Abraham, Isaac, and the State: Faith-Healing and Legal Intervention

As a Cambridge magistrate in the England of 1960, Lady Rothschild doubtless considered herself an unlikely candidate for participation in a biblical drama reenactment. Nonetheless, on October 21, 1960, she willingly played the role of the last- minute angel of mercy in a virtual reenactment of the story of Abraham and Isaac -a story which, with unfortunate variations in the outcome for the child, seems destined to be repeated frequently in the future.