Another Way, Another Time: Religious Inclusivism and the Sacks Chief Rabbinate(Judaism and Jewish Life)

British Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks launched his tenure of office in 1991 with the aim of an inclusivist Decade of Jewish Renewal. Within a few years - fulfilling his installation prediction that 'I will have failures, but I will try again, another way, another time' - he was attracting calls, from opponents and supporters, for his resignation and the abolition of his office. Reviewing Sacks' early writings and pronouncements on the theme of inclusivism, Persoff demonstrates how, repeatedly, the Chief Rabbi said 'irreconcilable things to different audiences' and how, in the process, he induced his kingmaker and foremost patron to declare of Anglo-Jewry: 'We are in a time warp, and fast becoming an irrelevance in terms of world Jewry'. Citing support from a variety of sources, "Another Way, Another Time" contends that the Chief Rabbinate has indeed reached the end of the road and explores other paths to the leadership of a pluralistic - and, ideally, inclusivist - community.

Table of Contents:
Foreword by Geoffrey Alderman; Preface; With Open Arms; Beyond the Limits; Leading by Example; The Culture of Contempt; The Search for Survival; The Stanmore Accords; Interlude. From First to Second; The Indignity of Difference; The Crucible of Judaism; The Dynamic of Renewal; Rites and Wrongs; The Stanmore Discords; The Mirage of Unity; The Pull of Pluralism; Notes; Bibliography.

About the Author :
Now a freelance writer and editor, Meir Persoff edited the London Jewish Chronicle's news, features, arts, Judaism, letters and obituaries sections during a distinguished 40-year career on the paper. He has written extensively on Jewish topics notably Jewish art and Judaica and served on the Jewish Book Council and as president of the Israel-Judaica Philatelic Society. A Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a Life Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, he holds a London University MA (with distinction) in Hebrew and Jewish Studies, having specialised in modern Jewish history and the history of anti-Semitism, and earned his PhD from Middlesex University, London, for his research into the British Chief Rabbinate's relationship with the non-Orthodox movements. He was appointed a Justice of the Peace for the Middlesex Commission Area in 2001.

Review :
‘'[Persoff] has been able to deploy his material against the background of an extensive knowledge of the inner world of British Jewry, gathered over a lifetime reporting and commenting upon it without fear and without favour. Another Way, Another Time will certainly not be the last word on Jonathan Sacks. But all who write on this subject hereafter will need to measure their efforts against the yardstick Dr Persoff has fashioned, and which he now sets before us.’' "[The book’s] major achievement is to gather abundant primary source material, much of it taken from contemporary printed material (e.g. The Jewish Chronicle, Manna and other Jewish journals) and from archival collections at the London Metropolitan Archives and the Hartley Library at the University of Southampton. In addition, the author was given access to the private papers of Rabbis Immanuel Jakobovits, Louis Jacobs, and Sidney Brichto. . . . The sources presented by Persof . . . are balanced. . . . Persoff has provided abundant documentary evidence about how fraught with pitfalls the position is for a new Chief Rabbi today."