London – Speaking at his retirement dinner last night in London, retiring British Chief Rabbi, Lord Jonathan Sacks, told a star-studded audience that the “shrinking” moderate center of Judaism is “worse than dangerous,” and that it is an “abdication” of the “role” of Jews and Judaism throughout the world.

THE TIMES OF ISRAEL (http://bit.ly/1ciC4eD) reports that Sacks took direct aim at ultra-Orthodox Judaism, saying that Judaism is headed towards a polarized state, which includes only those who “embrace the world” and “reject Judaism,” and those who “embrace Judaism” while “rejecting the world.”

Sacks minced no words, telling the audience of over 800 that the two biggest “phenomena” negatively affecting the Jewish world are assimilated Jewish men marrying outside the faith, and the ultra-Orthodoxy that “segregates itself from the world and from its fellow Jews.”

Sacks said that if the moderate center continues to shrink there will be no one left to fight anti-Semitism or anti-Zionism in the future.

“Who is going to fight it?” Sacks asked. “The Jews who abandon Judaism? Or the Jews who abandon the world?”