Jonathan Sacks archive is dedicated in Jerusalem

Ten years ago, when the National Library of Israel’s new facility was in its initial planning stages, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks put forward a controversial proposal. He suggested that important visitors to Israel be taken first to the National Library, and not to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Remembrance Center as is customary.

“Let us show the world not only how Jews died but how Jews live,” he wrote, adding that the new library should be subtitled, “The Home of the Book for the People of the Book.”

The fourth anniversary of his death was marked at the National Library in Jerusalem’s Givat Ram neighborhood with the Rabbi Sacks Global Day of Learning, as well as the dedication of the Rabbi Sacks Archive that includes 30 boxes of notes, speeches and handwritten correspondence from the rabbi who became a global religious leader, philosopher, award-winning author and respected moral voice.

While the central event took place in Jerusalem, 150 communities in five continents participated in this year’s Sacks Global Day of Learning.

After serving for 22 years as chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, Rabbi Sacks became a sought-after contributor to radio, television and the press, both in Britain and around the world, and was a visiting professor at Yeshiva University and New York University.

While he never made his permanent home in Israel, he visited frequently.

National Library archivist Rachel Misrati told visitors at the dedication that more than 50,000 copies of Sacks’ series of Torah commentary, “Sig V’Siach” (originally published in English as “Covenant and Conversation”) have been sold.

The archives on display include a letter Rabbi Sacks wrote to Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher rebbe, in 1990, asking advice about whether to take the position of chief rabbi. In the typed letter, Rabbi Sacks asks, “should I take the position?”

Schneerson sent back the letter with the proofreading mark for inversion, changing the question to a statement: “I should…”

Other items in include an exchange of correspondence with then-Prince Charles, and a letter from Rabbi Sacks to the rabbis of his United Synagogue movement during the Second Intifada in which he urged the rabbis to step up to defend Israel and urge their congregants to visit.

The National Library event included The Sacks Conversation between US Ambassador to Israel Jacob J. Lew and Jerusalem-born writer and educator Rachel Sharansky Danziger.

His brother, Alan Sacks, a trustee of the Sacks Legacy, said at the Sacks Conversation that his brother “knew that democracy begins and ends with conversation. When conversation ends, democracy dies.” One of the goals of the Sacks Legacy, he added, is that “there should be more conversation and less confrontation.”