Is ‘Anglo-Judaism’ a going concern?
Simon Rocker on whether there is a future for the middle-of-the-road traditionalism of minhag Anglia
SHORTLY BEFORE he set off for his new home in Israel a few weeks ago, Ezra Margulies explained the reason for his departure. While antisemitism is often raised in any discussion of emigration, the former Limmud programming team leader, 29, said it was not something he had personally experienced. “The honest truth is that antisemitism is often the least concern of the people who are making aliyah,” he said.
Instead, he argued, Israel offered the prospect of a more vibrant Jewish life for young people like himself — in contrast to what he saw as a lack of pride within British Jewry in its own cultural heritage.
The young Jews who looked to Israel or the USA for their future were often “the most passionate, the most Jewishly engaged”, he told the launch meeting of Jewish Quest, a new spin-off from the Friends of Louis Jacobs to stimulate wider discussion of theology.
The “haemorrhaging of talent” was, he said, of the “community’s own making”.
Originally from Monaco, he came to the UK ten years ago, gained a BA in Jewish studies from Oxford University followed by an MA in theology from Cambridge, and worked as an editor for the Littman Library of Jewish Civilization and as a project manager for the Friends of Louis Jacobs. His varied synagogue experience included Brondesbury Park, Alei Tzion in Hendon, Central Square in Hampstead Garden Suburb and the Oxford Hebrew congregation.
A firm believer in a strong diaspora, he argued that the distinctive local traditions of Jewish communities enriched the Jewish people as a whole. Perhaps an English sense of selfdeprecation was leading British Jews to devalue their own legacy of “Anglo-Judaism”.
In its commitment to Israel, the community seemed “to have embraced the sabra narrative of a decrepit diaspora superseded by a rejuvenated, energised invigorated sovereign existence”; and accepted that what came out of Zion was “superior and more authentically Jewish”. In synagogue services, the cantorial traditions which “we all actually quite enjoy on the High Holy Days” were giving way to imports from overseas that were not always well-suited to the English temperament, he suggested. The “ubiquitous” melodies of Shlomo Carlebach and Debbie Friedman were difficult to square with “the equally pervasive English reluctance and even disdain for ostentatious displays of happiness, or dancing. Anyone who has ever attended a Simchat Torah service in this country knows what I am talking about.”
Kosher restaurants in Golders Green sold sushi, felafel and pizza, but no longer Ashkenazi staples like salt beef.
He recalled a Friday night dinner with some Jewish school alumni who had never heard of Louis Jacobs and “had only the faintest idea of who Immanuel Jakobovits was”. For most young Jews, Anglo-Jewish history was “a blank”.
“If we ingrain in our own consciousness the intrinsic lack of value or worth of AngloJudaism,” he contended, “then it is not surprising that young Jews, especially those who are most committed… find that their only option is to make aliyah.”
Whether or not you agree with his diagnosis, it raises the
question of whether such a thing as “AngloJudaism” still exists — and whether it is simply a synagogue aesthetic or represents a broader outlook.
In an article on minhag Anglia published 10 years ago, the Oxford University academic Miri Freud-Kandel explained that for some, the term meant a decorum in worship, while for others it referred to the specific liturgy adopted by the United Synagogue, typified by the Singer’s siddur. But more generally it came to denote “the often unsystematic blending of Jewishness and Englishness that can characterise Anglo-Jewish practice”, with its unthinking conformity to tradition.
In the 1970s, the term began to be used to “recall an earlier stage in British Jewry that celebrated inclusivity and eschewed religious stringency”, she wrote. For Chief Rabbi Jakobovits, minhag Anglia was too tepid an approach and he instead turned8 to a more rigorous Modern Orthodoxy, based on Shimshon Raphael HIrsch’s principle of Torah im derech eretz. While he advocated Jewish engagement with the wider world, he believed that Judaism had more to give to than gain from a society whose mores he was often critical of.
Although his efforts were successful in inspiring some to greater religious observance, Dr Freud-Kandel concluded, other middle-of-the-road synagogue members were left behind, opting instead for “cultural forms of Jewish identity to replace religious ones”.
In the ensuing years, minhag Anglia would appear, on the face of it, to be in irreversible retreat. The Singer’s Prayerbook, if not as prevalent as before, is still widely used but the Routledge machzor and the Hertz Chumash, that encapsulated the Anglo-Orthodox tradition, have struggled to maintain their foothold.
And yet is there a way in which we can still speak positively of minhag Anglia, in the sense of representing a spirit of inclusion? Perhaps it is reflected in the work of the community’s two greatest post-War Judaic thinkers: Louis Jacobs and Jonathan Sacks. In their different ways, both aimed for a broad audience; they wrote for the laity rather than the academy and placed a premium on clarity of expression.
Both were conversant with the wider culture and taught Torah with reference to other disciplines — exemplifying openness rather than insularity.
We might see it at work, too, in the evolution of Limmud, that grew organically from the grassroots but never formed itself into a movement with a manifesto or a mission to promote pluralism. It was somewhere Jews could learn with and from each other, even if they prayed in different places or not at all — and then share a drink in the bar.