Ephraim Mirvis

Origins and early life

Ephraim Yitzchak Mirvis was born in Johannesburg on 7 September 1956 into a rabbinical family, the son of Rabbi Lionel Mirvis and of Freida Mirvis, and went to Herzlia High School in Cape Town from 1968 to 1973. He then studied in Israel at the yeshivot of Kerem BeYavneh and Har Etzion and received his rabbinic ordination from Machon Ariel in Jerusalem in 1980, along with a degree in education and classical Hebrew from the University of South Africa.

Work and career

After a first post as rabbi of the Dublin Hebrew Congregation in 1982, he was Chief Rabbi of Ireland from 1984 to 1992, and there chaired the Irish National Council for Soviet Jewry. He then led the Western Marble Arch Synagogue in London from 1992 and, from 1996, the Finchley United Synagogue known as Kinloss, where he founded the Morasha Jewish Primary School and a community kollel. On 1 September 2013 he was installed as only the eleventh Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth since 1704, at a ceremony attended by the then Prince of Wales, a first for the royal family.

In 2016 he launched the In Good Faith programme with the Archbishop of Canterbury to bring Anglican and Jewish clergy together, and in 2017 he became the first Chief Rabbi to host an Iftar in his home for Muslim friends. He has also widened the place of women in Orthodox communities, launching in 2016 a programme that trains women as advisers on Jewish law and as adult educators.

Recognition

He was knighted in the 2023 New Year Honours for services to the Jewish community, interfaith relations and education, and invested by King Charles at Windsor Castle on 11 July 2023. That year the Jerusalem Post placed him at number 31 on its list of the fifty most influential Jews; he is also president of Mizrachi UK and associate president of the Conference of European Rabbis.