Ephraim Mirvis

Mirvis was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1956, the son of Rabbi Dr. Lionel and Freida Mirvis. His father was the Rabbi of the Claremont and the Wynberg Hebrew Congregations in Cape Town. He also served as Rabbi in Benoni for a while and Ephraim attended local schools. Mirvis has written that his father preached against the apartheid system, and visited political prisoners held on Robben Island, while his mother was the principal of the Athlone teacher training college, which was then the country’s sole college for training black pre-school teachers.[3] His grandfather, Lazar Mirvis, was a Jewish Minister in Johannesburg.[4][5]

Mirvis attended Herzlia High School in Cape Town from 1968 to 1973. After moving to Israel in 1973, Mirvis studied at Yeshivat Kerem B'Yavneh from 1973 to 1976 and Yeshivat Har Etzion, in the West Bank Israeli settlement of Alon Shvut,[6] from 1976 to 1978. He studied at Machon Ariel in Jerusalem from 1978 to 1980 and received his rabbinic ordination there.[4][5]

At the same time, Mirvis obtained a BA in Education and Classical Hebrew from the University of South Africa and received certification from Yaakov Herzog Teachers College as a high school teacher in Israel.[5]

Mirvis has a deep interest in chazanut and has studied voice and Jewish cantorial music in Jerusalem. He has also been certified as a shochet and mohel.[4][5] He is a supporter of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club.[7]

Mirvis was an advocate for the freedom of Soviet Jewry as Chairman of the Irish National Council for Soviet Jewry between 1984 and 1992. In 1986 he lobbied successfully against the request of a Dutch Nazi war criminal, Pieter Menten, to reside in Ireland. Mirvis has led campaigns to improve the quality of life, safety and security in and around shuls in the United Kingdom and London in particular.[5]

As Chief Rabbi of Ireland and before the opening of an Israeli Embassy in Ireland, he represented Israel’s interests at government level and in the media. In 1999, he led a group of British rabbis on a solidarity trip to Israel. Since 1997, he hosted the annual Bnei Akiva Yom Ha'atzmaut service at Finchley shul where it is still held.[5] Regarding the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict, while deploring the loss of life in Gaza, Mirvis defended Israel's right to protect itself from Hamas rocket attacks,[12] adding that the conflict was used as a cover to voice antisemitic sentiment.[13]

Following his appointment, he created the ‘Centre for Community excellence’. This new department of the Office of the Chief Rabbi provides guidance and seed funding to Jewish communities, in order to promote the most creative and dynamic programming ideas.[14]

One of his most successful campaigns is ‘Shabbat UK’ which was based upon the Shabbat Project, which originated in South Africa. The campaign encourages all Jews, regardless of religious affiliation or level of observance to engage better with Shabbat and reaches tens of thousands of people across the country. [15]

Shortly after beginning his tenure, Mirvis announced that he would become the first Chief Rabbi to attend the annual Limmud Conference, a move which was considered extremely controversial at the time and a departure from the approach of his predecessor Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks.[16]

Mirvis has also supported the expanding of women's roles in Orthodox Judaism. In 2012, he appointed Lauren Levin as Britain’s first Orthodox female halakhic adviser, at Finchley Shul in London.[17] He also supports Shabbat prayer groups for Orthodox women, saying, "Some of our congregations have women prayer groups for Friday night, some Saturday mornings. This is without women reading from the Torah. But for women to come together as a group to pray, this is a good thing." [18] He also supports women becoming United Synagogue trustees, and Orthodox women reciting Kaddish.[18] In 2016, Mirvis launched a new qualification for female educators to be advisers on Jewish law in the area of family purity and as adult educators in Orthodox shuls.[19] The part-time training course, known as the Ma’ayan Programme, is 18 months long and is the first such course in the United Kingdom.[19]

Mirvis has also made strides to encourage women to take their Jewish learning seriously, creating a series of events to encourage them to do so under the brand ‘Neshama’. [20]

Ephraim Mirvis in London, Feb 2015

However, Mirvis also upholds the normative Orthodox Jewish positions that female rabbis and same-sex marriages are not permitted.[21]

In September 2018, Mirvis issued a guide on the well-being of LGBT+ pupils in Orthodox Jewish schools. The guide was the first of its kind anywhere in the world. It upheld the traditional prohibitions against the act of homosexuality, but made clear that the Torah still demands "sensitivity to the feelings of everyone, including LGBT+ people" and that there should be a zero-tolerance approach to either homophobic or transphobic bullying or disregard for their wellbeing.[22][23][24] He also stated "Young LGBT+ people in the Jewish community often express feelings of deep isolation, loneliness and a sense that they can never be themselves. Many are living with the fear that if they share their struggles with anyone they will be expelled, ridiculed and even rejected by family and friends. They may even be struggling with a loss of emunah (faith, trust in God) and the fear of losing their place of acceptance and belonging in the Jewish community."[22]

In 2017, when Rabbi Joseph Dweck, the Senior Rabbi of the Sephardi Jewish community in the UK, made controversial comments about aspects of Jewish law, including on homosexuality, a bitter scandal erupted which threatened to split the Orthodox Jewish establishment. It was Mirvis who stepped in to diffuse the row, enabling Dweck to remain in his position without further controversy. [25]

In late November 2019, Mirvis made an unprecedented intervention[26] in British politics by stating in The Times that the Labour Party candidate Jeremy Corbyn was unfit for high office. While allowing that, “Convention dictates that the Chief Rabbi stays well away from party politics – and rightly so”, he added that the forthcoming elections constituted an exception, since “the very soul of our nation is at stake”.[6]According to Mirvis, 'the overwhelming majority of British Jews are gripped by anxiety' over the possibility that Labour might win the election[27] and over perceived inadequacies in the Labour Party's handling of anti-Jewish racism. Such racism was incompatible with British values.[26] Arguing that Corbyn's statements that the issues have been dealt with were a 'mendacious fiction', he suggested that voters go to the polls to make a 'conscience vote'.[26] The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby echoed Mirvis's concerns about Jewish sensitivities. [6] A Labour spokeswoman replied that 'Jeremy Corbyn is a lifelong campaigner against anti-Semitism and has made absolutely clear it has no place in our party and society and that no one who engages in it does so in his name.'[26] A backlash on social media suggested that Mirvis’s comments about antisemitism may have been connected to his support for Israel’s actions against the Gaza Strip, uneasy at the Labour platform support for a Palestinian state, the withholding of arms sales to Israel in protest over violation of Palestinian human rights in occupied territories, where the yeshiva Mirvis was trained in is located. [6] [27]

Mirvis received the Jerusalem Prize for Education in the Diaspora in 1990, on behalf of the Stratford Jewish Schools, from the President of Israel, Chaim Herzog.[5]

In 2015 he was awarded the Freedom of the London Borough of Barnet.[28]

He has received honorary doctorates from Touro College and Middlesex University.[29][30]

Mirvis married Zimbabwe-born Valerie Kaplan, in Israel. They have four sons, Hillel, Daniel, Noam and Eitan, and twelve grandchildren. Their eldest child, Liora Graham, died of cancer in 2011.[5]

Valerie Mirvis was a front line Child Protection Social Worker until May 2012. She is a published author and healthcare specialist.[4]

Mirvis's cousin is the American novelist, Tova Mirvis.