Liberal Judaism

This short article was written to mark the seventieth anniversary of the founding of the Dublin Jewish Progressive Congregation in January 1946, and incorporates aspects of my research on the construction of non-Orthodox Jewish identity in the distinct local setting of Dublin, under the broader principles of British Liberal Judaism.  My findings were subsequently published in the essay ‘Liberal Judaism and Local Jewish Identity: The Dublin Jewish Progressive Congregation (DJPC), 1946-1967’, European Journal of Jewish Studies, vol. 15 (2021): 123-52, DOI: 10.1163/1872471X-bja10019.

Bibliography and Developments in Progressive Jewish Liturgy, 1967-2015
After the complete bibliography of prayer books and liturgical material used in European congregations this article analyses the changes and specific developments in European Jewish liturgy since 1967.

This contribution aims to show that liberal Judaism, which began two hundred years ago in Germany, has remained present here even beyond the Shoah, especially in the decades before its renewed institutionalization.

Dieser Beitrag will zeigen, dass das liberale Judentum, das seinen Anfang vor
zweihundert Jahren in Deutschland genommen hat, hier selbst über die Schoa
hinaus präsent geblieben ist, gerade auch in den Jahrzehnten vor seiner erneuten
Institutionalisierung.

During the first decades of the Second Empire (1870-1914), an unprecedented relationship emerged within political liberalism based on its strong influences from liberal Protestantism on the one side  and from liberal Jewish society on the other. Liberal Jews and liberal Protestants seemed to share a common set of values as well as similar political goals.
Liberal Jewish theology - with spokesmen like Joseph Eschelbacher, Moritz Lazarus, Moritz Güdemann, Ludwig Geiger and Leo Baeck to name but a few - and liberal Protestant theology - represented by Ernst Troeltsch, Albert Ritschl, Martin Rade and Adolf von Harnack, among others - were both concerned with finding solutions to
questions each of them raised in the same way. In searching for answers, they found themselves on common ground.
Both groups stressed the neo-Kantian ideal of human beings enabled by ethics to subject all life to an a priori system of principles. It can be said that liberal Protestantism and liberal Judaism tried in the same way to reinterpret religious traditions on the basis of modern rationality. And both attempted to purify their faith of irrational components.

In a lecture about the role of the community rabbi in July 1910, Rabbi Benno Jacob (1862-1945) arrived at the following conclusion: "It is true that, according to the Jewish conception, a community can exist without clergy for the simple reason that a 'clergy' does not exist therein, that is, a preferential person with regard to sacrament and appointment, without whom no one can attain the blessings of the religion and without whom the determined practices and actions cannot be performed with validity."  What is thus the occupational image of the modern rabbi?

A study of the inherent tension between Reform theology and halakhah; from early Reform thinkers including Hermann Cohen to the development of Reform theology and its relationship to Jewish law in the work of Leo Baeck and Eugene B. Borowitz. (Pre-publication version. To be published, May 2020)

There are two basic themes in Ludwik Kowalski’s commentary on the NOMA principle. The main one is the socio-political  problem: how theists and atheists can live together peacefully. The second issue is the resolution of this problem. Kowalski finds this resolution in the NOMA principle introduced by
Stephen Jay Gould, and it is this second issue on which I will focus. I will indicate that: 1) there is an imprecision in Kowalski’s presentation of the NOMA principle; 2) the NOMA principle is not a valid way of presenting theistic religions; 3) the argumentation adopted by Kowalski is inconsistent, due to inconsistency in the NOMA principle itself.

The July workshop in 2006 aimed at analysing one specific Jewish approach
to define its essence and identity as it has been presented by Leo Baeck
(1873–1956), generally considered to have been the last great exponent of
German Liberal Judaism. Here we focus on the attempt to evaluate the
connection of Liberal Jewish Theology and Liberal Christian Theology at the
turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This will serve as background
in order to explain Baeck’s contribution to the Jewish–Christian dialogue.

Rezeptionsgeschichte; Der Jurist, Politiker und Schriftsteller Gabriel Riesser – Eine Kurzbiographie; Zur rechtlichen Stellung dt. Juden in der 1. Hälfte des 19. Jhd.; Durch Publikation zur Emanzipation; Die Antagonisten in den "Jüdischen Briefen": Gustav Pfizer (1807–1890), Wolfgang Menzel (1798–1873), Karl Gutzkow (1811–1878); Bewertung und Einordnung der "Briefe"

