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Leap of faith: a single Progressive Jewish movement is on the horizon
It’s time to enjoy a rainbow of synagogues
This is an exciting and creative time for Liberal and Reform Judaism. We are probably just weeks away from achieving what has eluded us twice before, in 1942 and 1983… creating a single Progressive Jewish movement for the UK.
As a lifelong Progressive Jew, whose family’s roots in Liberal and Reform Judaism go back nearly 200 years, I know that we are in the right place now in 2025 for this merger to take place.
Both movements now have an established route to equilineality, enabling children of one Jewish parent, irrespective of gender, to have recognised Jewish status. Both movements today are built by people of any sexuality. Both are fully egalitarian. Both have become fully able to integrate and build the Jewish lives of mixed faith couples and families.
Reform Judaism is now more diverse and flexible in its interpretation and Liberal Judaism responds more enthusiastically to Jewish tradition. We celebrate the diversity of our synagogues and communities. It’s time to be one agudah (brotherhood and sisterhood) of Progressive Judaism.
It’s time to enjoy a rainbow of synagogues across our new movement with different styles of effective Jewish worship, different ways of building community, some with most of their children in Jewish day schools and some with most in mainstream schools.
We will be united by the principles that we include and welcome the true diversity of the Jewish community, that we accept personal Jewish autonomy and that we promote a non-judgemental approach to Jewish life together with the necessity to engage with the non-Jewish communities around us.
As one Progressive movement I believe that, as duplication turns to building together, we will be able to find resources to support our university students much better than we can now, to increase the diversity of our youth provision and to develop Jewish education more effectively for today.
Our stronger voice and action together will make our social justice campaigns stronger and enable us to be heard by government and the nation as central to the Jewish community. We will be able to be a better home for those who are converting to Judaism. We can train our leaders together – whether rabbis and teachers at Leo Baeck College or our lay leaders who make our communities effective.
We will be able to put across the deep fulfilment of a Progressive Jewish life, our questioning approach to theology, to our classical texts, to ways of worship and to Jewish thought in a way where difference is validating not undermining. We will be able to run our administration as a movement more efficiently by avoiding duplication.
I know that in my excitement about the future, the synagogue that I serve will be fully able to preserve its distinctive traditions and style of Progressive Judaism. At the same time, it will be part of a movement that can not only serve it better but which can make sure that wherever our members or their children settle in the UK they will find a welcoming Progressive Jewish home.
Rabbi Mark Goldsmith is at Edgware and Hendon Reform Synagogue
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