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Israel Brodie was born in Newcastle upon Tyne and was educated at Rutherford College, University College London, Jews College and Balliol College, Oxford. Between 1917 and 1919 Brodie served as a chaplain in France and Belgium. After the war he returned to Oxford and also worked as a chaplain and counsellor in the east end of London. He was ordained in 1923 and then moved to Australia to head the Jewish ecclesiastical court in Victoria. During his time there he visited all Jewish congregations on that continent.
Israel Brodie returned to England at the end of the 1930s to become a senior lecturer at Jews' College. He entered into military chaplaincy on the outbreak of war and served in France and the Middle East. For a short period after the war he served as Principal of Jews' College; in 1948 he succeeded Joseph Hertz as Chief Rabbi.
He was by temperament a more peaceable character than his predecessor. Israel Brodie was energetic in working to advance the cause of the new state of Israel and in efforts for the reconstruction of the remnants of European Jewry. Improvements in air travel meant that he was able to tour provincial and overseas communities and congregations frequently. He visited Israel many times and supported the foundation of the Bar-Ilan University where a chair was endowed in his honour. In 1957 Brodie convened a standing conference of European rabbis of which he long remained President.
Israel Brodie faced what was probably his greatest crisis in the 1960s. In 1962 he vetoed the return of Rabbi Dr. Louis Jacobs to be Minister of the New West End Synagogue. Dr. Jacobs, a notable scholar, had a few years earlier left that position in order to assume at the Chief Rabbi's invitation the post of tutor at Jews' College. Following differences connected with Jacobs' theological and doctrinal opinions (which he had made before his appointment to the College), he had retired from the College. The New West End Synagogue now defied Brodie and a majority confirmed Jacobs' re-appointment. A public debate about the powers of the Chief Rabbinate broke out. Finally, the Board of Management of the New West End Synagogue were dismissed by the Council of the United Synagogue; Jacobs and many of his followers broke away from the New West End Synagogue to form the independent New London Synagogue which became the nucleus of the Masorti movement in Britain.
Israel Brodie retired in 1965, the first Chief Rabbi to leave office by retirement. During retirement he was knighted and he died on the 13th of February 1979.