I don’t usually collect rabbinical letters, but this one is interesting and gives me the opportunity to write about Rabbi Maurice Abraham Jaffe.
Rabbi Jaffe was born in Salford in 1917. He went to Manchester Yeshiva and Manchester University, where he graduated in law (LL.B.) with honors in Public International Law. He was rabbi of the North Manchester Synagogue. He was a member of the British Board of Deputies, vice chairman of the Manchester and Salford Council of Jews and vice president of the Mizrachi Federation of Great Britain and Ireland.
His father, Wolfe Jaffe, was a founder and President of the Kahal Chassidim Synagogue in Manchester. He too was a member of the Board of Deputies and the Manchester and Salford Council of Jews. He was also one of the founders of the Machzike Hadass of Manchester and a committee member of the Manchester Yeshiva.
During World War II Rabbi Jaffe was a chaplain in the British Army, serving as Jewish chaplain to the Allied Land Forces in Southeast Asia (SEAC) and senior Jewish chaplain to the British Forces in Europe (1946), with the rank of Major.
Rabbi Jaffe immigrated to Israel in 1948 where he was appointed director of overseas relations of World Mizrachi in 1949.
He was a founder and executive chairman of the Jerusalem Great Synagogue. He raised funds for the establishment of the Great Synagogue as a memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. He had three sons: Zeev, who was a board member of the Great Synagogue and twins, Zali, a lawyer who was vice president of the Great Synagogue and Elli, a world renowned conductor who was choirmaster at the Great Synagogue.
In July 1977 he became a member of the Board of Governors of the World Jewish Congress and of the Executive of the World Zionist Organization.
Jewish Miscellanies 