When Jonathan Sacks was a teenager he went to his local MP
for help with an A-level essay.
It was the start of a long-standing friendship with the then
Margaret Thatcher, which was to help shape the view of politics of the young
Jonathan, now Lord Sacks, the Chief Rabbi.
“I was doing an essay on proportional representation once
and I went to her - I’m 17 years old - she looks at me and says” - he leans
forward with narrowed eyes and breaks into a high-pitched imitation of his
former MP - “.'you’re not a liberal, are you?’”
He breaks into a deep laugh, concluding: “She was
formidable.”
That friendship, however, - and a later one with Gordon
Brown - did not shake a conviction Lord Sacks developed that religion and
politics do not mix: “Never confuse religion and politics,” he says. “If you do
it is bad for both.”
All the more extraordinary then that he marks his retirement
a week today after 22 years as de facto head of the Jewish community, with an
interview which covers some of the most contentious political topics; gay
marriage, the Middle East, and “trolling” on social media.
Lord Sacks’s view is that he is carrying out a duty of faith
leaders to create a “moral climate” in which politicians can make their
decisions.
Among his chief concerns is the breakdown of marriage. He
and his own wife, Elaine, 64, married in their early twenties and Lady Sacks,
who was first a radiographer, has worked alongside her husband, teaching and
supporting a series of Jewish charities.
The couple have three children and seven grandchildren.
“I used every opportunity I had in broadcasting, in writing
I was doing for the press, and internally within the Jewish community, to
strengthen marriage,” he says.
He believes the Government is not doing enough for marriage,
and says that marriage should be recognised in the tax system - a Conservative
commitment strongly opposed by Labour and the Lib Dems.
Lord Sacks dates the decline of the institution to the 1960s
and a generation which failed to hand on their own values to their children.
“It seems to me that the breakdown of marriage seemed like a
tremendous liberation. We were there in that revolution and at the time it
seemed to be 'all you need is love’ and nothing else.
We live to see, 50 years later,
the full cost of that, of an entirely new kind of child poverty that has a lot
to do with single parent families.
“No one wants to lay a burden of guilt on anyone who bought
into the cultural attitudes of the 60s but the fact is their kids are suffering.”
Sitting in the lounge the terraced home in St John’s Wood,
north west London, that is his official residence, Lord Sacks says that the
practical effects of marriage breakdown are clear: increasing numbers of people
are living alone, which has particularly affected young couples wanting to get
on the housing ladder for the first time.
“I find it morally unacceptable for hard working young
people to be unable to afford a home, in at least the same town in which they
work.”
Standing up for marriage has been a theme of his since he
became Chief Rabbi, using his installation speech in 1991 to warn that divorce
had become “an epidemic”.
But his voice has been noticeably absent as Christian,
Muslim, Sikh and Buddhist leaders have all vociferously opposed the Coalition’s
legislation introducing gay marriage.
In June last year Lord Sacks issued his only official
statement on the issue, a formal submission to the Government’s consultation,
from the London Beth Din - the Chief Rabbi’s court - which reiterated traditional
orthodox teaching that homosexuality is against Jewish law.
Among British Jewry the statement reinforced battle lines
between denominations, with the Reform and Liberal movements supporting of gay
marriage.
Although the Chief Rabbi has come to be seen as head of the
entire Jewish community of around 260,000, it served as a reminder that he
formally leads only the United Synagogue, a group of 61 Orthodox communities
with a total of 70,000 members, as well as a further series of synagogues which
come under the banner of the United Hebrew Congregations.
After the statement was released, the shutters went down. In
none of his 18 broadcasts on Thought for the Day since last June has Lord Sacks
mentioned gay marriage.
He has similarly maintained a silence in Parliament and
the national press on the issue - until now.
“There is a Talmudic principle that says, 'Just as it is a
duty to say that which will be heard, so it is a duty not to say that which
won’t be heard’. In other words there is such a thing as a sense of timing, of
moment.
And I actually felt that this was not a moment when our particular
message could be heard.”
Effectively distancing himself from other prominent faith
leaders, Lord Sacks says he was “confident” that the Government provided “cast
iron guarantees” that religious freedom would not be curtailed by the
legislation, which eventually received Royal Assent last month. Any further
intervention risked hurting the gay community, he says.
“I have fully understood the fear that gays have of
prejudice and persecution,” he says.
