CHIEF BRITISH RABBI.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 129, 24 July 1911, Page 5

CHIEF BRITISH RABBI.

Dr. Adler, Chief Rabbi of the British Empire, whoso death was ieported recently, was born in Hanover in 1839, and preached his first sermon as far back as 1959. His father, the Chief Rabbi of that date, had promised to attend the consecration of a synagogue in Swansea. When the time came he was too ill to go, but he sent his son, a young man of 20, studying for the priesthood. So ably did the young man take his father’s place that from this time forward" he seemed marked out to be Ids successor. In 1879 he was appointed -‘delegate Chief Rabbi,” and after his father’s death in 1890 invested with the full powers of the office. The “Daily Mail” wrote of Dr. Adler two years 'ago: “By his full style and title ho is ‘Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregation of the British Empire,’ which makes him the greatest Jewish minister in the world. One of the regrets of his life is that he has not yet been able to fulfil /the hope bo expressed a ueii he was installed of visiting the various Colonial communities of Jews. But he has not entirely given up that hope yet. He neither feels nor looks old. His friend General Booth, who is ton years his senoir, takes tremendous journeys. So why should not he? Jt is his wide sympathy, his keenness in every noble cause, which lias given the Chief Rabbi so distinguished a position. He is not only famous among his own people; he is recognised as one of the foremost men of the nation in philanthropic endeavour. Since 1873, when it was founded, he has been on the Council of the Hospital Sunday Fund. He also helps to administer King Edward’s Hospital Fund. He is connected with the People Palace, the Children’s Country Holidays Fund, (he Children’s Happy Evenings, and many other such good works. When he was invited to join the Athenaeum Club, the invitation was given to him, not -alont) v on account of his Hebrew scholarship, but of his social services to the nation at largo. Naturally, Dr. Adler's activity has had the effect of

both raising his office in public estimation and, as the ‘Jewish World put it a few years ago, of showing the whole Jewish people in tlio best light. It in equally natural that he should strongly resent attempts to isolate the Jews, to rsgaid them as a race apart, to represent them as being outside the cm rents of national

thought and feeling. He carried on for several yeais a heated controversy with Professor Coldwin Smith, who had raised the foolish question, ‘Can Jojvs be*’,Patriots ?’ He is at the present moment keenly interested in the Territorial movement, and has been vigorously urging Jewish young men to cr fist.”

Dr. Adler was the author of a number of volumes of sermons and articles on social and historical subjects.