In honor of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks’ fourth yahrtzeit, the National Library of Israel unveiled the former British chief rabbi’s personal archives, which were presented to the library earlier this year, inviting British ex-pats, dignitaries, scholars of his works and journalists on Thursday evening to peruse his letters, rough drafts, speech outlines and other writings.

The annual memorial event — dubbed “The Sacks Conversation” — also featured an onstage conversation between U.S. Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew and Jerusalem-born writer Rachel Sharansky Danziger. This year’s theme, “The People of the Book,” reflects Sacks’ commitment to “learning, dialogue, and the power of ideas,” organizers said.

In his remarks, Lew recalled a conversation he had earlier in the day with the family of one of the hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza, in which he had unintentionally echoed Sacks’ quote about the necessity of hope. “I said, ‘I’m more hopeful today than I’ve been in weeks and I can’t tell you that it’s going to change tomorrow, but if things proceed as I hope they will over the coming days, there is a new opening… to bring out the 101 hostages,’” Lew said. “That is something that we have to keep alive because the alternative is giving up… It’s a very narrow path, and we have to believe that it will lead to where we all want it to go. I don’t know if it made him feel better.”

Reflecting on next month’s Hanukkah holiday, when Jews are meant to put their hanukkiot in the window so others can see the light, Lew said that Jews — specifically Jewish academics — had to speak out against antisemitism and falsehoods about Israel. 

“We have to keep putting our story out there and hoping that it will shine… And it’s hard,” he said. “I’ve met with every group of American faculty that traveled here over the past year, and I’ve met hundreds of faculty members. And I’ve asked them, ‘When things were said that you thought were wrong, did you stand up then and explain why it was wrong?’ And very few said they felt comfortable doing it… They didn’t want to be ostracized.”

Despite acknowledging the difficulty, Lew said that academics had to challenge antisemitism and anti-Israel falsehoods. “You can’t just cede the space to a group that doesn’t represent most [people] but is louder than the others,” he said. 

Before the onstage conversation, attendees were shown Sacks’ archives and were also given a tour of the library, which opened a few weeks after the Oct. 7 attacks. In addition to a view into the library’s automated book repository, which is climate controlled against fire and water, the tour also featured the institution’s “Every Hostage Has Their Own Story” exhibit, which features dozens of black chairs arranged in the reading hall with photos of the hostages, with a book placed on it chosen specifically for that hostage.

Some of the documents from the Sacks’ archives have been put on display as the archival work on the documents, handwritten correspondence, certificates and notes for some of Sacks’ most influential speeches continues. Digitalization of the documents is planned for a later date so for now a small portion of the archives will be available for viewing only at the library.

Sacks, who died of cancer at 72 in 2020, served as British chief rabbi for 22 years and was considered a global religious leader and much sought-after speaker by the press, conferences and political leaders. One of the documents in the archives includes a partially handwritten note by now-King Charles addressing him as “Dear Chief Rabbi” and thanking Sacks for his congratulatory note on his engagement to now-Queen Camilla.

Recognized as the foremost Jewish figure in the United Kingdom and a prominent voice for the Jewish community across Europe, Sacks was a strong proponent of both religious and social acceptance, promoted the idea that science and religion can coexist harmoniously, and spoke out against antisemitism and in defense of Israel.

Sacks never wrote out his speeches in longhand, and his handwritten notes for speeches and conferences were meticulously written only in outline form, from which he was able to elaborate seamlessly, noted library archivist Rachel Misrati, originally from England, who is archiving the Sacks documents.

“He used notes and then he had the gift of the gab, and he used to speak and it was amazing,” she said.

One document on display for a talk he gave in Hebrew is fully typed out, as his Hebrew was not fluent and he felt more comfortable having the speech written out, she said. 

Also on display are the notes he used from a lecture he gave in Jerusalem in 2014 prior to the groundbreaking for the new National Library where he coined the phrase “the Home of the Book for the People of the Book.” Misrati noted that the importance of the library was paramount to him and he said: “Let us share with the world not only how Jews died, but how Jews live.”  

A poignant document that Misrati found in the collection was a piece Sacks wrote in the Jewish Chronicle in 1998 called “The Courage to Rejoice” in which he speaks about Simchat Torah and how Jews manage to rejoice on the holiday even in spite of their tragic history.

“I think that’s a very [relevant] point of today,” said Misrati, referring to the Oct. 7 attacks, which took place on Simchat Torah in Israel. “It says the essence of Judaism is to overcome and to be able to celebrate. Archiving his documents is just amazing. He was just a man of great stature and such an example and a moral voice, who was not afraid to stand up for being a Jew and his voice is sorely missed now.”

Sacks scholar Tanya White, who was a student of the former chief rabbi and now teaches courses on her former mentor at Bar-Ilan University and at the women’s Torah institute Matan, said she was honored to see a mention of her great-aunt, philanthropist Susi Bradfield, in one of the documents on display where Sacks plays tribute to Bradfield for providing scholarships to women for Jewish learning.

White said Sacks’ “brilliance” lay in the fact that he was able to take the “profundity of the Torah and the unique particular knowledge of Judaism and was able to find the universal language to let that message speak to the world.”

“He was able to deliver complex ideas and Torah ideas in a language that everyone could understand and still maintain the complexity and the profundity of the idea without diminishing it, without distilling it too much, in a language that people could understand,” White said. “There’s no one that I can think of, certainly in the modern history of Judaism, but certainly even before that, where you would have these incredible world leaders seeking Jewish wisdom.”

Because most of his work is in English, until recently he was less known to Israelis, according to Tanya White, a former student and scholar of Sacks. But as his books are being translated into Hebrew by Israeli journalist and poet Tsur Ehrlich, more Israelis are now being exposed to his works, she said.

“Rabbi Sacks was very idiosyncratically British, and his Hebrew wasn’t great, so it was difficult for Israelis to identify with him when he spoke,” White said. “Now four years on, people know him much more than they did before when he was alive because his written work has been translated. And it speaks to the moment.”

Jonny Lipczer, director of communication of the Rabbi Sacks Legacy, noted that though Sacks never came to live in Jerusalem, the city and Israel in general were close to his heart.

“I think the reality is that his natural language was English and the place that he could make the most impact at that time in his life was in the English-speaking world,” said Lipczer. “He definitely loved spending time in Israel. And when he would come, he would have a packed schedule, speaking sometimes in Hebrew as well. His natural level of comfort wasn’t in Hebrew, but towards the end of his life he started to make a huge impact in Israel with the translation of his writings. So it’s so meaningful for us that the National Library is now the home of his personal archive with his writings, his speeches, his drafts, the letters — and it’s being cataloged at the moment. The plan is that people will come, they’ll be able to see and they’ll be able to be inspired by the message that he had, the message of hope, the message of unity.”