List of chief rabbis of the United Hebrew Congregations

The following list of chief rabbis of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth gives information regarding the Chief Rabbi of the United Synagogue, which is represented through the mainstream majority Orthodox community of the United Kingdom (as the oldest and original denomination), and various other Orthodox communities located within the Commonwealth of Nations. The Chief Rabbi's full title is the "Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth", previously "... of the British Empire". His title and position has historically, since 1758, been considered to be the Orthodox Jewish community in Britain's equivalent of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

List

№	Image	Name	Term	Title	Notes	Reason for termination
1		Aaron Hart	1704 – 1756	Rabbi of the Great Synagogue		Died in office
2		Hart Lyon	1758 – 1764	Rabbi of the Great Synagogue		Resigned
3		Tevele Schiff	1765 – 1766	Chief Rabbi	Rabbi appointed by the Great Synagogue
4		Meshullam Solomon	1765 – 1780	Chief Rabbi	Appointed in opposition by Hambro and the New Synagogues; return to Hamburg confirmed the primacy of David Tevele Schiff
5		Tevele Schiff	1780 – 1791	Chief Rabbi		Died in office
			1791 – 1802	Post vacant
6		Solomon Hirschell	1802 – 1842	Chief Rabbi		Died in office
7		Nathan Marcus Adler	1845 – 1890	Chief Rabbi
8		Hermann Adler	1891 – 1911	Chief Rabbi	Appointed delegate Chief Rabbi in 1879 due to failing health of his father
9		Joseph Hertz	1913 – 1946	Chief Rabbi		Died in office
10		Israel Brodie	1948 – 1965	Chief Rabbi		Retired
11		Immanuel Jakobovits	1966 – 1991	Chief Rabbi	knighted 1981 life peer 1988	Retired
12		Jonathan Sacks	1991 – 2013	Chief Rabbi	knighted 2005 life peer 2009	Retired
13		Ephraim Mirvis	2013 – present	Chief Rabbi	knighted 2023	Currently serving

See also

• Chief Rabbi
• British Jews
• History of the Jews in England
• History of the Jews in Scotland
• History of the Jews in Wales
• History of the Jews in Northern Ireland

Further reading

• Meir Persoff, Faith Against Reason: Religious Reform and the British Chief Rabbinate 1840-1990, London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2008 ISBN 0853036705
• Meir Persoff, Hats in the Ring: Choosing Britain’s Chief Rabbis from Adler to Sacks, Academic Studies Press, 2013 ISBN 1618112694
• Benjamin J. Elton, Britain's Chief Rabbis and the Religious Character of Anglo-Jewry, 1880–1970, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009 ISBN 0719079659
• Danny Rich, What is Wrong with the Chief Rabbi's Job?, Manna, Summer 2009
• Raymond Apple (2009), The British Chief Rabbinate; and other articles