Printed volume with pages of manuscript addenda of the Laws
of the Congregation of the Great Synagogue, Duke Place, London, Revised and
Enacted 5587, London, 1827. Printed on the leather binding of this
volume is: "Synagogue Chambers Duke Place," which makes this
volume the congregation's copy of its laws. The Great Synagogue is the
"cathedral synagogue" of London's Ashkenazi community, and
manuscript pages bound into the book contain the laws enacted by the
congregation after 1827. As such, it is an indispensable source for the
history of English Jewry in the middle decades of the nineteenth century.
There we find enactments reflecting the union of Ashkenazi Jewry through
agreements reached by the Great, Hambro, and New Synagogues to collaborate
in communal and charitable endeavors, the Great Synagogue assuming
obligations for half the funding. These agreements laid the foundation for
the emergence of the United Synagogue, British Jewry's central religious
organization, of which the Great Synagogue was the mother institution.
These new laws also reflect the ascendancy of Ashkenazi Jewry to leadership
of the community, especially in the Board of Deputies of British Jews, made
possible by the emergence of the Rothschild and Goldsmith families as
leading powers in the British financial world. Enactment 346, inscribed by
hand provides: "That the body of Deputies of British Jews be the only
official medium of communication with the Government of the country."
Two companion volumes indicate the rapid acculturation
of English Jewry and the freedom they felt to express irreverent views of
persons in high places. The 1827 edition of the Laws is in elegant
English, while the 1791 edition is in an archaic Yiddish peppered with
Hebrew phrases. Another copy of the 1827 edition contains factual notations
in manuscript, as well as such critical remarks as: the "highly gifted
and worthy" printed evaluation of Dr. Solomon Hirschel, the Chief
Rabbi, is underlined in pen and accompanied by a marginal note, “highly
gifted-fudge. ”