Rabbi Israel Salanter and the Musar Movement by Rabbi Kopul Rosen, London, 1945.

1945 was a big year for Rabbi Yaacov Kopul Rosen. He published this book, printed by the Narodiczky Press in Whitechapel. It was actually his Master of Arts dissertation from the University of Manchester.  And, at the age of just 31 he became the Principal Rabbi of the Federation of Synagogues.

Kopul (“Cyril”) Rosen was born in London in 1913, and attended the Etz Chaim Yeshiva. From 1934 to 1938 he had studied at the Mir Yeshiva in Poland at which he received Semicha. That made him something quite rare – a British born Rabbi with a genuine European Yeshiva education.

In 1938 he became the first Rabbi of the Higher Crumpsall Hebrew Congregation in Manchester, and in 1944 he was appointed Communal Rabbi of Glasgow.  In 1947 he became President of British Mizrachi.

This was at a time of crisis and change for the Federation, which until then had been almost entirely an East End of London organization. But several major Federation Synagogues had been destroyed in the bombing of London and perhaps as much as half of the Jewish population of the East End of London had either had their homes destroyed or had moved away to escape the bombing and had settled in their new suburbs and not returned.

In 1946 Kopul Rosen wrote a booklet entitled The Future of the Federation of Synagogues where he set out his solutions to the problems and advocated that the Federation only had the resources to cater for those Jews brought up in religious homes, and not for the large masses who had drifted away from Judaism.

One consequence of Kopul Rosen’s appointment was the Federation founding the West Hampstead synagogue known as Shomrei Hadath – the first constituent Synagogue.  This was followed by others in the London suburbs, in Willesden, Edgware and Maida Vale.  In 1949 he resigned from the Federation to run the recently established Jewish Boarding school, Carmel College. He died at a young age in 1962.