“I fully understood, and I mention this pretty much every
year, that gays, not just Jews, were sent to the concentration camps, and I did
not want to become a voice that would be caught up in a very polarised debate
and be seen to be heartless towards the gays in our own community.
I am not
heartless towards them,
I really seek to understand them and they seek to
understand where I am coming from.”
It is a far cry from the rhetoric of other religious leaders,
particularly Cardinal Keith O’Brien, the now disgraced former head of the
Catholic Church in Scotland, who was accused of “whipping up prejudice” with
his claim that the proposals were “madness” and a “grotesque subversion of a
universally accepted human right”.
Asked about the language used by same-sex marriage’s
opponents, Lord Sacks does not refer to Cardinal O’Brien or any other leader by
name, but issues a pointed rebuke. Nobody can get “nuance out of a sound bite
in a deeply polarised and impassioned and divisive debate”, he says.
It is likely to be his final word on the matter but in
retirement - he will be replaced by Ephraim Mirvis, 56, a South African-born
former chief rabbi of Ireland - he will turn to a wider mission: the evils
lurking on social media.
Lord Sacks, who owns an iPhone and an iPad, has used his own
Facebook, Twitter and YouTube accounts to reach Jews in Britain and abroad.
New technology, he says, widens access to knowledge, and
knowledge “is the source of human dignity in Judaism”. But the anonymity the
internet provides to its users can also have a corrosive effect.
“We are worried about the social media because you can post
abusive comments without the person being in your physical presence. That
anonymity and that distance mean that the internet is one of the great carriers
of prejudice and paranoia, and I don’t take it lightly. “
So what can be done to protect people from the this side of
the internet?
“I think you have to bring it under the general ambit of
hate speech, and it’s a combination I think of extending the kind of things
that you have on the press to the hosters of websites,” he replies.
“It’s very difficult, but it does mean they have to be
vigilant and they have to take hate speech off their websites as soon as they
discover it.”
Companies that allow abusive speech should be “named and
shamed”, he says, pointing out that public pressure has prompted Ask.fm,
founded by two Latvian brothers, to introduce new controls after it was linked
to a series of teenage suicides.
However the cause which he discusses with the deepest
concern of all is the persecution of Christians in the Middle East - a plight,
he argues, which is getting virtually no attention in public life.
“I think this is a human tragedy that is going almost
unremarked. I don’t know what the name for this is, it is the religious
equivalent of ethnic cleansing.
“We are seeing Christians in Syria in great danger, we are
seeing the burning of Coptic churches in Egypt. There is a large Coptic
population in Egypt and for some years now it has been living in fear.
Two
years ago the last church in Afghanistan was destroyed, certainly closed. There
are no churches left in Afghanistan.
“Between half a million and a million Christians have left
Iraq. At the beginning of the 19th century Christians represented 20 per cent
of the population of the Arab world, today two per cent.
This is a story that
is crying out for a public voice, and I have not heard an adequate public
voice.”
It is striking that this is an issue which does not directly
involve Jews at all.
But being Jewish, “you cannot but feel this very deeply and
personally”, he says. “I think sometimes Jews feel very puzzled that Christians
do not protest this more vociferously.”
He compares the violence faced by Christians in Egypt, Syria
and Iraq to the mass exodus of Jews from Arab countries in 1948, when the
establishment of the Jewish state was followed by the persecution of Jews in
countries including Egypt and Libya.
Those who remain today are “very small residual communities
living in fear”, the Chief Rabbi says.
Aside from a debate 18 months ago in the Lords led by Dr
Rowan Williams, the then archbishop of Canterbury, political and religious
leaders have failed to respond adequately to the problems Christians are now
facing in the same region, Lord Sacks suggests.
“I don’t know why people don’t speak more about it. I would
hope to find the opportunity to do so, I’m just not sure when and how. It is a
very, very scary situation.”
The outgoing Chief Rabbi’s stark warning recalls his
insistence that it is not for him to get involved in the specifics of politics,
but instead to create a “moral climate” in which they can operate.
There is one element of politics in which he will not meddle
at all: the likelihood of Ed Miliband, the first Jew to lead Labour, becoming
prime minister.
“Couldn’t possibly comment on that, minister! All I can
promise is the next prime minister will light Chanukah candles. More than that
I can’t promise.”
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