Abstract This article examines a significant crisis in Anglo-Jewish religious leadership that erupted in December 1961 when the Chief Rabbi vetoed the appointment of Rabbi Louis Jacobs as Principal of Jews' College, the rabbinical seminary of English Jewry. Using historical analysis and institutional examination, this study traces the disintegration of Anglo-Jewish religious unity from its nineteenth-century foundations through the post-World War II period. The methodology employs documentary evidence, institutional records, and contemporary accounts to analyze the structural and theological tensions within the community. The research reveals that the traditional "middle ground" Orthodoxy that had historically unified Anglo-Jewry between strict Orthodox and Reform elements had collapsed by the 1960s. Key findings demonstrate how the decline of hereditary lay leadership, the rise of Continental European Orthodox influence, and the increasing power of the London Beth Din fundamentally altered the community's religious character. The crisis crystallized around institutional authority versus scholarly independence, with the Beth Din charging Jacobs with heresy for his acceptance of biblical criticism and rejection of verbal inspiration doctrine. The study concludes that this controversy marked not merely a personnel dispute but rather a symptom of broader systemic breakdown in Anglo-Jewish religious organization, representing the triumph of rigid Orthodox interpretation over the historically pluralistic approach that had characterized English Jewish life since the nineteenth century.