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Leo Baeck College ~»\ Library 2 g IDIZ THE SPIRIT OF ISRAEL MATTUCK This year of 1992, still so young and so cold, and especially this first quarter of it, is a season of anhiversaries. 0n the world stage, it recalls, most notably, what happened 500 years ago in Spain. For it was on 2nd January, 1492, that Ferdinand and Isabella entered Granada and so ended nearly 800 years of Muslim rule in the peninSula. In the same month they received Christopher Columbus’s demands for the voyage which was to take him to the New World. And on 3Lst March they issued the infamous decree of expulsion which sent about 200,000 Jews scurrying across the seas in search of a friendly home: the decree which will be finally and formally rescinded by the Spanish Government on the day of its 500th anniversay this year. Of the refugees, about 10,000 made it to Italy. They included a family called Montefiore who landed at Ancona and later settled in Leghorn, otherwise known as Livorno. In the course of the 18th century they came to England, and some of them were among_ the founders of the West London Synagogue, which dedicated its first house of worship, in Burton Street, 150 years ago, on 27th January, 1842. Claude Montefiore, who grew up in that Congregation, had a brilliant career at Oxford, and there, in 1892, delivered the Hibbert Lectures on "The Origin and Growth of Religion as illustrated by the Religion of the Ancient Hebrews". It was an event the centenary of which deserves a mention. For by these nine lectures, which, as subsequently published, run to 552 pages, Montefiore established himself as a major Bible scholar and the first Jew in this country to think through the implications of modern Bible scholarship for Judaism. For him, the chief implication was that, as Judaism had undergone much development during the early centuries of its history, so it must develop again in the modern age. "But," he asked at the efid of his Lectures, "is any permanent reform of Judaism_within the limits of possibility?" "That," he said, "is a question which it is for the future to answer" (p. 551). Well, some of his admirers were not willing to wait for the future. They included Lily Montagu, whose Yahtzeit we observe today, for she died on 22nd January, 1963. It was she who convened the meeting which launched the Jewish Religious Union, or JRU. The meeting was held in the home of her sister Henrietta Franklin, at 50, Porchester Terrace, on 16th February, 1902, so that we are just coming up to the 90th anniversary of that new beginning. The JRU held services and published pamphlets and grew in membership. Among its early members were Simeon Singer, of Singer’s Prayerbook fame, his son Charles, the historian of science, and his son—in-law Israel Abrahams, the eminent Jewish scholar. Another, who later became Treasurer, was Julian Simon. I mention him because it so happens that today is the 125th anniversary of his birth, and because we have with us one of his sons and two of his grandsons: a reassuring token of continuity. After some years the JRU decided that its future lay in establishing a congregation, to be known as the Liberal Jewish Synagogue or LJS, which would exemplify its ideas. In 1911 the LJS acquired its first synagogue in Hill Street, and in the same year Claude Montefiore and Charles Singer went to America in search of a rabbi. LEO BAECK COLLEGE ~»\ LIBRARY 2 They found Israel Mattuck, a graduate, with the highest honours, of Harvard, and of the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, where he had recently received his rabbinic ordination. He was then ministering to a newly founded congregation at Far Rockaway, New York, but had previously, as a student rabbi, _ 7 served a congregation in Lincoln, Nebraska, where he had met the young lady, Edna Mayer, who became his wife. Some of us remember her with great affection. Yesterday was the 35th anniversary of her death. It was a great challenge to take charge of a newly founded congregation. the first of its kind and therefore of uncertain future. in a distant country, but Israel Mattuck accepted it in the spirit of our Haftarah: "And I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then I said: Here am I; send me" (Isa. 6:8). Whatever anxieties the Mattucks felt about it must have become intensified when they sailed into Plymouth harbour on 14th January, 1912, with their baby son Robert suffering from bronchial pneumonia. They had to put up in a hotel, and for some time there was doubt whether they would be able to get to London for the planned Induction Service on Saturday afternoon, 20th January. But they made it, and it