HERMANN ADLER was born in Hanover in 1839 of a distinguished rabbinic family. His grandfather, Marcus Baer Adler, was chief rabbi of Hanover. His father, Nathan Marcus Adler, succeeded Marcus Adler to this post, and then, in 1845, was elected chief rabbi in London, a position in which he served until his death in 1890. His mother was the niece of Nathan Mayer Roths child. (His elder brother, Marcus, and his younger brother, Elkan, also had illustrious careers in public life.)

Hermann was educated at University College London, where he received a prize and a First Certificate in English Language and Literature, studied Talmud in a renowned yeshiva at Prague (where he worked with the eminent scholar Michael Sachs, and was granted rabbinical ordination), and received a Ph.D. at Leipzig with a thesis on Druidism. Returning to England, he became temporary principal of Jews’ College, the seminary established by his father to train modern Orthodox clergymen. In 1864 he began to serve as preacher of the newly established Bayswater Synagogue. He became deputy to his father (‘delegate chief rabbi’) in 1879, and was elected to succeed him in 1891.

As chief rabbi, Hermann Adler espoused a policy of moderate innovation for mainstream Orthodox congregations, which he believed a necessary accommodation to modernity and citizenship. East European immigrants, who were more traditionalist and less open to change in religious doctrine and practice, became deeply suspicious of his role as chief rabbi, sometimes referring to him as ‘the chief Reformer’, and establishing a separatist community with rival institutions challenging his jurisdiction.

Adler's first published book of sermons, appearing in 1869, was entitled Naftulei Elohim: A Course of Sermons on the Biblical Passages Adduced by Christian Theologians in Support of the Dogmas of their Faith. This was an apologetical and polemical defence of Judaism against the attacks of Christian conversionary organizations. The second volume (1909), in which the sermon reproduced below appeared, contains twenty-two sermons Adler delivered as congregational rabbi and as chief rabbi, including a response to the pogroms in Russia in 1881- 2 and in 1905, tributes to Queen Victoria on her diamond jubilee and at her death, and eulogies for various Jewish dignitaries, including his own father. This is, however, only a tiny sample of the sermons he gave.