Should rabbis dabble in politics? Should they use their influence to persuade their congregation to follow a certain political path? Should this authority extend to interventions in parliamentary elections and other matters of national debate?
I pose these questions because in recent days British Jews has been confronted with some dramatic instances of very public rabbinical interventions which are of a shamelessly political, not to say party-political, nature.
Consider two recent examples. In the City of London on Monday 14 October –during Succot (the Jewish festival of Tabernacles) – a rabbi dressed in full ecclesiastical attire attempted to block a public highway in support of Extinction Rebellion (XR) and had to be removed – indeed arrested – by the police.
On Wednesday 30 October another rabbi sent a letter to all of his congregation (some 823 families reportedly spread across no less than 16 parliamentary constituencies) urging them all to put aside their own political loyalties and vote instead for the party most likely to defeat Labour. And
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