- Jonathan Sacks
Rabbi Sir Jonathan Henry Sacks (born 1948, London) is the Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom's main body of Orthodox synagogues. His official title is "Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth". As well as the spiritual head of the United Synagogue, the largest synagogue body in the UK, he is the Chief Rabbi of most orthodox synagogues, …
- Yona Metzger
Yona Metzger ; born 1953) has been the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel since his appointment in 2003. His counterpart is Rabbi Shlomo Amar, the Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel. He is the first sabra Chief Rabbi.
- Shlomo Amar
Rabbi Shlomo Amar (born in 1948) has been the Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel since his appointment in 2003. His colleague is Rabbi Yona Metzger, the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel. Rabbi Amar was born in Casablanca, Morocco and immigrated to Israel in 1962 at age 14. He is a close associate of the spiritual leader of the Shas Party and former Sephardi Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef.
- Ovadia Yosef
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef is a Haredi rabbi, Talmudic scholar, a recognized authority in Halakha ("Jewish law"). He is the former Sephardic chief rabbi of Israel and the current spiritual leader of the Shas political party in the Knesset (Israel's parliament). Rabbi Yosef is a major figure in Haredi Judaism who is revered by his followers.
- Mordechai Eliyahu
Mordechai Eliyahu (born: 1929, Jerusalem) is a former Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel.
- David Rosen
Chief Rabbi David Rosen is the former Chief Rabbi of Ireland(1979-85) and currently serves as the President of the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations (IJCIC) that represents world Jewry in its relations with other world religions. He is Director of Interreligious Affairs and Director of the Heilbrunn Institute for International Interreligious Understanding of the American Jewish Committee.
- Berel Lazar
Rabbi Berel Lazar (born 1964) is an Orthodox rabbi affiliated with the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement. He is presently one of two claimants to the title "Chief Rabbi of Russia", is the chairman of the Federation of Jewish Communities and is a close ally of Vladimir Putin's Kremlin.
- Abraham Isaac Kook
Abraham Isaac Kook was the first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of the British Mandate for Palestine, the founder of the (now) Religious Zionist Yeshiva Merkaz HaRav, and a renowned Torah scholar. He is known in Hebrew as הרב אברהם יצחק הכהן קוק "HaRav Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook", and by the acronym "HaRaAYaH" or simply as "HaRav."
- Yisrael Meir Lau
Yisrael (Israel) Meir Lau is currently the Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv, Israel. He previously served as the Israeli Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi from 1993 to 2003.
- Shlomo Goren
Shlomo Goren (1917-1994), was a former Orthodox Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel. Goren, born "Gorenchik", was born in Zambrow, Poland and immigrated to British administered Palestine with his family in 1925. He served in the Israel Defense Forces during three wars, wrote several award-winning books on Jewish law, and was appointed Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv in 1968. Rabbi Goren served as Chief Rabbi of Israel from 1973- 1983, …
- Avraham Shapira
Rabbi Avraham Elkanah Kahana Shapira is a prominent figure in the Religious Zionist world. Rabbi Shapira has been the head of the Rabbinic court of Jerusalem, and both a member and the head of the Supreme Rabbinic Court. He was the Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel from 1983 to 1993. He is currently the head of yeshivat Mercaz haRav in Jerusalem. Avraham Shapira was born to a Jerusalemite family on May 15, 1917. As a child, he studied at Yeshiva Etz Chaim in Jerusalem, …
- Shmuel Eliyahu
Shmuel Eliyahu is the Chief Rabbi of Safed in Israel.
- Dov Lior
Dov Lior is the Chief Rabbi of Hebron and Kiryat Arba in the southern West Bank. He is also the Head of a Yeshiva in Kiryat Arba, and also heads the "Council of Rabbis of Judea and Samaria". He was originally born to a Belz hasidic family, son to Moshe Leibland in Breslau, Galicia. He attempted to board the "Exodus", eventually arriving on the "Negba" a few weeks before the establishment of the State of Israel, …
- Elio Toaff
Elio Toaff (born April 30, 1915 in Livorno) is the former Chief Rabbi of Rome. On 13 April, 1986, he greeted and prayed with Pope John Paul II during an unannounced visit to the Synagogue of Rome. In 1947 he served as a rabbi in Venice and in 1951 he became the chief rabbi of Rome. One of his children is Israeli-Italian professor Ariel Toaff.
- Michael Melchior
Rabbi Michael Melchior (born 31 January 1954) is a Danish-Norwegian rabbi, an Israeli politician and leader of the left-wing religious party Meimad, which he represents in the Knesset.
