ר׳ עמנואל יעקובוביץ

ר׳ עמנואל יעקובוביץ (1921–1999) was a German-born British Orthodox rabbi, pioneering scholar of Jewish medical ethics and Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth from 1967 to 1991. Born in Königsberg and raised partly in Berlin, he reached Britain as a teenage refugee from Nazism. After rabbinic and university study in London, he served the Brondesbury Synagogue, became Chief Rabbi of Ireland, and then led New York’s Fifth Avenue Synagogue. His 1959 book Jewish Medical Ethics helped establish Jewish bioethics as a modern field. As Chief Rabbi he emphasized Jewish education and represented traditional Judaism in British public life. Knighted in 1981 and made a life peer in 1988, he was the first British chief rabbi to enter the House of Lords. He died in London in 1999.