Immanuel Jakobovits had come to England as a teenage refugee, and had served as Chief Rabbi of Ireland and in New York. He had written his doctorate on Jewish Medical Ethics, now an established academic field of which he was largely the founder.

Beginning his Chief Rabbinate in a community obsessed with the pursuit of unity, Immanuel Jakobovits deftly defused the issue and then placed Jewish education firmly at the top of the communal agenda. His tenure saw an enormous expansion of Jewish Day schools, as well as a resurgence of adult interest in Jewish learning.

A tall impressive figure, once described by a non-Jewish admirer as having the presence of Moses, he confidently and eloquently stated the Jewish view on issues affecting British society, and brought a religious perspective to areas previously regarded as being beyond the purview of clerical (let alone Rabbinical) comment. During his tenure, the Chief Rabbinate moved from merely parochial influence to one affecting British life as a whole, while Jakobovits' previous experience in America gave him and his office a pre-eminence on the world Jewish stage that his predecessors had not enjoyed.

The friend and confidant of Prime Ministers, he was knighted in 1981, and raised to the peerage as Lord Jakobovits in 1987. He retired in 1991 and died unexpectedly in 1999.

Professor Jonathan Sacks succeeded Lord Jakobovits as Chief Rabbi in 1991.

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