Nathan Marcus Adler

Nathan Marcus Adler was born in Hanover, Germany, where his father was the city’s Chief Rabbi. He was one of four candidates shortlisted in 1844 for appointment as Chief Rabbi in London following the death of Solomon Hirschell, and garnered a comfortable majority of the votes.

Initially settling in Aldgate, where the Great Synagogue was located and where the majority of London Jews were living in the mid-19th century, he and his family took up residence a short distance west at 16 Finsbury Square in Moorgate. Finsbury Square is now very much part of the business district that surrounds the City of London itself, but at that date was still, to some extent, a residential location. Jews’ College was established at no 10 Finsbury Square in 1855, its first principal, Michael Friedländer (see separate entry) living with his family on the premises. And Julius Reuter (see separate entry), founder of the news agency that bears his name, was living at no 23.

On taking up office, Adler became Chief Rabbi of the Ashkenazi community, not just of the United Kingdom, but of the whole of the British Empire. The empire by this time extended across the globe, and large numbers of Jews were migrating to the opportunities it opened up, for example in Canada, South Africa, India, Australia and New Zealand. The Chief Rabbi’s reach was truly global.

Within the UK, Adler began the practice of pastoral tours as a means of outreach to the large number of provincial congregations already in place in Britain in the mid-19th century. This laid the ground for the United Synagogue, which was initially just a union of the City of London’s three Ashkenazi synagogues, but soon became the umbrella body for mainstream Orthodox congregations throughout the land, and indeed Empire. Adler had, inevitably, other interests and commitments, and among them is remembered as one of the founders of the NSPCC. 

His son, Hermann Adler (1839-1911), a distinguished rabbi in his own right, took over many of Adler’s duties as Nathan’s health began to fail, and succeeded him on his death.