Ephraim Mirvis

“The rabbis will find in me personally someone who cares about their future and welfare.”

“We must teach compassion and tolerance and encourage kindness, selflessness, and loving acceptance of all who are created in the image of God.”

“Britain has been good to the Jews, and the Jews have been good for Britain.”

“I feel very privileged indeed to be appointed to be the next Chief Rabbi.”

“Jews are frequently compared to the proverbial 'canary in the coal mine,' an enduring signal for when the world is failing to meet its obligations in tackling bigotry. It has never been clearer to me just how widely understood that truism is.”

“I was honoured recently to accept the position of president of Mizrachi U.K. I did so because I believe our eternal challenge as Jews is both straightforward and also awash with complexity: How to sanctify the innovations of the modern world in accordance with our eternal Jewish values?”

“Anti-Semitism is not just a problem for Jews; it is a problem for all of our society.”

“The beth din is the court of the chief rabbi. I see myself taking an active role within the beth din.”

“Life has an absolute value and its preservation takes precedence over other commandments.”

“The Holocaust remains unique in contemporary Jewish consciousness for its capacity to engender the most visceral grief and abject pain.”

“Ethics, politics and psychology are all far more difficult to understand now that we know the depths to which human nature can sink.”

“Words make a world of difference. Over time, they become charged with inference and allusion and, deployed effectively, they have the power to change the very fabric of our civilisation.”

“As we wander, grieving, in yet another dark moment, amid our pain we must struggle to remember the redemptive power of love and hope.”

“Open a Jewish daily prayer book used in any part of the world, and Zionism will leap out at you.”

“We protest to our last breath against the purveyors of hatred, cruelty and violence.”

“All societies wrestle with the scourge of prejudice, but validating that prejudice in statute makes a virtue of oppression.”

“Shimon Peres was the greatest living example of an unshakable belief in the pursuit of peace against all odds.”

“Holocaust denial, once the preserve of fringe conspiracy theorists, has mutated into Holocaust obfuscation, equivocation, and specious comparison on a larger scale than ever.”

“All political parties share in the responsibility to rid our society of anti-Semitism, but we cannot achieve that objective with political posturing or empty promises of action never to be fulfilled.”

“When someone denies the right of Israel to exist, it hurts us, just as an attack on a close member of our family would hurt us.”