ADLER, MICHAEL

ADLER, MICHAEL (1868–1944), English minister and historian. Born into an immigrant Russian-Jewish family, he later adopted the name Adler. In 1890 he was appointed minister of the newly founded Hammersmith Synagogue in London and was for many years minister of the Central Synagogue. In World War I he served as senior Jewish chaplain to the armed forces, receiving a medal for his efforts. He was also chairman of the Jewish Central Lads' Brigade. He published, mainly in the Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England (of which he was president, 1934–36), a number of fundamental essays on the history of the Jews in England in the Middle Ages, based largely on documentary sources. Many of these were republished in his The Jews of Medieval England (1939). He also published two Hebrew grammars and edited British Jewry, Book of Honour (1922) on the service of the English Jews in World War I. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: JHSET, 15 (1946), 191–4; M. Adler, History of the Hammersmith Synagogue (1950), 9–13 (memoir by A. Barnett); The Times (Oct. 2, 1944); JC (Oct. 6, 1944). (Cecil Roth)