Rabbi Dr Benjamin Elton

Honorary Research Fellow in the History of Jewish Philosophy, Centre for the History of Philosophy
MA, PhD, FRHistS

Email: rabbielton@greatsynagogue.org.au

  • Biography

    Benjamin Elton is Honorary Research Fellow in the History of Jewish Philosophy at the Notre Dame Centre for the History of Philosophy, and Chief Minister of The Great Synagogue Sydney.

    He received his PhD from Birkbeck, University of London, and holds an MA from Queens' College, University of Cambridge. He received rabbinic ordination from Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School and Rabbi Chaim Rapoport (London) and is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

    Rabbi Dr Elton's research focuses on the religious history of Anglo-Jewry and Australian Jewry. His monograph Britain’s Chief Rabbis and the Religious Character of Anglo-Jewry, 1880–1970 was published by Manchester University Press. He has published on British Orthodox Judaism, the religious thought of Australian rabbis, and the architecture of The Great Synagogue in journals including the Journal of Modern Jewish Studies, Jewish Journal of Sociology, and the Australian Jewish Historical Society Journal.

  • Research expertise and supervision

    • Anglo-Jewish and Australian-Jewish history and theology
    • Medieval and modern Jewish philosophy and history

  • Books

    • Britain’s Chief Rabbis and the Religious Character of Anglo-Jewry, 1880–1970. Manchester University Press, 2009.
    • The Architecture of The Great Synagogue, Sydney. The Great Synagogue, 2019.

  • Journal articles and proceedings

    • “Inclusive Orthodoxy: Vision, Context and Connections," in The Intellectual Legacy of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, special issue of Tradition: A Journal of Orthodox Jewish Thought 57, no. 4 (2025)
    • “Rabbi Dr Israel Porush: The Religious Thought of Australia’s Uncrowned Chief Rabbi,” Australian Jewish Historical Society Journal 25, no. 2 (2021)
    • “Alternations to the Interior of The Great Synagogue, Sydney 1906–1911: Architecture and Ideology," Australian Jewish Historical Society Journal 23, no. 2 (2017)
    • “British Orthodox Jewry 1945–1990: Swing to the Right or Shift to the Centre?” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 13, no. 2 (2014).
    • “In the Islands of the Sea: Geography in the Religious History of the Jews of Britain,” Jewish Journal of Sociology (2013)
    • “Conservative Judaism’s British Trailblazers,” Conservative Judaism 63, no. 4 (2012)
    • Millin Havivin: An Annual Devoted to Torah, Society and the Rabbinate (Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School, 2012–2013), editor and contributor
    • Degel: Torah and Jewish Studies from Alei Tzion (biannual, 2008–2012), editor and contributor