opinion
Rabbi Adam Zagoria-Moffet
P erhaps the strangest part was sitting
through a Sunday service in the
1,000-year-old nave of St. Albans
Cathedral (the longest nave in England!) and
hearing the Hebrew Bible (specifically I Kings
1:32-40) read aloud in English.

Maybe stranger yet was hearing part of
that passage set to the music of 17th-century
maestro George Friedrich Handel! These, and
many other oddities, were only a fraction of
the wonderful and unusual experiences of
being an American-born British rabbi during
the first coronation this country has seen in
70 years.

As with the funeral last year of the late
Queen Elizabeth, the scale of organization
and competence required to pull off such
an event is astounding. For a country where
it often feels that small-scale bureaucracy
can get in the way of day-to-day life, the
coronation was, by all accounts, seamless.

This, of course, makes it the exception rather
King Charles III
than the rule, as coronations past were often
marred by logistical issues, bad luck and
wouldn’t return (officially) for 400 years — or get an
sometimes straight-up violence.

It was the coronation of Richard I in 1189 that official apology from the church for 800.

These festivities, thankfully, were of a very different
unleashed anti-Jewish massacres and pogroms
across the country and led to the York Massacre caliber. Not only were Jewish communities front and
in 1190, in which more than 150 local Jews killed center, but Jews, religious and not, were active and
themselves after being trapped in Clifford’s Tower, welcome participants in the ceremony in Westminster
which was set ablaze by an angry mob. During that Abbey. Indeed, despite the ceremony taking place
year there were attacks in London, Lynn, Bury St. on Shabbat, the United Synagogue (a mainstream
Edmunds, Stamford, Lincoln, Colchester and others. Orthodox denomination that accounts for 40-45%
It was exactly 100 years later, in 1290, that Edward of British Jewish synagogue membership) was
I would expel Jews from England altogether. They represented by Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, who, together
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with other faith leaders, played a role in
greeting the king as he left the church. This
was especially unusual as it has long been
the position of the United Synagogue that
their rabbis and members should not go into
churches (much less on Shabbat). In many
ways, this demonstrates one of the consistent
themes of the coronation: the interruption
of normal routine and the continued
exceptionalism of the royal family.

Judaism is agnostic, at best, about kings.

Our own monarchy came about because the
people insisted on it, but against the will of
the prophet Samuel against the desire of God.

Once it was established — a process that
involved several civil wars, a lot of bloodshed
and the degradation of many historical
elements of Israelite society — it did, for a
brief time, bring some stability to the fragile
confederacy of Israelite tribes.

But it was really only the half-century golden
era under King Solomon that managed this
feat. After him, and ever since, the monarchy
has been a source of conflict and violence.

While we still hope that a righteous heir of the
Davidic monarchy will reappear and take their
place as king of Israel, we, famously, are not
holding our breath.

Our approach to non-Jewish monarchs is even
more complex. Whilst King Charles III was being
coronated to the words of our holy texts and being
anointed in oil (the ceremony for our monarchs) from
the Mount of Olives (in our holy land), we were at the
same time reciting a litany of prayers, as we do daily,
to remind us (in the words of our prayers): “We have
no king but You” (Avinu Malkeinu); “Your kingdom is
an everlasting kingdom” (Ashrei); “God is King, God
has ruled, God will rule forever (Y’hi Khavod); “God’s
kingship is true there is none else” (Aleinu).

These words were chosen by our sages for our
prayers in part because they shared the biblical
anxiety about monarchs. Halacha, Jewish law, does
retain the notion of a king over Israel, but that king
is so heavily bound by legislation, it is far from the
absolutist monarchies of most of Europe.

However, since 1688 at least, after the brief (and
failed) experiment with the notion of divine right of
kings, England (and now the United Kingdom) has
See King Charles III, page 13
Hugo Burnand/Royal Household 2023/PA Wire / Avalon/Newscom
As an American Rabbi in King
Charles’ Court, I’m Learning to
Love the Idea of Monarchy