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| ===Accusations of Pro-Israeli bias and dissemination of inaccurate and politically motivated Israeli propaganda=== | ===Accusations of Pro-Israeli bias and dissemination of inaccurate and politically motivated Israeli propaganda=== | ||
| Accusations that the United Synagogue acts as a mouthpiece for the Israeli embassy here in the UK and that the United Synagogues pro-actively parrot Israeli government propaganda have been made by members of the public in July 2014. | |||
| ⚫ | |||
| ⚫ | Criticisms relate to the literature and 'learning' material hosted on the United Synagogue website, specifically the complete absence of references and source attribution of claims relating to historical and political events in the life of Israel and its neighboring countries. United Synagogues 'learning' material has been found to promote not only the idea of Israel as a benign force for good in the region vis-a-vis other local actors (such as Hamas in the Gaza strip) but also conforms word-for-word to the Israel government's narrative surrounding: | ||
| 1) the idea of Israel as a true liberal democracy, with equal and inclusive suffrage for all, Jew and non-Jew alike | |||
| 1) the myths of Israel as a true liberal democracy, with equal and inclusive suffrage for all, Jew and non-Jew alike. The learning material makes no mention of the legal reality in Israel today that Arab and other non-Jewish citizens are unable to obtain the status of Israeli Nationals, with Israels high court ruling in 1970 that 'there is no Israeli nation that exists separately from a Jewish nation' ( Ben White, Palestinians in Israel, p12-13. (London: Pluto Press, 2012) | |||
| 2) | |||
| 2) the attribution of benign motives of early Zionist immigrants to Palestine towards the Palestinian native population is both unsubstantiated provided without evidence to support such a claim and stands in direct contradiction to comments made, at the time, by Zionist leaders such as Moshe Sharett who announced that 'we have forgotten that we have not come to an empty land to inherit it' . | |||
| 3) a complete omission of the historically, independently and verifiable documented events of forced mass-expulsion and killings meted out to the native non-Jewish Palestinian population at the hands of Israeli sponsored Zionist terror gangs, Israeli army soldiers and officials, specifically the 700,000 individuals expelled at gunpoint in 1948 and further 300,000 forced to flee Israel in 1967 | |||
| Additionally , criticisms have been alleged as to the inappropriateness of the organisations status as a registered UK charity in light of the political nature of the messages that the United Synagogues promotes under the guide of religion, aligning itself wholly and exclusively to an Pro-Israeli interpretation of history. Calls have been made for it to be stripped of its charitable status. | |||
| ===The Board of Trustees=== | ===The Board of Trustees=== | ||
Revision as of 10:25, 30 July 2014
For the American Conservative synagogue association, see United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism
United Synagogue is an organisation of London Jews that was founded with the sanction of an Act of Parliament, in 1870. As of 2007, it remains the largest religious grouping within the British Jewish community and indeed in Europe, covering 62 Orthodox Jewish communities. It takes its religious authority from the Chief Rabbi of Britain and has its own Beth Din and Dayanim.
The United Synagogue's values stem from the principles of both Torah and Halacha.
History
From 1866, Nathan Marcus Adler was instrumental in bringing together the United Synagogue, a union of the three City of London synagogues — the Great Synagogue, the New Synagogue, and the Hambro Synagogue — and their branch synagogues at Great Portland Street and Bayswater.
Its direct work has always been confined to the metropolis, but it has exercised, indirectly, considerable influence over the Jews of the British Empire and British Commonwealth. It is governed by an elected council representing the constituent congregations. In religious and ritual matters it is under the jurisdiction of the Chief Rabbi. The president of the United Synagogue in 1910 was Nathan Rothschild, 1st Baron Rothschild.
The United Synagogue directs and supports educational and charitable work. The title chief rabbi is not found in the pre-expulsion records, though, before the Jews were banished in 1290, there was an official named presbyter omnium Judaeorum Angliae. The functions of this official have not been proved to have been ecclesiastical. The title Chief Rabbi became well known through the eminence of occupants of the position such as Adler's immediate predecessor Solomon Hirschell (1762–1842).
