Jews College, Eighty Third Annual Report, London, 5670 – 1939.

Here is Jews College in wartime, the last one standing in 1939. All the Jewish Seats of Learning in Germany, Austria and Italy, the Seminaries of Breslau and Vienna, the Lehrenstalt and Rabbiner-Seminar of Berlin, the Yeshivahs at Frankfort and Rhodes and the Collegio Rabbinico of Rome, have been closed. Of these institutions, only Jews College with its 30 Rabbinical students is left to take over and guard the fund of European Jewish Learning.

Interestingly, my copy has handwritten notes on it, as it appears to have been used as the basis for the 5671/1940 Annual Report.

Among the students in 1939 were a number of well-known future Rabbonim:

• Sidney Bloch, later to be Rabbi at Ilford.
• Samuel Morris Bromberger, to be Hospital Chaplain to the Friern Hospital.
• Abraham (Abel) Berman, brother of Rabbi Myer Berman of Wembley.
• Alexander Carlebach, later Rabbi at North Hendon Adath and Belfast.
• L. Dimpson, wartime minister at Taunton, Somerset and Gerards Cross.
• Sidney Gold, who was Rabbi at Singers Hill, Birmingham, for 25 years.
• Immanuel Jakobovits, destined to become Chief Rabbi Lord Jakobovits.
• Dr. Isaac Emil Lichtigfeld, who has served in the German army on the First World War and returned to Germany as a Rabbi from 1954 to 1967.
• Emil Nemeth, future Rabbi at Highgate and his brother
• Morris Nemeth, future Rabbi of the New West End Synagogue.
• Dr. Izaak Rapoport, future Chief Rabbi of Melbourne, Australia.

Also to be noted was that the Ladies Auxiliary of Jews College Council in 1939 included Miss Judith Hertz, daughter of the Chief Rabbi. By 1940 she is listed as Mrs. S. Schonfeld, having married Rabbi Solomon Schonfeld.