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Leo Baeck Alumni Come Home

Wednesday, 11 August 2010

Leo Baeck College honoured five of its alumni with the award of its prestigious Rabbinic Fellowship to mark 25 years of rabbinic service. The special ceremony was held at Shaarei Tzedek: North London Reform Synagogue on Monday 5 July.

As part of the ceremony, LBC rabbinical student Markus Lange was ordained by Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg.

The new Rabbinic Fellows are Rabbi Fred Morgan, senior rabbi of Temple Beth Israel, Melbourne, Australia, Rabbis Walter Rothschild and Willy Wolf from Germany, Rabbi Rachel Montagu, who has served both Cardiff Reform Synagogue and Alyth (North Western Reform Synagogue) and who is currently teaching, and Rabbi Lawrence Rigal, recently retired from the South West Essex and Settlement Reform Synagogue, who sadly passed away shortly after the event. They were honoured for their unique contributions to rabbinic life over a quarter of a century in their respective congregations and organisations.

All have published works and contributed to Jewish and non-Jewish communities and causes.

Rabbi Dr Michael Shire, Vice-Principal, presiding over the proceedings remarked, "The invaluable contribution made by these senior rabbis has touched thousands of lives and reflects the significant and vital role of the rabbi in our congregations and society in general."

Rabbi Markus Lange, originally a Leo Baeck College BA student, commenced his rabbinic studies at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. Returning to the UK he completed his studies in the new joint MA at LBC and King's College London. Among other roles, he will serve as rabbinic chaplain to a hospice in London. Continuing a tradition of LBC ordaining rabbis for UK Masorti communities. Lange was ordained by LBC alumnus Jonathan Wittenberg, Rabbi of New North London Synagogue and Senior Rabbi of the Masorti Movement.

Prior to the Fellowship and Ordination service, a seminar for the International Association of Rabbinic Graduates featured Karen Armstrong and Rabbi Sylvia Rothschild discussing reform in religion on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the Reform Movement. Karen Armstrong, the noted author on religious affairs, outlined the economic and social contexts in which religious reform often takes place, predicting similar reforms in Islam in due course.