Complete digital collection of Rabbi Louis Jacobs’ books

Friends of LouisJacobs.org are delighted to be live with this new comprehensive book site.

The suggestion to digitize came from the initiative of Yvonne and Cyril Korn, great friends of Rabbi and Mrs Jacobs. They see a new global generation who will be able to make sense of Judaism through Rabbi Jacobs’s approach. One they saw being more relevant today than ever before. Thanks to their great support we are live and welcome new readers.

WE ACKNOWLEDGE and THANK THE PUBLISHERS for their help with this venture.

We Have Reason To Believe

This book examines the basic beliefs of Judaism in light of modern thought. Its shape is traditional but not fundamentalist.

This book, the main cause of the ‘Jacobs Affair’ in which the author’s appointment to an Orthodox Rabbinic position was vetoed, suggests that the doctrine Torah Min Ha-Shamayyin (The Torah is from Heaven) needs to be reinterpreted so as not to be in conflict with modern knowledge.

The controversy erupted again in the 1990s when Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks declared that those who hold views similar to the author’s have severed links with the faith of their ancestors. This expanded fifth edition, with a Preface by William Frankel and a Retrospect of the ‘Jacobs Affair’ by the author, will enable readers to follow the argument and make up their own minds.

The book was first published in 1957 by Vallentine Mitchell, of which publishing house Frank Cass was (and happily still is) the director. The book received little attention until the ‘Jacobs Mfair’ of which it was the catalyst. A second edition was published in 1962, when the early rumblings of the ‘Mfair’ were beginning to be heard.

Complete digital collection of Rabbi Louis Jacobs’ books

We Have Reason To Believe

Having written almost 50 books, Louis Jacobs introduces all of them

Catalogue

Writings, Audio & Videos