3 min read
It is bad news that London's Spanish and Portuguese Jews' Congregation, the oldest in the country, has had its historic silver valued by Sotheby's with a view to its sale . The stated reason for this proposal is its financial deficit.
These treasures are among the few remaining glories of Anglo-Jewry following the disposal of rare books and manuscripts in 2000-02 by the United Synagogue, in 2002 by Jews' College and in 2004 by the Montefiore Endowment.
Even more troubling is the reason for the projected sale of the heritage silver.
Despite needless financial secrecy, a clue to part of its financial predicament is available in Westminster Council's list of planning applications: the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue has purchased the lease of a home for its new rabbi with six separate bathrooms and toilets plus 13 sinks and basins. It turns out that spending on the residence (including renovation costs of some £500,000) was projected last year to reach about £4 million; the total has probably grown since negotiations for the freehold remain stalled. The rabbi's salary is undisclosed but known considerably to exceed his predecessor's. These items, plus the costs of new assistants to the rabbi, are justified as representing the "market rate" for United States rabbis and as "investments" for the future.
By contrast, a report of the same synagogue's Welfare Board records the decision in 2010 to cap grants for fuel, clothing and other modest items to 277 people because the demands of the community's poor were so great. The synagogue's spending priorities, like the United Synagogue's sales of rare books while the Chief Rabbi was occupying a hugely expensive property, highlight broader issues. Pride in heritage and social conscience have been relegated.
The JC's analysis of The Sunday Times's 2014 Rich List showed that among the country's 1,000 richest persons, Jews were some 37 times wealthier than their population would warrant. Among the nation's richest 1,000 alone, Jewish wealth totalled £80 billion.
Some congregational leaders who enjoy rich living themselves seem to assume that their rabbis deserve to do likewise. A further delusion is that providing facilities on a near ambassadorial level to senior rabbis adds to Jewish prestige. When it was proposed to sell the Chief Rabbi's St John's Wood residence, a United Synagogue council member compared the Chief Rabbi to the Prime Minister and the Monarch: "They wouldn't sell Buckingham Palace and say, 'Your Majesty, you are going to have to move to Pimlico. '" (JC, 25 March 2013.)
But a considerable proportion of the community belongs to the have-nots. As also reported in the JC, some elderly Holocaust survivors are acutely deprived while others cannot afford matzot at Passover.
The emoluments of a handful of Jewish ministers exceed by far those commanded by senior Christian clergy. Obviously, a career of service to Jewry deserves reasonable reward.
However, there comes a point at which multi-millionaire luxuries for a lucky minority may provide the wrong incentives and set a troubling moral tone. Both the current and former Chief Rabbis have been spending their Passovers abroad as guest resident scholars - in one case in a five-star skiing resort in the Canadian Rockies and in the other at the Ritz-Carlton resort in Naples, Florida. Customers there pay more than £5,000 for the cheapest room for two persons for three nights at the start of the festival. The age-old Jewish organisational problem of more leaders than followers is another reason for financial deficits. Here too the Spanish and Portuguese congregation may be typical.
Despite employing a senior rabbi, rabbi and a new events organiser and part-time youth rabbi at its main Lauderdale Road synagogue, not to mention the presence of a dayan and a retired rabbi, there has been a recent appeal for men to help achieve the minimum daily minyan of 10 men for morning prayers.
A particularly shortsighted policy is the "death tax" for non-members. It may be an efficient way of extorting money from grieving families but hardly causes love and attachment to Judaism. The United Synagogue charges £16,000 to bury non-members in London. The Spanish and Portuguese synagogue demands £50,000 to inter a non-member in its Golders Green cemetery.
Gross inequality and profligate spending are not peculiarly Jewish problems. Free champagne flows three nights a week at one UK college. University vice-chancellors routinely earn more than any British rabbi.
This should not provide an alibi for Anglo-Jewry. If our institutions are to become stronger, if they are to attract participants and donors, they need to be more transparent, more economical, prouder of our heritage, and more geared to the poor and disadvantaged, and to education rather than to showy, wasteful communal lifestyles.
