Order of Service on the Occasion of Laying the Foundation-Stone of the Central Branch Synagogue, by Baron Lionel de Rothschild.

(ANGLO-JUDAICA)

Wertheimer, Lea

London

1869

Rabbi Aaron Levy Green’s personal copy, with the Services’s admission ticket tipped in.

Yielding to the unstoppable drift of its most affluent members away from the city to the fashionable West End, and determined to preempt defection to the Reform-minded West London Synagogue, The Great Synagogue, begun circa 1690, finally sanctioned construction of a satellite synagogue, with the proviso that it would be a branch of the Great Synagogue and not an independent congregation. To mark the laying of the cornerstone by Lionel de Rothschild (HaSar Levi Rothschild) a service was conducted and a sermon preached by the Chief Rabbi, Nathan Marcus Adler. The synagogue building was destroyed by aerial bombardment on May 10th 1941, the same raid that demolished the Great Synagogue across town. The charismatic first minister of the Central Synagogue was Rabbi Aaron Levy Green, key organizer of London's United Synagogue and equally renowned for his learning, intelligence, and controversially enlightened views. This is A.L. Green's personal copy of the Order of Service, with his Hebrew notes in the margins. Tipped in on the last page of the booklet is an admission ticket to the ceremony, signed A. L. Green, and made out to "Mrs. Green."