is the 80th anniversary of that event which we are chiefly commemorating today. It is a nostalgic occasion for those of us — diminishing in number - who knew Rabbi Mattuck. They include his daughter Dorothy (born after Robert); his co-worker on the educational side, Marjorie Moos; his one-time secretary, Joe Foreman; and a number of others present today as well as a few who could not come but are thinking of us. One of them is Harold Warren, son of Ivor Warren, who was the Choirmaster of our Synagogue from its inception until the Second World War. He is one of several people who have written to me with their personal recollections of Rabbi Mattuck. They all remember him with great affection and an admiration approaching awe, and describe him as "unforgettable". Harold Warren, who uses that expression, nevertheless recalls that Rabbi Mattuck was not an easy man to work for, and that his father, who was himself the youngest son of the famous cantor and composer Chaim Wasserzug, used to say: "He expects grand opera on tuppence halfpenny." Grand opera or not, the Induction Service was evidently impressive musically as well as otherwise, for a contemptuous reporter in the following week’s Jewish Chronicle observed: "The service opened with portions of the Hallel, effectively sung by the choir, a male soloist supplying the necessary Chazanuth, which even the Liberal Synagogue cannot afford to despise" (January 26, 1912, p. 28). The service was conducted by Claude Montefiore, and Rabbi Mattuck, in his sermon, began by paying tribute to him and his co—workers when he said: "They have made possible the beginning of this development, and to them we shall look for aid and guidance in the advancement of it. They have sown the seed, and it is for all of us to tend and guard the plant that it shall bear fruit of blessing unto many." I suspect that those who never knew Israel Mattuck sometimes wonder whether those of us who did don’t praise him excessively. but I don’t think so, and for two reasons. ,| 3 First, because of the magnitude of what he achieved. It is true that the real founders of our Movement were Claude Montefiore on the intellectual side and Lily Montagu on the organisational side, and nobody, least of all I, would wish underestimate to their immense contribution. But in 1912 they had only laid the foundations. It fell to Rabbi Mattuck. far more than any other single individual, to build on them, to Create superstructure. the to transform a tentative experiment into an abiding reality; and he did it with a superb combination of qualities - of learning and wisdom, of oratorical and literary power, and administrative skill — and with unremitting dedication. It was he who built up the LJS until it became one of the largest Jewish congregations in the country, and raised the funds for the building of its first synagogue on this site. It was he who led the Congregation through two World Wars, and kept in touch with its absent members on active service — some of us remember with great appreciation the Fbrces Newsletter we used to receive from him. It was he who built up the Religion and School, instituted Confirmation Services, and established the Alumni Society, and insisted on equal rights for men and women long before such an idea was dreamt of elsewhere in Anglo-Jewry. It was he who edited the prayerbooks which provided our liturgy for over 40 years: the liturgy we have resurrected today. It was who edited he the Liberal Jewish Monthly and used it month after month to explore and expound every aspect of Liberal Judaism and to comment from its point of view on world affairs} He playéd a leading part in the establishment of other congregations, and, as Deppty President and Chairman, effectively steered the Union of Liberal and Progressive Synagogues until his retirement in 1948. He played a key role, as Chairman, establishment in the and furtherance of the World Union for Progressive Judaism. He founded the London Society of Jews and Christians; and I would like to take this opportunity to welcome representatives of all these and associated organisations, including the Reform Synagogues of Great Britain. And yet this catalogue of his achievements, effectively on carried by his son-in-law and successor Rabbi Leslie Edgar, unlock fails to the secret of the extraordinary influence Rabbi Israel Mattuck exerted on those who knew him. That secret lies, not in what he did but in what he was: in his personality and in the faith that shone through it. v His faith had three aspects: in Judaism, in humanity and in truth, all of them springing from and leading back to his faith in God.
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