Adler

Introduction

The Adler lineage occupies, in the history of Western Judaism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a singular place: it forms the living bridge between the German rabbinic tradition — nourished by the academies of Frankfurt and Hanover — and the emergence of an institutional British Judaism, orderly, capable of conversing with the Crown as well as with modern science. A family of cohanim, of scholars, of travellers and of collectors, the Adlers gave to the British Empire two successive Chief Rabbis, both born in Hanover: Nathan Marcus HaKohen Adler (13 January 1803 – 21 January 1890), whose Hebrew name was Natan ben Mordechai ha-Kohen, was Chief Rabbi of the British Empire from 1845 until his death, and his son Hermann Adler, who succeeded him.

But the name Adler — "eagle" in German, a biblical allusion to the wings that bear Israel — extends beyond the rabbinic office alone. It encompasses a controversial eighteenth-century Frankfurt kabbalist, a learned translator of the medieval traveller Benjamin of Tudela, and one of the greatest Jewish bibliophiles of the modern era, gatherer of the fragments of the Cairo Genizah. The present work traces this lineage from its Frankfurt and Hanoverian roots to its Anglo-Jewish flourishing, restoring at once the genealogy, the doctrine, and the works.

In the absence of manuscripts in the Zakhor corpus explicitly mentioning this family, the account draws upon the authoritative notices of the Jewish Encyclopedia, the Encyclopaedia Judaica, the Encyclopædia Britannica, as well as the archives of the Jewish Theological Seminary and specialised monographs. Uncertainties are flagged as such; nothing is asserted here that is not verifiable.

Chapter 1: The Frankfurt Roots and the Kabbalist Nathan Adler

The Adler house descends from an ancient Jewish family of Frankfurt am Main. The Jewish Encyclopedia recalls that Nathan Marcus Adler came from a Jewish family of Frankfurt which, over several centuries, provided theologians for the rabbinical chairs of the continental ghettos [Jewish Encyclopedia]. This Frankfurt foundation is no anecdote: it explains the density of scholarship that characterizes each generation and the prestige the family enjoyed well before its British settlement.

The eponymous figure who illuminates the eighteenth century is that of the kabbalist Nathan HaKohen Adler. Nathan Adler (1741–1800) was an eminent German kabbalist and rosh yeshiva in Frankfurt. A deeply revered yet controversial figure, he trained several of the most influential rabbis of his age, in particular the Chatam Sofer. [Wikipedia]. His pietistic practices, tinged with Lurianic kabbalah, provoked within the Frankfurt community tensions that went as far as the threat of excommunication: in 1782 he was elected rabbi of Boskowitz in Moravia, but his excessive and mystical piety having earned him enemies, he was compelled to leave his congregation and, in 1785, returned to Frankfurt; as he persisted in his earlier practices, the threat of excommunication was renewed in 1789, remaining a source of tension until the last year of his life [Wikipedia, Nathan Adler]. It was from this kabbalist, and not through direct agnatic descent, that Nathan Marcus Adler received his given name: he was named after the kabbalist Nathan Adler [Wikipedia].

The shadow cast by the kabbalist over the lineage is essential: it gives the name Adler, in the Rhenish region of Germany, a tonality at once scholarly and spiritual. When the Adlers of Hanover — among whom genealogists admit, not by chance, an extended kinship with the Frankfurt stock — rose in dignity, they would carry the memory of this pietist.

Chapter 2: Hanover, the Paternal Rabbinate, and the Formation of Nathan Marcus

The Adlers' nineteenth century opens in Hanover, then attached to the British Crown by personal union under George III. The Jewish Encyclopedia states: Chief Rabbi of the British Empire, born in Hanover, Germany, on 15 January 1803, died in Brighton, England, on 21 January 1890. He was the third son of Marcus Baer Adler, Chief Rabbi of Hanover. [Jewish Encyclopedia]. It is possible that the date of 13 January 1803, retained by other sources, corresponds to a more exact conversion of the Hebrew date; Nathan Marcus Adler, son of Mordecai (Marcus) Baer Adler, Chief Rabbi of Hanover, was born on 21 Tevet 5563, that is 15 January 1803, other versions of his birth date resting on errors in the conversion of the Hebrew date [OzTorah].

The father, Mordecai Baer Adler, had made Hanover a rabbinical chair of the first rank. His father, Mordecai (Marcus) Baer Adler, was Chief Rabbi of the city [Wikipedia]. The son was nourished by a twofold culture: traditional Talmudic study and the German university. He studied the classics and modern languages, including English and French, at the University of Würzburg; his doctorate in philosophy was conferred upon him by the University of Erlangen in 1828. [Wikipedia].

The political context of his birth is historically decisive: born when Hanover was an appanage of the English Crown under George III, he was a British subject and was educated on very broad foundations [Jewish Encyclopedia]. This quality of being a British subject by birth, combined with his academic profile, prepared him, almost unwittingly, for an imperial career.

