Michael Sachs

Michael Sachs (3 September 1808 – 31 January 1864) was a German rabbi from Groß-Glogau, Silesia.

Life

He was one of the first Jewish graduates from the modern universities, earning a Ph.D. degree in 1836. He was appointed Rabbi in Prague in 1836, and in Berlin in 1844. He took the conservative side against the Reform agitation, and so strongly opposed the introduction of the organ into the Synagogue that he retired from the Rabbinate rather than acquiesce.

Sachs was one of the greatest preachers of his age, and published two volumes of Sermons (Predigten, 1866–1891). He co-operated with Leopold Zunz in a new translation of the Bible. Sachs is best remembered for his work on Hebrew poetry, Religiöse Poesie der Juden in Spanien (1845); his more ambitious critical work (Beiträge zur Sprach- und Alterthumsforschung, 2 vols., 1852–1854) is of less lasting value. He turned his poetic gifts to admirable account in his translation of the Festival Prayers (Machzor, 9 vols., 1855), a new feature of which was the metrical rendering of the medieval Hebrew hymns. Another very popular work by Sachs contains poetic paraphrases of Rabbinic legends (Stimmen vom Jordan und Euphrat, 1853).

Michael Sachs (judge)

Sir Michael Alexander Geddes Sachs (8 April 1932 - 25 September 2003) was the first English solicitor to be appointed as a High Court judge. Since his appointment in 1993, only three other solicitors have been appointed to the High Court - Lawrence Collins in 2000, Henry Hodge in 2004 and Gary Hickinbottom in 2008.

Early life

Sachs was born in Glasgow, the son of a GP and a nurse. He was raised in Penrith and educated at Appleby Grammar School and Sedbergh School. He read law at Manchester University and took his articles at Slater, Heelis & Co in Manchester.

Career

After qualifying as a solicitor, and then undertaking National Service, he returned to Slater Heelis in 1959 to work on crime, family, personal injury and common law matters. He became a partner at Slater Heelis in 1962. He acted for defendants charged with offences relating to IRA bombings in the 1970s. He was president of Manchester Law Society in 1978-9, a member of the Law Society Council from 1979 to 1984, and chairman of the Law Society's standing committee on criminal law from 1982 to 1984.