British Library, Freedom of Information response of 2 November 2026 (ref. 26082) concerning the 1992 PhD thesis of Walter Homolka (redacted)

Response from the British Library (FOI ref. 26082) to an enquiry and Freedom of Information Act 2000 request submitted by Yiftach Fehige (University of Toronto) on 9 October 2026. The request concerned the British Library’s holdings of Walter Homolka’s PhD thesis, From essence to existence: Leo Baeck and religious identity as a problem of continuity and change in Liberal Jewish and Protestant theology (University of London, King’s College, 1992). It followed the author’s published statement that “some small changes to the dissertation had already been made” (Theology and Science, 2026, doi:10.1080/14746700.2026.2684047). The request asked in what form the Library holds the thesis; whether any replacement copy, corrigendum or erratum had been received since 1 January 2022; whether any request to amend, restrict or withdraw the thesis or its catalogue record had been received; and how the thesis and any amended text could be consulted. The British Library stated that: the EThOS service held a digital copy of the thesis before the 2023 cyber-attack, and that this file has not been recovered; the file was either digitised by the Library (2009–10) or harvested from the King’s College London repository, and the Library no longer has a record of which; it holds no other copy of the thesis; it has no record of receiving a replacement copy, corrigendum or erratum; on 14 June 2022, EThOS received a request from the Maughan Library, King’s College London, to embargo the thesis, following an embargo request from the author, and access was restricted on the EThOS platform on 20 June 2022; enquiries about access should be directed to King’s College London. The document contains the Library’s response and the original request. The name and email address of the responding officer, and the requester’s email address, have been redacted.