Sydney rabbi tipped for Commonwealth chief
THE senior rabbi of The Great Synagogue in Sydney, Rabbi Jeremy Lawrence, has been tipped as a possible successor for Lord Jonathan Sacks as the Commonwealth’s chief rabbi.
THE senior rabbi of The Great Synagogue in Sydney, Rabbi Jeremy Lawrence, has been tipped as a possible successor for Lord Jonathan Sacks as the Commonwealth’s chief rabbi.
It was announced last week that the peer, who has held the position for more than two decades, would be stepping down in September 2013.
The hunt for Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks’s replacement is set to begin next year, following a widespread consultation by the Chief Rabbinate Trust on how a 21st century chief rabbi should be chosen. That process is set to conclude in July.
Among those the Jewish media in the UK have suggested as likely shoe fillers is Rabbi Lawrence.
The 44-year-old, who has been at The Great Synagogue since 2005, previously worked with Lord Sacks as a research assistant on a BBC lecture series he delivered in 1990.
Rabbi Lawrence is among three potential candidates named by the UK’s Jewish News and nine listed by The Jewish Chronicle (The JC).
Although he has lived outside Britain for more than a decade – having held the pulpit at the Auckland Hebrew Congregation for seven years before arriving in Sydney – The JC says a recent sermon delivered at London’s Hampstead Garden Suburb Synagogue would have been “a rare opportunity for him to make a local impression”.
Among the other rabbis in the running, according to the newspaper, are Rabbi Shaul Robinson, Dayan Ivan Binstock and Rabbi Warren Goldstein, the youngest-ever chief rabbi of South Africa.
Rabbi Lawrence told The AJN: “I know many of the rabbis listed in The Jewish Chronicle article. All have made outstanding contributions to their kehillot [congregations] and the wider community. It is encouraging that Anglo-Jewry has such a formidable pool of talent to draw on.”
AJN STAFF
Photo: Rabbi Jeremy Lawrence
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