Originally published in Louis Jacobs (ed.), Modern Jewish Thought: Selected Issues, 1889-1966. The essays in this anthology of Modern Jewish Thought first appeared (with the exception of the Wilhelm essay) in well-known Jewish learned journals. As in all anthologies, there is a strong element of subjectivity and possibly arbitrariness in the choice of what to include…....

Originally published in An introduction to Jewish law, ed. Peter Elman (London: Lincolns-Prager, 1958), 44-52. Kinds of Property Classical Jewish Law knows of three kinds of property—that which has an owner or owners, ownerless property, and property belonging to the Temple. “Owned” property can belong to one person or to more than one. In cases…...

A summary of two lectures given by Rabbi Dr. Louis Jacobs, originally published in Jewish Woman’s Review, April/May 1955. The third and fourth lectures in the Bible Course on “The Historical Books of the Bible” organized by the F.W.Z. Education Department and were given by Rabbi Dr. L. Jacobs, on Monday, January 10th and Monday, February…...

Originally published in the Jewish Chronicle Supplement, 8 October 1982. Given the importance of home life in Judaism it is not surprising to find there are special laws and ceremonies to be observed by those moving into a new home. In Deuteronomy[1] it is stated that when a new house is built, a parapet must be…...

Originally published in the Jewish Gazette, Friday 12 October 1973, during the Yom Kippur War. Most of us were at prayer in the synagogue when the news began to filter through that a cowardly advantage had been taken of the advent of Yom Kippur to attack Israel. Dread of what it might entail, terribly justified in…...

Originally published in Jewish Monthly 5:1 (1951), pp. 7-17. In approaching any apparent or real conflict between Jewish Law and the modern world Orthodoxy can, of course, take the stand that its laws, being of divine origin, and their development having obtained the sanction of the whole of the Jewish people in former times, do not…...

Originally published in Manna, Summer 1984, pp. 9-11. The verse that springs automatically to mind in any reflection on the Jewish attitude to work is: ‘Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work; But the seventh day is the sabbath of, the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work’ (Exodus…...

Originally published in The Jewish Chronicle, New Year Section, 9 September 1977. The Machzor for the Days of Awe (all the page references in this article are to the Routledge edition) is not, of course, the product of a single mind, but contains elements from the biblical and rabbinic periods to which were added over the…...

Originally published in The Times, 11 January 1989. It resurfaces periodically and has done so again after the destruction of the Pan-American airliner by a terrorist bomb: the supposedly clear distinction between Christian love and Jewish vindictiveness, between the harsh Old Testament ethic of “an eye for an eye” and the benign New Testament ethic of…...

Originally published in The New Londoner: The Magazine of the New London Synagogue, 1:7 (January 1968). “How should religious Jews react to what has happened and how should they interpret it in the light of their faith? It is perhaps too soon to see the six-day war in its historical perspective but we are not absolved…...

The practice of reading the Torah in the synagogue is at least two thousand years old and is probably much older but there is a good deal of uncertainty regarding the beginnings of the custom of reading the Torah sabbath by sabbath. It is probable that at an earlier period only special portions were read,…...

Originally published in Living Judaism: A Quarterly Journal of the Reform Synagogues of Great Britain, 5:3 (Winter 1973). “WHAT IS A RABBI?” ASKS DR. LOUIS JACOBS It is a high honour to welcome into the Rabbinate our four colleagues who are ordained this day to be Rabbis in Israel, and to address a few words to them…....

Originally published in The Lawyer magazine 5:1 (Hilary 1962). The Beth Din : the Jewish Ecclesiastical Court[1] Louis Jacobs Most orthodox[2] Jewish communities of any size have an ecclesiastical court known as the Beth Din (Beth = “house of,” Din = “justice”). It is not within the scope of this largely descriptive article to discuss the theological question…...

Originally published in the Jewish Chronicle on 27 October 1972. Israel’s new Chief Rabbi, Shlomo Goren is often said to adhere to the school of Hillel in his rabbinical attitudes, RABBI DR. LOUIS JACOBS explains what this means. Hillel and Shammai lived two thousand years ago. According to the conventional picture, rabbis ever since have been…...