Nathan Marcus Adler

Nathan Marcus Adler was born in Hanover on January 15, 1803, the son of the local state rabbi Marcus Bär. He attended the rabbinical school in Würzburg and obtained the rabbinate diploma at the young age of 19. At the same time, Adler studied in various cities and earned his doctorate in Erlangen. With his title Dr. phil, Adler was the first German rabbi with a doctorate in philosophy.

The way to Oldenburg was paved for him by the sovereign in Oldenburg, Duke Peter Friedrich Ludwig. The latter saw himself as the father of the state and thus obliged to educate his subjects in the spirit of the Enlightenment, both the Christians and the few Jews. In order to regulate the situation of the Jews, he issued a sovereign decree on August 14, 1827, which essentially stipulated that everything should remain as it had been in the 18th century and yet contained an innovation: The office of a state rabbi was created. Nathan Marcus Adler then applied for this office only one year later.

After his education in various places in Germany and Poland, Nathan Marcus Adler was accepted as Landesrabbiner in Oldenburg on November 26, 1828. He was not elected by an examination, but by a colloquium to the Landesrabbiner in Oldenburg. He could not fail this colloquium (unlike an examination), so that his entry into office as Landesrabbiner was a mere formality. Before the colloquium, Adler was not to present any knowledge, but his personality and himself as a representative of the Jews. After his inauguration, the old Nikolai Church in Oldenburg was initially the central place of activity. However, since this could soon no longer be considered a worthy place for the Oldenburg congregation to worship, the congregation rented a house in Mühlenstraße for this purpose. There then a synagogue was established, which was solemnly inaugurated by Adler on June 6, 1829.

Adler abolished the so-called "Judeneid" in Oldenburg as one of his first official acts. From the beginning, it was important to Adler to uphold the tradition of Judaism and at the same time to enlighten. He wanted to achieve equality for the Jews, in which they would be respected as individual persons as well as a religious community. Since Jews lived all over Oldenburg, one of Adler's tasks was to bring them together. Adler had a great influence on religious services, school teaching, advised the state government and was jointly responsible for providing material security to the rabbinate. He drafted the Oldenburg congregational order, which he later invoked in London. On August 1, 1830, Adler was dismissed from his office at his request. His father had resigned from his office in Hanover. Since Adler had already declined an office in Hesse, he now followed his call and ended his time in Oldenburg. So Adler now moved to Hanover to follow in his father's footsteps as state rabbi there.

The respect Adler had earned in Oldenburg through his work as state rabbi was expressed even after his resignation became known in the fact that the government asked him to propose a successor. In response to this request, Adler chose Samson Raphael Hirsch as early as June 1830.

In 1845, Adler became chief rabbi in London. In England, his task was to organize the communities - following his experience from his tenure in Oldenburg. He was thus responsible for the Ashkenazi Jews, i.e. those from northern, eastern and central Europe, and enforced uniform laws for them in 1847. He was against a Judaism that was to be assimilated to Christianity and thus opposed corresponding reform movements. In 1853, he founded the "Jews' College" (today: "London School of Jewish Studies"). There, future teachers, cantors and rabbis were trained. In 1859 he founded the "Jewish Board of Guardians", which looked after immigrants from Germany and the Netherlands. For Adler, the reunification of Jewish communities was important, so he worked for the introduction of the "Synagogue Bill", which was passed by Parliament in 1870, and which dealt with precisely this reunification. Adler became the creator of the "United Synagogue" in England, a tight synagogue federation, whose individual congregations were completely dependent on the overall representation and the Chief Rabbinate (similar to Oldenburg). In this synagogue community he finally united the majority of the Jews of Great Britain. The British community was and remained modern but Orthodox, much as he had created in the Duchy of Oldenburg. Alder wrote works in Hebrew, and his sermons were often printed, in both English and German.

In 1879, at the age of 76, Adler turned over his offices to his son Hermann Adler. Adler himself retired, but remained significant through his influence on Jewish life, especially for Jews in Britain.