powerful organizing
force of Jewry around the world
— in New York City. Sacks
credits that meeting with inspir-
ing him to get involved with
Jewish studies.
He became the rabbi of the
Golders Green synagogue in
London’
s most Orthodox neigh-
borhood in the late ’
70s and
then rabbi of the Marble Arch
Synagogue in central London.
The U.K. Board of Deputies
of British Jews President Marie
van der Zyl said in a statement,
“Rabbi Sacks was a giant of
both the Jewish community and
wider society. His astounding
intellect and courageous moral
voice were a blessing to all who
encountered him in person, in
writing or in broadcast.
”
Rabbi Sacks is survived by his
wife, Elaine, three children and
several grandchildren.
JTA
SOUL
OF BLESSED MEMORY
Rabbi
Jonathan
Sacks
JOHN DOWNING/GETTY IMAGES VIA JTA