| AdminHistory | Born London, son of Nathaniel Montefiore and his wife Emma Goldsmid, 1858; BA in Classics, Balliol College, Oxford, 1881; intending to enter the rabbinate, he studied at the Hochschule (Lehranstalt) fuer die Wissenschaft des Judentums in Berlin, 1881-1882, and privately under Solomon Schechter; assumed the additional surname of Goldsmid by letters patent in 1883; married Thrse Schorstein,, daughter of Lazar Schorstein of Reuter's agency, 1886; founder and joint editor of the Jewish Quarterly Review, 1888-1908; member of the London School Board, 1888; widowed, 1889; President, Anglo-Jewish Association, 1895-1921; founder, with Lily Montagu, and President of the Jewish Religious Union (later the Jewish Religious Union for the Advancement of Liberal Judaism) 1902-1938; married his first wife's tutor, Florence Fyfe Brereton, daughter of Richard James Ward and former Vice-Principal of Girton College, who converted to Judaism, 1902; President of the Liberal Jewish Synagogue, 1911-1938; President of Hartley College, 1913; President, University College of Southampton, 1915-1934; a determined opponent of Zionism, he tried to prevent the signing of the Balfour Declaration in 1917; founder member of the anti-Zionist League of British Jews, 1917; honorary DD, Manchester University, 1921; President of the World Union for Progressive Judaism, 1926-1938; honorary DLitt, Oxford University, 1926; British Academy Medal for Biblical Studies, 1930; founded the London Society for the Study of Religion together with the Catholic theologian Baron von Hugel; a generous philanthropist, he assisted many Jewish and general good causes and played a major part in the educational life of the Jewish community and beyond: President of the Jews' Infant School and the Westminster Jews' Free School; a benefactor of the West Central Jewish Lads' Club, the Jewish Association for hte Protection of Girls, Women, and Children, and of the Jewish Board of Guardians; Member of the Council of Jews' College; instrumental in the establishment of the Froebel Institute at Roehampton; contributed to Simeon Singer's edition of the prayer book; died 1938. Publications include: 'Origin and Development of the Religion of the Ancient Hebrews' (the Hibbert Lectures, 1892); 'Aspects of Judaism' (with Israel Abrahams, 1895); 'Bible for Home Reading' (1897); 'Liberal Judaism' (1903); 'The Synoptic Gospels' (1909); 'Some Elements of the Religious Teaching of Jesus' (1910); 'Outlines of Liberal Judaism' (1912); 'Judaism and St. Paul' (1914); 'Liberal Judaism and Hellenism' (1918); 'The Old Testament and After' (1923); 'Rabbinic Literature and Gospel Teaching '(1930); 'A Short Devotional Introduction to the Hebrew Bible for the Use of Jews and Jewesses' (1936); and 'A Rabbinic Anthology' (with Herbert Loewe, 1938). |