Lord Jonathan Kestenbaum

I first heard it exactly thirty years ago – and it happened on a walk in the English countryside. I had been recruited by Rabbi Sacks eighteen months earlier at the start of his Chief Rabbinate to be the first Chief Executive of his office. Over those eighteen months, we would talk intensively and often. Every day of every week of every month we would talk through his vision. And it became clear to me that he was developing a radical concept of community renewal, a concept which flowed in part from Rabbi Sacks stirring induction address when he took up his office in September 1991.

And so that countryside walk!

I would often walk with Rabbi Sacks when he was thinking through an idea – or more precisely, he would walk, and I would run to try and keep up with him! On this occasion, three decades ago, Rabbi Sacks’ pace was particularly fast as he laid out to me his analysis of the Jewish condition in the 1990s, whilst also putting forward a vision of how to engage, excite and motivate the Jewish world. This vision was ultimately to become a rallying call for enhanced and meaningful engagement with Jewish life. And it was this which gave rise to Will We Have Jewish Grandchildren?

There was of course a global context to Rabbi Sacks’ vision, as it was a time of great optimism. Not just the sense of historic opportunity that the end of the Cold War brought, but also a time of fresh thinking worldwide, which created a vibrancy in the public discourse. Global politics in general and the UK scene in particular were in an exciting state of flux, and that too created an environment for fresh thinking. Rabbi Sacks not only caught and rode that wave of optimism, but became the seminal catalyst for it in the Jewish world.

In so doing, Rabbi Sacks understood, perhaps better than most, the galvanising effect of an inspiring narrative – and how such narratives create the conditions for hope and for change. Will We Have Jewish Grandchildren?, with its intellectual rigor and compelling vision, became not only an antidote to the narrative of decline which in many quarters had preceded it, but went on to inspire a generation.

Indeed, it is hard to overstate the degree to which the narrative that sits at the heart of this book served to energise the community. Rabbi Sacks’ argument at the time was that the Jewish world stands on the brink of a new era, as he put it – “from integration to survival to continuity.” And this new era will pose questions on how to sustain a vibrant Jewish life in an open, modern, secular society. This new era, according to Rabbi Sacks, will require radically new ways of thinking about Jewish engagement, and so the book became a clarion call for what Rabbi Sacks called “proud, knowledgeable, and committed Jews.” No less important, it helped shape the intellectual climate for debate – and this powerful combination of intellectual heft alongside community renewal made “Will we have Jewish grandchildren?” the defining question of the age. And indeed, of ages to come.

In the intervening thirty years, the questions that I have been asked more than any other are what impact did the book have and what were its enduring consequences?

I have thought about these questions often. It is clear to me that in some respects the book is a product of its time. It captures a mood of opportunity, of generational change and of historical purpose. And it expresses these three things in inspirational terms. The vision which underpinned Will We Have Jewish Grandchildren? also had a significant influence on the thinking which came thereafter. In particular on an entire generation of young educators, teachers, rabbis and community activists, who, thirty years on, are now in positions of pivotal leadership. Large numbers of them around the world continue to attribute their seminal influences to many of the principles set out by Rabbi Sacks in the book.

There is no doubt in my mind that in these intervening years, the structures and forms of community life have become considerably more vibrant, dynamic and diverse than they were before Rabbi Sacks came into office – and that such change emerged from his Continuity vision.

And yet.

Looking back, we may not have sufficiently anticipated the bruising, often merciless experience that comes with driving community-wide radical change. Perhaps the cross-community tensions all those years ago were also a product of their time, but even so, Rabbi Sacks’ leadership of the Continuity agenda came at some personal cost to him as we worked to face down discordant voices. In structural terms, ultimately it was the merger of Jewish Continuity and another leading communal body which became one of the key organisational engines for Rabbi Sacks’ vision, and which allowed him in turn the freedom to become the transcendent leader of his age.

In the years following the book’s publication, there were and continue to be multiple signs of Jewish renewal across the UK – growth in Jewish schools, proliferation of adult Jewish learning, expansion of Jewish arts and culture, intensification of religious outreach – all were given a new lease of life. A fuller assessment will no doubt come with the passage of time, but it is clear that the infectious energy released by the book’s publication was palpable.

Like so many others, not a day passes when I don’t think of the impact Rabbi Sacks had on the Jewish world. And in so doing I think often of our earliest conversations – in particular that walk in the English countryside which gave rise to this book. It seems to me that Rabbi Sacks’ vision in the pages to follow are as potent today as they were when first written in those heady days thirty years ago. To read it again is to be inspired afresh.

Lord Jonathan Kestenbaum, London January 2024