Could have pushed harder

of Deputies. “She foresaw difficulties,” said Ms Preston. “I knew what I was doing and had my agenda, and she saw it as a danger. She was trying to guard the office of the Chief Rabbi.”

The Review put women’s rights higher on the political agenda and opened the minds of women, previously closed through lack of awareness. They were no longer prepared to sit back and wait. Yet wait was exactly what Ms Preston and her supporters had to do, because Rabbi Sacks took so long to consider the Review’s recommendations about women’s involvement in synagogue services, and the agunot.

Some like Syma Weinberg, who worked for Jewish Continuity before becoming Executive Director of the Chief Rabbi’s office, could not understand Rabbi Sacks’ delay. She saw him as “juggling” the issues, making them believe he was on their side, and would do something about it. But maybe Rabbi Sacks was also battling two opposing strands of thought; the younger ones seeking to deepen their religious role within the United Synagogue and those, like Mrs Jakobovits, who felt change would come at its own momentum.

But change didn’t come. Despite his deep intellectual deliberations and anguished desire to put matters right, despite the respect he won from modern Orthodox and Progressives alike, Rabbi Sacks failed to achieve substantial change regarding the role of women in the United Synagogue and the wider issue of agunot. The chained wives must have haunted him, much as they had his predecessor.

As for the agunot, it was Lord Jakobovits who secured a Lords amendment to the Family Law Bill granting the courts the right to withhold a Decree absolute if a man refuses his wife a get. It did not go far enough for many women, disappointed by the Review, who felt Jewish law, not civil law, must address the issue.

Maybe he was battling two opposite strains of thought