For a moment, the combination of the delightful accent, the salt-and-pepper hair, and the baritone voice of the man appearing on my screen is reminiscent of one of the greatest action film stars of the past 60 years – so much so that I am expecting him to say, “The name is Bond. James Bond.”
But when I see the kippah on his head, I realize it is Manning. Rabbi Anthony Manning.
While the rabbi’s speech patterns may be similar to those of the late Sean Connery, better known as Agent 007, the Mannings’ aliyah story is grounded in the real-life circumstances of an idealistic British couple who chose to pursue a meaningful and fulfilling life in Israel rather than remain in London and settle for a more staid existence.
Anthony Manning grew up in the northern British city of Leeds. “It was a lovely, small Jewish community, he recalls. “Most of whom were just like us, meaning very traditional members of an Orthodox shul, not practicing much in terms of halachic observance, but very proud and very Zionist.”
There were no Jewish schools in Leeds, and Manning attended a “very English” private school, which, he says, reminds him of Hogwarts, the legendary school from the Harry Potter series. “They didn’t play Quidditch,” he quips, “but they did have a bell tower and a library with long tables.” Manning excelled in his studies and attended Oxford, where he studied law for his undergraduate degree.
Manning met Sarah at Oxford, and they became active in the Hillel organization on campus. “I quickly gravitated into a fully practicing Orthodox life there,” he says, “because I always identified as being Orthodox. I was never with people who were particularly observant, but once I was in Oxford it was a small Jewish society. Every man was needed for the minyan. It was a very warm, inviting, and accepting community.”
While at university, Manning was in charge of the Hillel organization, as well as the Jewish society. He was also quite involved in the musical world as an orchestral violinist and conducted a chamber orchestra.
Sarah grew up in South London in a Zionist and Jewishly committed family. She attended a non-Jewish school as a child and wanted to move to Northwest London, where she could have a peer group of Jewish friends. “I felt very ‘other’ in my school and experienced some antisemitism there,” she recounts, “although it was very ‘polite’ English antisemitism.”
She recalls it manifesting itself in subtle discrimination, such as her being prohibited from singing in the school choir for not agreeing to sing Christian songs. “When I went to university and then moved to Hendon,” she continues, “I wanted to be with Jewish people, and I wanted to be more Jewish.”
Sarah and Anthony got engaged during his law school studies and got married in 1991, living in Hendon. Sarah began working in marketing, while Anthony started his legal career. Though Anthony enjoyed his legal work in real estate, he wanted to improve his Jewish knowledge. In 1993, England was in a recession, and the real estate business was not as active as usual, so he decided to take a year off from his job and study Torah.
“I felt a really strong need to go and study more in depth,” he remembers.
In 1993, Manning took an unpaid leave of absence and spent two months in Israel studying at Yeshivat Hamivtar in Jerusalem. He then returned to London and continued his studies at Etz Chaim Yeshiva for the remainder of that year. “When you don’t take a gap year, you always feel you’re kind of catching up,” he says. “But when you’re 25, you can achieve much more in a year than when you’re 18.”
Manning returned to his law office after that year and was quite successful, becoming a partner by age 28. But his career plans were upended when he was offered a position teaching a weekly Torah class to a group of men in London. “It was a life-changing moment in many ways,” he says.
The experience of teaching Torah led him to the realization that though he had experienced significant success in law, he did not feel fulfilled in that role. “My heart was in being an educator, and it took me until that point to really realize that.”
By the summer of 2002, Anthony and Sarah had decided to make aliyah with their two children. “We were both attracted to come to Israel at that point [during the Second Intifada], which was pretty incomprehensible to our parents,” Manning says, “but it made a lot of sense to us that we felt drawn to Israel.”
Recalling how she felt at the time, Sarah says, “Already in 2000, the media was very pro-Palestinian, and the antisemitism which had been below the surface was beginning to be more blatant. I was beginning to feel that England didn’t like Jews very much. I said to Anthony, ‘I don’t want to live in a country where they don’t care about us or they don’t care that we’re being killed. I want to be with my people.’”
Manning decided to return to studying in a yeshiva environment to gain a deeper understanding of Jewish law. Arriving with Sarah that summer, he began two years of intensive yeshiva studies in an Israeli yeshiva in Bayit Vagan. The couple rented out their home in London and lived in an apartment in Jerusalem’s Har Nof neighborhood.
Sarah commuted from London, running her marketing agency, and worked remotely from Jerusalem when she was not traveling. “It was a bit of a shock to my parents’ system that I had given up a job as a successful corporate lawyer, but it made perfect sense to us,” says Manning. “I had a great experience in the yeshiva for two years.”
He was then offered a job teaching in a women’s seminary, which marked the beginning of his current career as an educator in Israel, teaching Torah to women. “I loved it,” he says. “It was something that I found exciting and energizing, and the students found it engaging. I’m very focused on the need for good women’s Jewish education.”
From 2017 to 2024, Manning was co-director of the Midreshet Tehillah seminary and has taught at many other seminaries and educational institutions in Jerusalem. In August 2024, he became director and rosh midrasha of Midreshet Rachel v’Chaya College of Jewish Studies for Women, which is geared toward college-age and young professional women. He teaches a regular class at the OU Center in Jerusalem, and in 2023 he co-authored Reclaiming Dignity – A Guide to Tzniut for Men and Women.
'A passionate moderate'
In his educational philosophy, Manning is passionate about avoiding extremes. “Focusing on a passionate, moderate, authentic middle is something I think we need at the moment,” he says.
Sarah works with marketing for nonprofit organizations in Israel and does not hesitate when asked about their decision to make aliyah. “Would I do it again? In a heartbeat. I think one of the things that I feel quite strongly about is that we both came to make a difference. We were idealistic, and we didn’t have any channels for that in the UK. The UK is a very conservative society and hasn’t changed much in the past 30 years.
“We’ve changed, and Israel has changed. We’ve been part of that change and are excited to be part of that change going forward.
“But we feel this is a country where individuals can make a difference,” she states. ■