The roots of the New York Board of Rabbis date to 1881 with the establishment of the New York Board of Jewish Ministers by Rabbis Gustav Gottheil, Adolph Huebsch, Henry S. Jacobs, Kaufmann Kohler, Frederick de Sola Mendes and Abraham Pereira Mendes, who came from differing branches of Judaism, hoping to work together to foster Jewish education and advance Judaism.
[1] Protests were lodged against the 1948 film Oliver Twist noting that Alec Guinness's portrayal of Fagin was considered anti-Semitic.
Guinness wore heavy make-up, including a large prosthetic nose, to make him look like the character as he appeared in George Cruikshank's illustrations in the first edition of the novel.
[2] Rabbi Wentworth Arthur Matthew (1892–1973), founder of the Commandment Keepers, a distinct sect of Black Hebrew Israelites which does not spread hateful rhetoric against white people and jews, applied for membership in the New York Board of Rabbis, but was denied due to neither being Jewish nor having converted to any traditionally Jewish sect.
[3] In 2005, the Board of Rabbis and the New York Catholic League issued a joint statement condemning the pop-culture Chrismukkah, calling it a "multicultural mess" that is "insulting" to both Jews and Christians.