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This article covers the Jewish denomination of progressive synagogues in the United Kingdom. The term Liberal Judaism is also a synonym for Progressive Judaism. For information on the beliefs and practices of liberal Jews, please see Progressive Judaism.

Liberal Judaism is the current name of the progressive denomination of Judaism in the United Kingdom. It was founded as the Jewish Religious Union in 1902 and changed its name to Union of Liberal and Progressive Synagogues in 1944. Its current name was adopted in 2003.

The term Reform Judaism in the UK referred historically to the West London Synagogue, which was not connected with German or North American Reform Judaism, and in modern terms was strongly conservative. From that synagogue came the UK Reform denomination, which greatly resembles the Conservative Judaism of the US, and is now referred to as the Reform Synagogues of Great Britain. To avoid confusion, progressive UK synagogues that were influenced by the German and North American Reform movements chose to call themselves liberal. Accoring to their website, Liberal Judaism considers itself the sister movement of North American Reform Judaism.

Despite historical and theological differences, since 1964 both the UK Liberal Judaism and Reform Synagogues of Great Britain denominations have, together with the charity UJIA, co-sponsored Leo Baeck College in London, "the premier centre for Progressive Jewish learning" according to the college's website. In recent years, also similar to North American Reform Judaism, there has also been a move towards more traditional elements in Liberal services than a generation earlier - i.e. more use of Hebrew, more wearing of tallit and kippot, more enjoyment of Purim and other traditional minor festivals. But Liberal Judaism is still distinctly more progressive than Reform. Examples would include more readily recognising as Jewish without conversion the child of a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother, [1], or in Liberal Judaism's readiness to celebrate homosexual partnerships in synagogues with more of the traditional symbolism associated with Jewish weddings [2].

Origins

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 of using more English in services, men and women sitting freely together, the use of organ music, and a more inclusive form of worship which would prove attractive to members of British Jewry who felt uninvolved or out of sympathy with existing traditionalist patterns of worship. 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 Movement's website, "It reverences Jewish tradition, and seeks to preserve all that is good in the Judaism of the past. But it lives in the present. It desires that Judaism shall be an active force for good in the lives of Jewish individuals, families and communities today, and that it shall make its contribution to the betterment of human society. 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.

Organisations

LJY-Netzer is the youth movement of Liberal Judaism, a progressive Zionist youth movement, and a branch (or snif) of Netzer Olami.

External links

• Liberal Judaism (UK)
• History of the Liberal movement (UK)
• World Union for Progressive Judaism