Timeline
- 1690 – Foundation of the Great Synagogue
- 1707 – Hambro' Synagogue established
- 1761 – New Synagogue established
- 1837 – New Synagogue moves to Great St. Helens
- 1845 – Nathan Marcus Adler becomes Chief Rabbi
- 1855 – Central Synagogue established
- 1863 – Bayswater Synagogue established
- 1870 – The five Ashkenazi Synagogues join to form the United Synagogue
- 1891 – Hermann Marcus Adler succeeds his father as Chief Rabbi
- 1913 – Joseph Herman Hertz becomes Chief Rabbi
- 1914 – United Synagogue comprises 21 communities
- 1931–38 – Nineteen more communities join
- 1939 – United Synagogue comprises 52 communities
- 1945–55 – Thirty more communities join
- 1948 – Israel Brodie becomes Chief Rabbi
- 1967 – Immanuel Jakobovits becomes Chief Rabbi
- 1991 – Jonathan Sacks becomes Chief Rabbi
- 1995 – 125th Anniversary Celebrations
- 2001 – Women first permitted to become local synagogue officers (yet restricted to the roles of vice-chair or financial representative)
- 2003 – Tribe (Young United Synagogue) launched
- 2008 – United Synagogue comprises over 60 communities
- 2012 – Women first permitted to become chairs of United Synagogue congregations, scheduled to start May 2013
- 2013 – Karen Appleby becomes the first female chair of a United Synagogue congregation, St Albans congregation.
- 2013 – Ephraim Mirvis becomes Chief Rabbi
Organisation
The rabbinic leadership of the United Synagogue is vested in the chief rabbi and the London Beth Din. The lay leadership comprises the president and trustees (shiva tuvei ha'ir).
The United Synagogue was established for charitable purposes by the Jewish United Synagogues Act of 1870. It was formally registered as a charity on 2 June 1965 (Registered Charity No 24255; Executive Offices: 305 Ballards Lane, London N12 8GB; Tel: 020 8343 8989)
The Schedule to the Act was previously the major constitutional document of the charity. This has subsequently been augmented by the Statutes of the United Synagogue, passed by the United Synagogue Council in April 1999, which set out the charity's objects, its role and powers and those of its Honorary Officers (Trustees) and its Council; by the Byelaws, which set out the system of governance of local synagogues; and by the Election Regulations, which set out the procedure for electing the Board of Trustees every three years.
The relationship of the United Synagogue and its Affiliates is governed by the Affiliate Scheme.
Accusations of Pro-Israeli bias and dissemination of inaccurate and politically motivated Israeli propaganda
Accusations that the United Synagogue acts as a mouthpiece for the Israeli embassy here in the UK and that the United Synagogues pro-actively parrot Israeli government propaganda have been made by members of the public in July 2014.
Criticisms relate to the literature and 'learning' material hosted on the United Synagogue website, specifically the complete absence of references and source attribution of claims relating to historical and political events in the life of Israel and its neighboring countries. United Synagogues 'learning' material has been found to promote not only the idea of Israel as a benign force for good in the region vis-a-vis other local actors (such as Hamas in the Gaza strip) but also conforms word-for-word to the Israel government's narrative surrounding:
1) the myths of Israel as a true liberal democracy, with equal and inclusive suffrage for all, Jew and non-Jew alike. The learning material makes no mention of the legal reality in Israel today that Arab and other non-Jewish citizens are unable to obtain the status of Israeli Nationals, with Israels high court ruling in 1970 that 'there is no Israeli nation that exists separately from a Jewish nation' ( Ben White, Palestinians in Israel, p12-13. (London: Pluto Press, 2012)
2) the attribution of benign motives of early Zionist immigrants to Palestine towards the Palestinian native population is both unsubstantiated provided without evidence to support such a claim and stands in direct contradiction to comments made, at the time, by Zionist leaders such as Moshe Sharett who announced that 'we have forgotten that we have not come to an empty land to inherit it' .
3) a complete omission of the historically, independently and verifiable documented events of forced mass-expulsion and killings meted out to the native non-Jewish Palestinian population at the hands of Israeli sponsored Zionist terror gangs, Israeli army soldiers and officials, specifically the 700,000 individuals expelled at gunpoint in 1948 and further 300,000 forced to flee Israel in 1967
Additionally , criticisms have been alleged as to the inappropriateness of the organisations status as a registered UK charity in light of the political nature of the messages that the United Synagogues promotes under the guide of religion, aligning itself wholly and exclusively to an Pro-Israeli interpretation of history. Calls have been made for it to be stripped of its charitable status.
The Board of Trustees
The Board of Trustees (also known as the United Synagogue Honorary Officers, or USHOs) have overall responsibility for the activities of the United Synagogue. They are elected by the Council of the United Synagogue (see below) every three years. The last elections took place in July 2011, and the current president is Stephen Pack.
The Board of Trustees consists of a President, three Vice-Presidents and three Treasurers. Trustees serve for a three-year period and may be re-elected for a further three-year period in the same position. They may go on to serve similarly in other trustee positions. The powers of the Trustees are set out in the Statutes.
Responsibility for the religious direction and guidance of the United Synagogue is vested in the Chief Rabbi.
