Benjamin Artom

Benjamin Artom was born in Asti, Italy. He had served as the first Haham (broadly the Sephardi equivalent of a Chief Rabbi) in Naples before in 1866 taking up post as Haham in London. He lived at 20 City Road, Finsbury in his later years.

When he was appointed to London, the post had been vacant since the death of his predecessor, Raphael Meldola, almost 40 years previously. The Sephardi congregation in Britain – compared with its Ashkenazi counterpart – was smaller and much more concentrated in London, where it was largely served by Bevis Marks Synagogue in the City. It was a prosperous, if sometimes disputatious, institution with a good range of office-bearers, if not a religious leader as such. Artom would bring this additional strength.

It is said that while a Miss A M Goldsmid (probably Anna Maria Goldsmid, daughter of Isaac Lyon and Isabella Goldsmid) was travelling through Italy, she heard Artom preach at Naples, ‘and was so charmed by his grace and eloquence that she immediately wrote to London ... After a brief correspondence, Dr Artom was invited to London, and was elected in 1866 for life to the position of Hacham’.

For the first year he lectured in French, but soon mastered English, and his sermons were regarded as models of pulpit eloquence. He wrote several prayers and odes in Hebrew, and several pieces of Italian poetry.

A man of orthodox views, he was nevertheless a reformer who was keen to resolve differences between discordant factions. With Chief Rabbi Adler, he attended the opening of the North London Synagogue in Barnsbury in 1868. In doing so, he was signalling (whether intentionally or otherwise) that it was an acceptable alternative for Sephardi worshippers in the west of Islington to the small Sephardi synagogue in Essex Road (see entry on Solomon Andrade da Costa).