Liberal Judaism: Encyclopedia - Liberal Judaism

Liberal Judaism

Liberal Judaism is a term used by some communities worldwide for what is otherwise also known as Reform Judaism or Progressive Judaism.

Liberal Judaism - Liberal Judaism in the UK

As well as the general sense above, the term 'Liberal Judaism' has a particular significance in the UK.

For historical reasons in the UK, 'Liberal Judaism' exists as a separate identity from the United Kingdom's Movement for Reform Judaism. The Movement for Reform Judaism is associated with communities which are typically somewhat more conservative than most Reform communities in the United States; whereas the spirit of most Liberal communities in the UK is very close to what would be called Reform in the United States.

The Liberal movement in the UK was founded in the early part of the 20th century by Lily Montagu, Claude Montefiore and others. It began initially in 1902 with a supplementary prayer meeting, an adjunct to the then Orthodox and Reform synagogues, with the intention that the use of more English in services, men and women sitting freely together, the use of organ music, and a more inclusive form of worship could prove attractive to members of British Jewry who felt uninvolved or out of sympathy with existing very traditionalist patterns of worship. But the sense of sincerity and radicalism of the Liberal movement rapidly gained adherents and established a new identity, leading to the founding of the Liberal Jewish synagogue in 1911, the first of now more than thirty Liberal congregations in the UK.

To quote the LJS website, "Liberal Judaism values tradition, but truth even more. It combines respect for our Jewish heritage with positive acceptance of modern knowledge and due regard for the realities of the world in which we live". And it stresses "the full equality and participation of men and women in every sphere of religious life; an emphasis on ethical conduct above ritual observance; an affirmation of each individual's freedom to act responsibly in accordance with the dictates of the informed religious conscience; a pride in combining our Jewish heritage with full participation in the civic life of this country; and an awareness of our duty not only to the Jewish people and to the State of Israel, but also to the entire human family, each one of whom is created in the Divine image".

The British scholar Daniel Langton's study of the spiritual founder of the Liberal Synagogue, Claude Montefiore, has caused recent debate. In his account of the origins of the movement, Langton claims that the aspirations of Montefiore have not been realised: Montefiore's passionate anti-Zionism was soon marginalised and his declared aim to amalgamate "the best of Judaism and Christianity" led him to propound an unpopular view of Jesus and Paul of Tarsus as religious authorities of real interest to modern Jews. This did not go undisputed, and met with strong criticism in the Jewish Chronicle from the Liberal Jewish Synagogue, which sees itself as continuing on foursquare Montefiore's insistence on the best of modern scholarship, inclusiveness, intellectual honesty, and an overriding ethics-led view of what it means to be Jewish. LJS rabbis have also been notably prepared to criticise Israeli policy and some Israeli/Zionist attitudes, whenever they have felt them to be falling short of the particular ethical standards to be expected of Jews.

The distinction in the UK between the terms "Reform" and "Liberal" arose because in the early 1900s in the UK, 'Reform Judaism' meant the West London Synagogue, which was not connected with German or American Reform, and in modern terms strongly conservative. Since the 1930s, Reform Judaism in the UK has become much more like Reform in the United States; while Orthodoxy has grown steadily more and more rigid. Liberalism and Reform have therefore increasingly become twin halves of Progressive Judaism in the UK. Since 1964 both have together co-sponsored the training of rabbis at Leo Baeck College in London; and rabbis move freely from Reform to Liberal congregations and vice-versa. In recent years there has also been a move towards more tradition in Liberal services than a generation earlier - eg more use of Hebrew, more wearing of tallit and kippot, more enjoyment of Purim and other traditional minor festivals. But Liberal Judaism is still in some ways distinctly more 'liberal' than Reform, for example more readily recognising as Jewish without conversion the child of Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother [1]; or in Liberal Judaism's readiness to celebrate homosexual partnerships in synagogue with more of the traditional symbolism associated with Jewish weddings [2].

Liberal Judaism - Organisations

The official umbrella organisation of Liberal Judaism in the UK was founded as the Jewish Religious Union in 1902, was renamed the Union of Liberal and Progressive Synagogues in 1944, and officially renamed itself Liberal Judaism in 2003.

LJY-Netzer is the youth movement of Liberal Judaism and a progressive Zionist Youth movement.

Liberal Judaism - Links

• Liberal Judaism (UK)
• History of the Liberal movement (UK)
• Liberal Jewish Synagogue, St. John's Wood, London
• World Union for Progressive Judaism

Categories: Reform Judaism | Religion in the United Kingdom

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Liberal Judaism", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki