ר׳ יונתן זקס

ר׳ יונתן זקס (8 March 1948–7 November 2020), formally ר׳ יעקב צבי בן דוד אריה, was a British Orthodox rabbi, philosopher, educator, broadcaster, and public intellectual. Born in Lambeth and educated in Finchley, Cambridge, Oxford, London, and rabbinical colleges, he credited formative 1968 conversations with ר׳ יוסף דוב סולובייצ׳יק and ר׳ מנחם מנדל שניאורסון with directing him toward the rabbinate. After serving Golders Green and Western Marble Arch synagogues and leading Jews’ College, he became Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth in 1991 and served until 2013. He promoted Jewish education, communal renewal, interfaith responsibility, and an intellectually confident Judaism able to engage modern democratic society. His writing joined Torah commentary with moral philosophy and public theology, addressing covenant, human dignity, religious violence, science, politics, and social fragmentation. He published more than forty books, delivered the annual Covenant & Conversation commentaries, and taught at institutions including King’s College London, New York University, and Yeshiva University. Knighted in 2005, he entered the House of Lords as the crossbench life peer Baron Sacks of Aldgate in 2009 and received the Templeton Prize in 2016. He died in London after cancer and was buried at Bushey New Cemetery. His speeches, manuscripts, correspondence, and Chief Rabbinate papers are preserved in the National Library of Israel.