Described as a "Patrician English Gentleman", Hermann Adler began in 1879 to preside over a community that revelled in its Englishness and the social gains that it had brought. The United Synagogue under his leadership developed a distinctively English style of Orthodoxy, broad and tolerant while maintaining Jewish observance in its fullest details; Theodor Herzl described a dinner at the Adler's as being "everything English, with the old Jewish customs peeping through".

The great immigration from Eastern Europe that began in 1881, brought to Britain large numbers of Jews who in almost every way were different to the existing community, and at first shared little of their attitudes and aspirations. Adler led the existing community in making provision for the immigrants and in acclimatising them to English life.

At the same time, Adler's description of the emerging Zionist movement as "an egregious blunder" served to point up the differences between the established and acculturated community and the aspirations of the immigrants, and his influence and authority over the ultra-Orthodox sections of the community was tenuous at times.

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