- Warren Goldstein
Rabbi Warren Goldstein (b. cir. 1973) is the chief rabbi of South Africa. Born in Pretoria, he currently lives in Johannesburg. He is the first South African-born chief rabbi of South Africa and the youngest ever to be appointed to that post, at age 32.
- Immanuel Jakobovits
Immanuel Jakobovits, Baron Jakobovits, KBE (8 February 1921-31 October 1999) was the Orthodox Judaism Chief Rabbi of Great Britain and the Commonwealth from 1967 to 1991. His successor is the present Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks.
- Chaim Herzog
Chaim Herzog served as the sixth President of Israel (1983–1993), following a distinguished career in both the British Army and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
- Jacob Joseph
Rabbi Jacob Joseph (1840-July 28 1902) was the first and only Chief Rabbi of New York (actually, he served as chief rabbi of New York City's Association of American Orthodox Hebrew Congregations, a federation of Eastern European Jewish synagogues.) Born in Krozhe, a province of Kovno, he studied in the Volozhin yeshiva under the "Netziv," where he was known as "Rav Yaakov Charif" because of his sharp mind.
- Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron
Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron (b. 1941), is a former Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel.
- Israel Zolli
Israel Anton Zoller (b. September 27 1881, Brody, Galicia - d. March 2 1956) was an Italian Jewish Rabbi, who converted to Roman Catholicism. Zoller was born to a family of dynastic rabbis. In 1920 he was appointed as rabbi of the city of Trieste, which had just been transferred from Austria-Hungary to Italy. The family Italianized their surname to "Zolli". In 1940, Zolli became the Chief Rabbi of Rome.
- Chaim Berlin
Chaim Berlin (Hebrew: חיים ברלין) was an Orthodox rabbi and chief rabbi of Moscow from 1865. He was the son of Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin, and his younger half-brother (from his father's second marriage) was Rabbi Meir Bar-Ilan (choosing "Bar-Ilan" as the Hebraized version of "Berlin"). From 1889-1892 he lived in Volozhin, where he was a head of a rabbinical court.
- Ariel Toaff
Ariel Toaff is a professor of Medieval and Renaissance History at Bar Ilan University. He is the son of Elio Toaff, a former Chief Rabbi of Rome. Among his works are "The Jews in Medieval Assisi 1305-1487: A social and economic history of a small Jewish community" (1979), "Il vino e la carne. Una comunità ebraica nel Medioevo" ("The Wine and the Meat. A Jewish Community in the Middle Ages", 1989), "Mostri giudei.
- Israel Brodie
Sir Israel Brodie (born 1895, Newcastle - died 1979) was the Chief Rabbi of Great Britain and the Commonwealth 1948-1965. He was educated at Balliol College, Oxford. He served as a Rabbi in Australia, was evacuated from Dunkirk, and finished the War as Senior Jewish Chaplain aka Forces Rabbi. He became Chief Rabbi soon after the war at the age of 53 when he faced a difficult time due to the ending of the British Mandate in Palestine.
- Hermann Adler
Dr. Hermann Adler CVO was the Orthodox Chief Rabbi of Britain from 1891 to 1911. The son (and successor as Chief Rabbi) of Nathan Marcus Adler, the 1911 "Encyclopædia Britannica" writes that he "raised the position [of Chief Rabbi] to one of much dignity and importance." Born in Hanover, like his father, he had both a rabbinical education and a university education in Germany, and like him he subscribed to the Frankfurter Orthodoxy.
- Yitzhak Halevi Herzog
Rabbi Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog (1889-1959), also known as Isaac Herzog, was the first Chief Rabbi of Ireland, his term lasting from 1921 to 1936. From 1937 until his death, he was Chief Rabbi of the British Mandate of Palestine and Israel, once formed. Rabbi Herzog was born in Lomza, Poland, and moved to the United Kingdom with his family in 1898, where they settled in Leeds. His initial schooling was largely at the instruction of his father, Joel Leib Herzog, …
- Yisrael Ariel
Rabbi Yisrael Ariel was the chief rabbi of the evacuated Israeli settlement of Yamit in the Sinai desert during the years when the Sinai was controlled by Israel. His brother, Rabbi Yaakov Ariel, served as the rosh yeshiva in the yeshiva in Yamit and is currently the chief rabbi of the city of Ramat Gan. Rabbi Ariel is the founder of the Temple Institute ("Machon HaMikdash").
- Hillel Kook
Hillel Kook, also known as Peter Bergson (Hebrew: פיטר ברגסון), was a Revisionist Zionist activist, politician, and prominent member of the Irgun. He was the nephew of Abraham Isaac Kook, Israel's first Ashkenazi chief rabbi.
