| AdminHistory | Simeon Singer, born London, youngest son of Julius Singer, a clothier from Raab in Hungary, and his wife, Frederica Wolff of Hamburg, 1848; educated at Jews' College School, London, where he subsequently became a teacher; minister, Borough New Synagogue, south London, 1867, a post which he combined with a variety of Jewish and non-Jewish charitable and philanthropic endeavours, and prison visiting; married Charlotte, the youngest daughter of Samuel Pyke, 1868; five sons and one daughter; minister, New West End Synagogue, London, 1878-1906; rabbinical diploma, Vienna, 1890; President, Jewish Ministers' Union; Honorary Secretary, Jewish Provincial Ministers' Fund; served on the executives of the Jewish Education Board and of Jews' College; though a supporter of Jewish settlement in Palestine, and one of Theodor Herzl's earliest Anglo-Jewish patrons, he opposed Herzl's scheme for a Jewish state; helped Sir Samuel Montagu to draw up a petition to the sultan in the name of the Hovevei Zion for the cession of lands in Transjordan for Jewish settlement, 1892; though Orthodox in his religious beliefs, he deplored the division between the Orthodox and Reform camps, preached in the Reform synagogue in Manchester, and was a supporter of the Jewish Religious Union; it was only under intense pressure from within the United Synagogue that he broke off this association; died 1906. Publications include: 'The Authorised Daily Prayer Book' (1890); 'Talmudical Fragments in the Bodleian Library' (with Solomon Schechter, 1896); 'Early English Versions of the Jewish Liturgy' (1899); 'Earliest Prayers for the Sovereign' (1903); his literary remains, including some historical studies, were published by his son-in-law Israel Abrahams (1908). |