Senior US Rabbi seeks to take up top Gateshead leadership post

One of the most senior orthodox pulpit rabbis in America has put his name forward to be considered for the post of spiritual leader of the Gateshead Jewish community, with the official communal organisation in the northern England town expressing “genuine excitement” at the prospect of his arrival.

Rabbi Yisrael Mantel, who has been at the Kehal Adath Yeshurun congregation in Washington Heights, New York (colloquially known as ‘Breuers’) for almost two decades, has announced his attention to move to England.

In a letter to members of the Gateshead Jewish Community, Meir Bodner, the head of the Gateshead Kehilla organisation, described Rabbi Mantel as having “finally agreed to stand as a candidate for the Rabbonus [rabbinate] of our Kehilla”, describing him as “highly respected, renowned both as a talmid chochom [torah scholar] of stature and with decades of experience in rabbonus and communal leadership.”

The letter went on to describe it as a “true zechus [honour] that Rav Mantel has agreed to be a candidate”. It confirmed that he would be visiting Gateshead this coming weekend, delivering both lectures and sermons and allowing the community the chance to meet him, and that “following the visit, elections for the Rabbonus will take place”.

Unlike other city or town-based communities in the UK, the strictly orthodox Gateshead Jewish community, which contains a renowned yeshiva and several seminaries, is led by a single Rabbi, known as the Gateshead Rov. The Rov leads the community’s Beis Din – Jewish rabbinical court – and is the chief authority on issues of religious significance in the community, which ultimately affects much of life for its more than 4,000 members. Also different to many other communities is the structure of choosing a new rabbi – a decision which is not made specifically by a small board, but by a vote of all the members of the kehilla.

The pulpit has been empty since 2020, when Rabbi Shraga Feivel Zimmerman, who had led the community for twelve years, moved to London to become the leading rabbi and head of the Beth Din of Kehillas Federation in London, formerly known as the Federation of Synagogues. Prior to Rabbi Zimmerman’s election in 2008 there had been a similar interregnum following the 2003 death of Rabbi Bezalel Rakow, who had served as the Gateshead Rov for almost 40 years.

In a letter sent to Breuer’s congregants, the board of the congregation said that Rabbi Mantel had mentioned that the position “was offered to him several years ago, but he turned it down because he did not want to leave our kehillah at that time.” However, Rabbi Mantel, who is originally from Antwerp, had consulted other rabbinic authorities and together with his wife, had “made a very difficult decision that it has become necessary to move closer to their children and grandchildren.”

Kehal Adath Yeshurun was founded in Washington Heights in 1939, following Kristallnacht in Germany. Its first spiritual leader was Rabbi Dr Joseph Breuer, the grandson of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsh, one of the German orthodox rabbis of the 19th century.