While no formal policy for the recruitment of trustees exists as such, the constitution provides that a trustee must have prior experience of serving on the Board of Management at one of the network of local Synagogue Communities for which the United Synagogue is the umbrella body and where the majority of the charity's activities take place. Trustees who stand for election have had wide experience of lay leadership in the general Jewish Community for which they are taking responsibility.
The Board of Trustees meets, on average, once a month to take strategic and policy decisions. These meetings are attended by the Chief Executive, Director of Finance and the Company Secretary to provide operational advice as required. In addition other Divisional Directors are invited as appropriate.
The Board of Trustees has various sub-committees convened for the better working of the charity, and the membership of those committees comprises Trustees as well as other individuals, lay and professional. These sub-committees have such delegated decision making powers as are set out in their own terms of reference.
The Council of the United Synagogue
The Council represents the voice of the membership of the United Synagogue, and has retained four powers from the days when it was the trustee body of the charity:
- To elect and remove Trustees
- To consent to proposed amendments to the constitution of the United Synagogue
- To admit/discontinue the membership of any synagogue to the United Synagogue
- To consider the Budget and accounts of the United Synagogue.
The Council is elected annually by members of local synagogues at the same time as the annual synagogue elections for local honorary officers. Each synagogue elects a number of Council Representatives based on the number of members it has. All current trustees are members of Council ex officio, as are the immediate previous set of trustees. There are in addition a limited number of life members including all past Presidents. Council meets four times a year, with two of those meetings to receive the annual budget and the presentation of the annual accounts.
The Synagogues
The United Synagogue has 44 Member, 17 Affiliate and 1 Associate synagogues.
Member synagogues
The member synagogues are part of the United Synagogue. The day-to-day responsibility for running the individual member synagogues is delegated by the trustees to local honorary officers and boards of management elected annually by the members of the local synagogues.
The Byelaws regulate the powers of the local honorary officers and the conduct of local synagogue activities. The trustees from time to time issue guidelines or instructions to supplement the Byelaws.
The religious affairs of the synagogues are run by the local rabbi (together with a cantor if appropriate) and the wardens (who are part of the team of Honorary Officers) under the overall guidance of the Chief Rabbi. Professional administrators are employed at most synagogues to provide the local lay leadership with administrative support in the effective management of the community.
Local synagogues collect an annual membership subscription—the communal payover—from their members. A proportion of this membership is paid over to the Centre for the services provided generally and to support the further development of the charity. The remainder of the membership subscriptions are retained and administered locally according to United Synagogue rules, and are used to run the local community.
Affiliate synagogues
These are synagogues which are constitutionally one step removed from the United Synagogue, and whose relationship to the charity is governed by the Affiliate scheme. They are independent legal entities (sometimes independent charities) which 'affiliate' to the United Synagogue for a variety of purposes but which do not form part of the charity. The Affiliates govern their synagogue under the Byelaws, as varied by the Affiliate scheme. The United Synagogue provides them with certain limited services for which they also pay an annual contribution.
The professional staff
The Board of Trustees delegates powers for the day-to-day running of the Charity as a whole to the Chief Executive and, through him, to the senior professionals team.
- Jeremy Jacobs, Chief Executive
- David Kaplan, Community Services Director responsible for the Community Division and Tribe
- Rabbi Jeremy Conway, External Services Director responsible for Kashrut and Eruvin
- David Frei, External and Legal Services Director responsible for in house legal advice, London Beth Din, Burial and Visitation
- Ian Myers, Marketing and Communication Director responsible for the marketing and communication strategy of the United Synagogue
The Chief Executive in addition has responsibility for in Finance and Human Resources Departments.
List of member synagogues
(List only contains synagogues with Misplaced Pages pages)
- New West End Synagogue
- Richmond Synagogue
- Stanmore and Canons Park Synagogue
- Wembley United Synagogue
See also
Notes
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "United Synagogue" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (July 2012) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
- ^ Abrahams 1911.
- Apple 2009.
- http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/93452/united-synagogue-says-yes-women-leaders
- http://www.thejc.com/community/community-life/94185/united-synagogue-approves-women-shul-chairmen
- http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/106749/st-albans-woman-breakthrough-united-synagogue-election
- An Act for confirming a Scheme of the Charity Commissioners for the Jewish United Synagogues, 14 July 1870; UK National Archives
References
- Apple, Raymond (August 2009). Apple, Raymond (ed.). "Nathan Marcus Adler—Chief Rabbi, by Rabbi Raymond Apple". OzTorah. Retrieved July 2012.
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- Attribution
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Abrahams, Israel (1911). "Synagogue, United". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 26 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 292.
External links
- United Synagogue web site
- List of Congregations of the United Synagogue on Jewish Communities and Records – UK (hosted by jewishgen.org).
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