- Nathan Marcus Adler
Dr. Nathan Marcus Adler, a.k.a. Hillel Nissim Adler, was the Orthodox Chief Rabbi of Britain 1845–1891, probably the most prominent 19th century rabbi in the English-speaking world. He was apparently named after the kabbalist Nathan Adler (according to the biography of the latter in the "Jewish Encyclopedia"). His distant relative Jacob Adler, who made his acquaintance in the winter of 1883–1884, …
- Aaron Teitelbaum
Grand Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum (b. 1948) is one of two Grand "Rebbe"s of Satmar, and the chief rabbi of the Satmar community in Kiryas Joel, New York. He is the elder son of Grand Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum, the late Satmar Rebbe of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, who was the nephew of the late Satmar Rebbe, Grand Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum, who founded the village of Kiryas Joel in the town of Monroe, New York. Rabbi Teitelbaum is the son-in-law of Grand Rabbi Moshe Yehoshua Hager, …
- Isser Yehuda Unterman
Rabbi Isser Yehuda Unterman (1886 - 1976) was a 20th Century Jewish religious leader, serving as the Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi of the State of Israel from 1964 until his retirement shortly before his death. Born in Brest-Litovsk in modern Belarus, Unterman was educated at the Etz Chaim Yeshiva in Maltsch. There, he became a pupil of its Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Shimon Shkop.
- Joseph H. Hertz
Joseph Herman (<font lang=he>צְבִי</font>) Hertz, CH (25 September 1872–14 January 1946), was the Chief Rabbi of the British Empire.
- Moses Rosen
Moses (Moshe) Rosen was Chief Rabbi of Romanian Jewry from 1948 through the entire Communist era in Romania and continued in that role until his death several years after the Romanian Revolution of 1989. He was born in the shtetl of Moineşti, son of a rabbi. He himself became a rabbi about 1939. In 1948 he became Chief Rabbi of Romanian Jewry, and in 1957 a member of the Romanian Parliament, …
- Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld
Rabbi Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld was the Chief Rabbi of the Ashkenazi Haredi Jewish community of Jerusalem during the years of the British mandate and co-founder of the Edah HaChareidis. He was originally given the name "Chaim", however, the name "Yosef" was added to him while he experienced an illness. Rabbi Sonnenfeld was born in Vrbové, Slovakia. His father, Avraham Shlomo Sonnenfeld, died when he was four years old.
- Hugo Gryn
Rabbi Hugo Gabriel Gryn was a British Reform rabbi who was a popular broadcaster and a leading voice in interfaith dialogue. Hugo Gryn was born on 25 June 1930 into a prosperous Jewish family in the market town of Berehovo in Carpathian Ruthenia, which was then in Czechoslovakia. Gryn’s family were interned in Auschwitz in 1944. Hugo and his mother survived but his brother and father both died. Gryn came to Britain in 1946 and studied Mathematics at Cambridge.
- Shmuel Salant
Rabbi Shmuel Salant served as the Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem and was a renowned Talmudist and Torah scholar. He was born in Białystok, then part of Russia. After marrying Toiba (Yonah), the eldest daughter of Rabbi Yosef Zundel of Salant, he adopted his father-in-law's surname. At an early age his lungs became damaged, and he was advised to seek a warm climate. This induced him in 1840 to go with his wife and son Benyamin Beinish to Jerusalem.
- Marcus Melchior
Marcus Melchior (1897-1969) was acting chief rabbi of Denmark in 1943 at the time of the rescue of the Danish Jews. Marcus Melchor came from a prominent Jewish family in Denmark. After a few years as rabbi in Germany, 1934 he became rabbi for the Jewish Community in Copenhagen, from 1947 as chief rabbi in Denmark. 1943-45 he was acting rabbi for the Jewish refugees from Denmark in Sweden. After WW2 he pleaded for reconciliation with the new Germany.
- Bent Melchior
Bent Melchior is a former chief rabbi of Denmark. Bent Melchior was born in 1929. His father Marcus Melchior was instrumental in the saving of the Danish Jews in 1943 and became chief rabbi of Denmark in 1947. From 1943 to 1945 Bent Melchior was a refugee in Sweden. At the age of 18 Bent Melchior volunteered as a soldier in the Israeli War of Independence of 1948. After a period as a teacher in Copenhagen Melchior had his rabbinical education in London, …
- Ishak Haleva
Ishak Haleva is the current Hakham Bashi (Chief Rabbi) of Turkey.
- Yitzhak Nissim
Rabbi Yitzhak Nissim was a former Sephardic chief rabbi of Israel. Rabbi Nissim was born in Baghdad and immigrated to Israel in 1925. In 1964, Pope Paul VI visited Israel but refused to visit Jerusalem. In protest, Rabbi Nissim boycotted this visit.