His rabbinical ascent was early. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Nathan Marcus Adler was Chief Rabbi of the British Empire, founder of the Jews' College and of the United Synagogue. Adler became Chief Rabbi of Oldenburg in 1829 and of Hanover in 1830. [Britannica]. He thus succeeded his own father in the Hanoverian chair: Nathan Adler was born in Hanover, then under the British Crown, and was educated in Germany. He became rabbi of Oldenburg in 1829 and succeeded his father, Marcus Baer Adler, at Hanover the following year. [Encyclopedia.com].

Chapter 3: Nathan Marcus Adler, Chief Rabbi of the British Empire

The year 1845 marks the imperial turning point of the lineage. Elected to the supreme rabbinate of the United Kingdom, Nathan Marcus Adler carried German rabbinical culture to London and there built, over four decades, a lasting institutional architecture. He founded the Jews' College and the United Synagogue [Britannica]. The first of these institutions was to ensure the formation of an English-speaking rabbinical clergy; the second, to federate the orthodox synagogues of London under a single authority.

The Willesden Jewish Cemetery notice specifies the scope of the communal work: he was one of the founders of the Jewish Board of Guardians in 1859 and of the United Synagogue in 1870. He was also the key figure of the Jews' College of London, which trained rabbis. [Willesden Jewish Cemetery]. The work goes beyond mere organization: it shapes an identity. Adler created a particular practice of orthodox Judaism, distinctive to Great Britain. [Willesden Jewish Cemetery].

This "Adlerian" practice is characterized by centralization, pastoral closeness, and measured openness to modernity. The Wikipedia article underscores: the first British Chief Rabbi trained at university and the first to undertake regular pastoral tours throughout the United Kingdom, he was also a founder of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty [Wikipedia]. Here a new type begins to take shape: the rabbi as civic dignitary of the Empire, articulating orthodox halakha and Victorian citizenship.

His institutional legacy is deeply rooted in British Judaism: in 2006, this remains the largest religious grouping within the British Jewish community and derives its religious authority from the Chief Rabbi [Wikipedia]. The final months of his ministry were eased by the addition of a delegate; the Jewish Encyclopedia notes that the same year, the United Synagogue, finding that the pressure of his official duties was increasing, appointed a delegate deputy chief rabbi; nevertheless, Dr Adler continued to take an active interest in the affairs of the Jewish community [Jewish Encyclopedia]. He died at Brighton in 1890 and was buried, among his successors, at Willesden.

Chapter 4: Hermann Adler, Second Chief Rabbi of the Dynasty

The succession was, a rare occurrence in the history of the modern British rabbinate, from father to son. Hermann Adler, born in Hanover in 1839, embodies dynastic continuity and a perfect acclimatisation to the English world. Son (and successor as Chief Rabbi) of Nathan Marcus Adler, the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica writes that he "raised the position [of Chief Rabbi] to a high degree of dignity and importance". Naftali (Hermann) Adler was born in Hanover. Like his father, he received both a rabbinic education and… [Wikipedia / Britannica 1911].

His early biography illustrates the dual matrix of the lineage: Adler, born in Hanover, was brought to London as a child, when his father became British Chief Rabbi, and was educated at University College School and University College London [Encyclopedia.com]. His academic itinerary then combines the English university and the centres of Jewish learning of Central Europe: Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Empire; born in Hanover in May 1839; second son of Nathan Marcus Adler; educated at University College School and University College London. He studied at Prague and Leipzig between 1860 and 1862. [Jewish Encyclopedia].

The testimony of his junior biographer, taken up by OzTorah, specifies: Hermann Adler was born in Hanover on 29 May 1839. He was the fifth and youngest child of Nathan Marcus Adler, Landrabbiner of Hanover, and of his first wife Henrietta (née Worms, died 1853). Hermann came to England at the age of six. [OzTorah]. One will note the apparent discrepancy between the source that calls him "second son" and the one that calls him "fifth and youngest child": according to these sources, it is possible that Hermann was the youngest child while being the second surviving son.

His pontificate was marked by considerable diplomatic activity within the Jewish world of the Empire, and by a particular attention to peripheral communities. Thus, in Dublin: in 1892, a new seat of the Dublin Hebrew Congregation was established. The building was consecrated by Adler who declared: "Ireland is the only country in the world which cannot be accused of having persecuted the Jews." In 1909 he was appointed Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (CVO). [Wikipedia]. This royal distinction consecrates the institutional recognition of the Adler lineage by the Crown, completing the movement begun half a century earlier: from the pulpit of Hanover to the court of St James, the name Adler is now inscribed in the British order.

He died in 1911, thus closing sixty-six years of continuous rabbinic ministry exercised by the same family over British Judaism.

Chapter 5: Marcus Nathan Adler, the Travelling Scholar

Alongside the purely rabbinic branch, the lineage produced a figure of lay scholarship whose work remains fundamental to medieval Jewish studies: Marcus Nathan Adler. His eldest son, Marcus Nathan Adler (1837–1911), was involved in scholarly activities such as writing, editing and translation. For example, in 1907, his critical translation and commentary of the medieval itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela were published [Wikipedia].

