הרב נתן מרקוס אדלר

Rabbi Nathan Marcus Adler HaKohen (21 Tevet 5563/1803–29 Tevet 5650/1890) was the Chief Rabbi of the British Empire for forty-five years. A kohen, he was born in Hanover, where his father, Rav Mordechai (Marcus) Baer Adler, was chief rabbi, and he was named for the kabbalist Rav Nathan Adler of Frankfurt. After learning under his father he went to the yeshiva of Würzburg under Rav Avraham Bing, where his chaverim included Rav Yaakov Ettlinger, the Aruch LaNer, and Rav Yitzchak Dov HaLevi Bamberger. Alongside the yeshiva he studied classics and modern languages at the university and took a doctorate in philosophy — the first rav in Germany to hold one. He served as rav of Würzburg and then returned to Hanover as Landesrabbiner.

When the British chief rabbinate fell vacant, 135 communities voted on 1 December 1844 from a shortlist of four that included Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch; Rav Adler received 121 of the votes. He came to London in 5605/1845 as Chief Rabbi and rav of the Great Synagogue. He founded Jews’ College in 5615/1855, was the first Chief Rabbi to make regular pastoral tours through the kingdom, waged a determined war against the Reform movement in England, and was the moving force behind the United Synagogue, established by Act of Parliament in 1870, which still takes its religious authority from the Chief Rabbi. His years in office saw the completion of Jewish emancipation in Britain, and through his ties with government and church he influenced the laws on religious instruction in the general schools.

With the Board of Deputies and the Alliance he worked for the Jews of Romania and pressed for their aliyah, and his long friendship with Moses Montefiore was devoted to the help of Jews in the diaspora and in Eretz Yisrael. In 5617/1857 he hoped to accompany Montefiore to the Holy Land, but the plan fell through and he never reached it. He corresponded with Rav Tzvi Hirsch Kalischer on yishuv Eretz Yisrael, joined the society for settling the land that Dr. Chaim Luria founded, and headed the committee of the Montefiore memorial fund. Rav Shmuel Salant of Yerushalayim, who knew him in London, wrote of him as a gaon, great in Torah and yirat Hashem, a tzaddik and an upright man.

His major work is Netinah LaGer on Targum Onkelos; beside it stand Ahavat Yonatan on Targum Yonatan, a translation of the Kuzari, a short commentary on the commentary attributed to Rav Hai Gaon on Seder Taharot, and drashot, chiddushim, teshuvot, and siddurim with translation. His son Rav Naftali Hermann Adler, his assistant from 5639/1879, succeeded him as Chief Rabbi; another son, Elkan Nathan Adler, the historian and collector, brought some 25,000 fragments of the Cairo Genizah to England. Ill in his last years, he withdrew to Brighton, where he was niftar; he is buried in the Jewish cemetery at Willesden, and streets carry his name in Whitechapel and in Yemin Moshe, Yerushalayim.