Jonathan Henry Sacks, Baron Sacks (8 March 19487 November 2020) was an English Orthodox rabbi, philosopher, theologian, and author. Sacks served as the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth from 1991 to 2013. As the spiritual head of the United Synagogue, the largest synagogue body in the United Kingdom, he was the Chief Rabbi of those Orthodox synagogues but was not recognized as the religious authority for the Haredi Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations or for the progressive movements such as Masorti, Reform, and Liberal Judaism. As Chief Rabbi, he formally carried the title of Av Beit Din (head) of the London Beth Din. At the time of his death, he was the Emeritus Chief Rabbi. After stepping down as Chief Rabbi, in addition to his international travelling and speaking engagements and prolific writing, Sacks served as the Ingeborg and Ira Rennert Global Distinguished Professor of Judaic Thought at New York University and as the Kressel and Ephrat Family University Professor of Jewish Thought at Yeshiva University. He was also appointed Professor of Law, Ethics, and the Bible at King's College London. He won the Templeton Prize (awarded for work affirming life's spiritual dimension) in 2016. He was also a Senior Fellow to the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights. Early life Jonathan Henry Sacks was born in the Lambeth district of London on 8 March 1948, the son of Polish textile seller Louis David Sacks (died 1996) and his English wife Louisa (née Frumkin; 1919–2010), who came from a family of leading Jewish wine merchants. He had three brothers named Brian, Alan, and Eliot, all of whom eventually made aliyah. He said that his father did not have "much Jewish education". Sacks commenced his formal education at St Mary's Primary School and at Christ's College, Finchley. He completed his higher education at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he gained a first-class honours degree (MA) in Philosophy. While a student at Cambridge, he travelled to New York City, where he met with rabbis Joseph Soloveitchik and Menachem Mendel Schneerson to discuss a variety of issues relating to religion, faith, and philosophy. He later wrote, "Rabbi Soloveitchik had challenged me to think, Rabbi Schneerson had challenged me to lead." Schneerson urged Sacks to seek rabbinic ordination and enter the rabbinate. Sacks subsequently continued his postgraduate studies at New College, Oxford, and King's College London, completing a