This edition, still consulted, holds a canonical place in the scholarship of medieval Jewish travels. The archives of the Jewish Theological Seminary describe it thus: He prepared the critical text, translation and commentary of The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela (New York: Phillip Feldheim, Inc., 1907). Adler served as secretary of the committee organised to raise funds to send the traveller J. J. Benjamin II (whose real name was Israel Joseph Benjamin) to Asia [JTS Archives].

The scholarly enterprise is coupled with a concrete commitment to the ethnography of the Jews of the East. The translator's preface, dated 27 May 1907, sets the horizon of the work: according to the Gutenberg edition, it is the book of travels compiled by Rabbi Benjamin, son of Jonas, of the land of Navarre. The said Rabbi Benjamin set out from Tudela, his native city, and traversed many distant lands, as is related in his book. In each place which he entered, he made a record of all that he saw or was told of by trustworthy persons—things hitherto unheard of in the land of Sefarad. [Project Gutenberg, Itinerary]. Through this enterprise, Marcus Nathan Adler prolongs, on the ground of philology, the vocation of guardian of Jewish memory that his parents exercised on the ground of liturgy.

Chapter 6: Elkan Nathan Adler, Bibliophile of the Diaspora

The youngest of the siblings, Elkan Nathan Adler, carries the lineage towards another facet of scholarship: the collecting, preservation and cataloguing of the manuscript treasures of the Jewish world. Elkan Nathan Adler (24 July 1861 in St Luke's, London – 15 September 1946 in London) was an English author, lawyer, historian and collector of Jewish books and manuscripts. [Wikipedia].

The JTS archives specify his place within the family: Elkan Nathan Adler, born on 24 July 1861, was an Anglo-Jewish bibliophile, collector and author. He was the youngest son of Dr Nathan Marcus Adler, Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, and of his second wife, Celestine Adler (née Lehfeld); brother of Hermann Adler, Chief Rabbi of Great Britain after their father. [JTS Archives]. The mention of the second wife Celestine Lehfeld is valuable for genealogy: it confirms that the descendants of Nathan Marcus are distributed between the children born to Henrietta Worms — including Hermann — and those born of the second marriage.

Elkan's work as a collector was of international scope. During his visits to Cairo in 1888 and 1895, Adler collected and brought back to England more than 25,000 fragments of the Genizah. Adler took a particular interest in the history of the Persian (Iranian) Jews. He travelled to Tehran and Bukhara in 1896 and 1897, where he purchased various Hebrew manuscripts [Wikipedia]. These Eastern campaigns make him a major figure — alongside Solomon Schechter — in the rediscovery of the Cairo collection that would revolutionise the study of medieval Judaism.

The library he assembled was one of the largest private collections of Judaica ever formed. His library eventually comprised around 4,500 manuscripts, of which he published a summary catalogue, Catalogue of Hebrew Manuscripts in the Collection of E. N. Adler (1921). He also owned a collection of around 30,000 printed books of Judaica and in general fields. [Encyclopedia.com]. The Encyclopaedia Iranica confirms and extends this description: Elkan Nathan Adler, assiduous traveller and collector of Hebrew, Judeo-Persian and Judeo-Tajik manuscripts of the Persian and Bukharan Jewish communities (born in England in 1861; died in London on 15 September 1946). [Encyclopaedia Iranica].

Through Elkan, the Adler lineage achieves a remarkable conversion: the family's rabbinic prestige is sublimated into modern Jewish scholarship, and the work of a single man places at the disposal of future generations thousands of manuscript witnesses that, without him, would have been lost to scholarship.

Conclusion

From Frankfurt to Hanover, from Hanover to London, from London to Cairo and Bukhara, the Adler lineage traces a geographic arc that is also an intellectual one. A lineage of cohanim nourished on the Talmud and the Kabbalah, it crossed the nineteenth century by transforming itself without renouncing itself: it passed from the communal rabbinate of Rhineland Germany to the British imperial rabbinate, then from religious authority to textual scholarship and learned bibliography.

Three permanent traits may be read in it. First, a priestly vocation inscribed in the cohanic genealogy itself, exemplified by Nathan Marcus's signature as "Natan ben Mordechai ha-Kohen." Next, the capacity to bind the strictest rabbinic tradition with the universities and instruments of modernity: Würzburg, Erlangen, Prague, Leipzig, University College. Finally, a keen sense of enduring institutions — Jews' College, United Synagogue, Jewish Board of Guardians — which outlived their founders and continue, more than a century later, to structure British Judaism.

The dual magistracy of Nathan Marcus and then of Hermann Adler, spanning more than six decades, constitutes an almost unique case of dynastic transmission in the modern Western rabbinate. The scholarly branches — Marcus Nathan, editor of Benjamin of Tudela, Elkan Nathan, the bibliophile of the genizah — extend this magistracy by broadening it to the universal: the Adler lineage did not content itself with governing a British Judaism, it gathered, translated, and transmitted the manuscript memory of the entire diaspora.

In the absence of documents from the Zakhor corpus directly concerning it, it will fall to future research to shed light on the collateral branches, the cross-marriages with the great Anglo-Jewish families — Worms, Lehfeld — and the twentieth-century descendants beyond Elkan.