www.reformjudaism.org.uk

MANNA 101: Autumn 2008

Written by Rabbi Dr. Tony Bayfield Tuesday, 17 August 2010

The Statement of Collaboration published in September 2008 by the Liberal, Masorti and Reform Movements represents a watershed in British Jewish history. The Jewish Chronicle recognised that and was appropriately generous in its coverage. However, even the Jewish Chronicle got it wrong in two respects.

First, it described the Liberal, Reform and Masorti Movements as non-orthodox. That is a major error. The Masorti Movement, led by Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg is orthodox. Although Rabbi Wittenberg is his own person, he is unequivocal that the Movement’s founder, Rabbi Dr Louis Jacobs was not only the greatest scholar British Jewry has ever produced but was also the greatest chief rabbi the British Jewish community never had. Masorti Judaism considers itself to be the heir to minhag Anglia. It stands where the United Synagogue would have stood had it not fallen victim to the world-wide epidemic of fundamentalism.

Second, successive editorials in the Jewish Chronicle represented the Statement as a political challenge to the Chief Rabbi, Sir Jonathan Sacks and to the United Synagogue. It is nothing of the sort. It presents a challenge of a theological kind but it is not a political challenge. Liberal, Masorti and Reform would welcome United Synagogue collaboration but neither count on it nor feel that the urgency of the situation allows the luxury of extended discussion and deliberation.

It is already six years since Sir Jonathan, undoubtedly the finest philosopher ever to grace the Office of Chief Rabbi, published his important and admirable book The Dignity of Difference. He ruffled Jewish fundamentalist feathers by granting other faiths their dignity and their perceptions of God. He seemed to suggest that the Torah might not be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. He withdrew the book and made changes. What is less well remembered is that the first major change was to delete a long paragraph accepting evolutionary theory. Evolution was endorsed back in 1930 by Sacks’ predecessor Chief Rabbi Hertz in an essay still available for all to read in the current edition of the Hertz Chumash.

The Sacks paragraph of 2002 was deleted in deference to creationism and the new militant fundamentalism. This is in no way an attack on Chief Rabbi Sacks. Many would have taken the same view that he did, namely that to remove a paragraph not central to the main thrust of his argument and thus maintain a highly articulate and persuasive contribution to the national debate on religion and society, was prudent and worthwhile.

What was so significant was that charedi rabbis both inside and outside the United Synagogue could compel their own Chief Rabbi, in the full glare of national, public attention, to recant. It is that process of charedi-isation, the inexorable rise and rise of the influence of the fundamentalists within the United Synagogue that is decisive and presents the United Synagogue with a challenge, not the collaboration of Liberal, Masorti and Reform.

Professor Geoffrey Alderman, also writing in the Jewish Chronicle, suggests that the Statement of Collaboration is akin to the formation of the United Reformed Church, the coming together of non-conformist churches outside the Church of England thirty years ago. It is yet another illustration of what a lobbes the Alderman is. But it is, once again, wide of the mark. Whatever the URC appeal, the Church of England remains the broad church representing the majority of Christians in the UK. Fundamentalist Judaism, with which the United Synagogue is preoccupied and to which it is in thrall, creationism included, cannot possibly appeal to more than a small section of the British Jewish community. To say 20% would be generous.

The British Jewish community is melting away at a faster rate even than our ice caps. The melt is masked by the birth rate of the charedim but even that is beginning to fall, certainly in Israel, in the face of economic and social realities.

The only movements who can reach the overwhelming majority of British Jewry are the Liberal, Masorti and Reform Movements. Even then, only if they recognise both in the depths of their theological being and in their urgent strategic actions, that there are many ways of talking the Jewish talk
and walking the Jewish walk. No one route will work for everyone and no one has a monopoly on truth and principles. Moreover, they have to recognise that their synagogues, however broad and outreaching they are, cannot meet the needs of everyone and that collaboration on projects beyond the synagogue is essential. The watchword has to be engaging with people where they are, prompting and facilitating their particular Jewish journey.

In fact, we would argue that, as we enter 5769, there are three initiatives that are even more important than the Statement itself.

Jeneration – the initiative dedicated to reaching out to the 18-30s – makes available on its cutting edge website the details of all programmes available to young Jewish women and men within the community, regardless of affiliation. It is limited only to the extent that the programmes must come from sources which respect pluralism and practice the respect that pluralism demands.

The appointment of highly talented Abigail Morris to head ResponseAbility, the community’s new cutting edge ethical issues initiative, promises an
exciting and challenging launch within the next three months.

The Jewish Communal Secondary School is on target to open in 2010, embodying the values in the Statement of Collaboration – pluralism, respect, a non-fundamentalist, non-coercive approach to Jewish education for the community and by the community.

Remarkably, despite the economic gloom, the outlook for British Jewry is bright. British Jewry will be at the forefront of religious thinking and social action in the decades ahead. It will not retreat into fundamentalist irrelevance.