History has always held an important place in the forming, inflection and reflection of Jewish identity. The emancipation movement and subsequent Jewish enlightenment in 19th-century Germany brought about a major crisis in Jewish identity regarding issues around integration to modern German society. From this emerged both an intellectual and a religious movement that sought different ways to negotiate Judaism within a Christian hegemony. But these movements were in conflict with one another, each vying to support the correct means of social participation and integration without assimilation. History, more precisely historiography, became the central element of delineating one form of modern Jewish identity upon which this conflict was waged. In this article, I will outline the important role historiography took in the rise of the scientific study of Judaism or Wissenschaft des Judentums in modern Germany, the emergence of the Jewish Reform movement and its impact on Jewish socio-religious identity, and conclude by delineating the second-generation of Wissenschaft des Judentums and its negation of the Reform movement. This essay underscores the connections between historiography and identity. Reform Judaism developed out of the 19th-century emancipation movement in Germany that allowed Jews, and other ethnic minorities, to participate openly in civil society as citizens. Within this inclusivist social thrust, the German Jewish community were offered new opportunities to engage modes of cultural production—i.e. academia, art, governance, economics and business. This, along with new secular-modernist definitions of citizenship and an identification with the nation-state, developed a need to reinterpret Judaism from its conceptions of the past to fit modern views. However, Jewish emancipation came with the price of assimilation to Christian society. Jewish scholars and liberal reformers aimed to negotiate Jewish identity within this modern social context without succumbing to assimilation. By mid-century, this caused an irreparable rift between liberal Jewish reformers and conservative Jewish scholars. History and historiography became the rhetorical tool in this polemic between social engagement and ethnic differentiation. I wish to discuss the relevancy and impact of 19th-century Jewish historiography on the Jewish Reform and counter-reform movements, and the forging of a modern Jewish identity. This thesis will be argued in three major sections. The first section will engage the definition, historical context and experience of Jewish emancipation and the Jewish Enlightenment within a German context. In so doing, we will understand the emergence of Wissenschaft des Judentums or the scientific study of Judaism. The second section will investigate the burgeoning Reform movement by underscoring its relationship to Wissenschaft and modernity, its founders, and its core values and concerns. In order to gain the clearest view of these developments, I will explore the work and worldview of Abraham Geiger, considered the progenitor of the modern Jewish Reform movement. This will lead to the third and final section that questions the impact the Reform movement had on Jewish historiography, or the writing of Jewish history, at the height of the 19th-century. This discussion is most concerned with the place of historiography in the counter-movement against Jewish Reform. I will discuss the second generation of Wissenschaft scholars focusing on the historian Heinrich Graetz. I will outline his conception of history and delineate how he used historiography to counter Geiger's Reform movement and make epistemological innovations. This, ultimately, will explain how this very influential religious movement impacted the writing of Jewish history and, moreover, the forging of a modern Jewish identity. 1 I would like to thank Dr. Ira Robinson for his guidance and mentorship in writing this article, Dr. Rebecca Margolis for her comments and editing, and David Walsh for his insight and patience in reviewing this material.

When the »Wissenschaft des Judentums« evolved at the beginning of the 19th century it intended both theological and secular studies. The aim was to prove the value of Jewish culture and civilization to  the general society. One important benchmark was whether or not such Jewish Studies could be integrated into the public German university system. However, neither Leopold Zunz nor Rabbi Abraham Geiger were successful in their claims to establish chairs for Jewish history and theology.  Therefore, the only places for the »Wissenschaft des Judentums« to flourish in Germany until after the Shoa were the Breslau Jewish Theological Seminary and the Berlin "Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums".
Since then, Judaic Studies have been established at various public universities in Germany, 1979 the Heidelberg College for Jewish Studies opened and in 2013 the School of Jewish Theology of the University of Potsdam was established. Thus, utopia became reality and both branches of the "Wissenschaft des Judentums" religious & secular have now become an undisputed part of the German academic scene: using similar tools for differing aims. As Louis Jacobs puts it (»A Jewish Theology«, 1973, 14-15): "The historian of the Jewish religion tells us what it is that Jews believed in former ages. The task of the theologian is to draw on the findings of the historian but to ask what it is that Jews can believe today. Walter Homolka looks at the development of Jewish theology as an academic subject and its task in the future.

The long-standing historiographical consensus on nineteenth- and twentieth century German Jews suggests that they were largely “beyond Judaism.” Most historians concur that German Jews abandoned a particularistic faith and the restricted social life of the autonomous community in exchange for cultural tropes of the dominant bourgeois culture as they strove to integrate into the surrounding society. While most German Jews no longer practiced the Judaism of their fathers or their fathers’ fathers, this did not necessarily mean that religion or belief had become irrelevant. In this essay I explore, through a close reading of a set of diaries, the religiosity of one Jewish family—that of William and Clara Stern and their three children, Hilde, Günther, and Eva. In the process, I seek both to address a gap in the research and to contribute to an ongoing discussion in the historiography regarding modern Judaism. While religiosity among German Jews had increasingly become a matter of individual, and not collective, action and choice, I argue that Jews of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries still engaged in a quest for meaning for themselves and future generations specifically as Jews. The religious worldview and education that Clara Stern aimed to impart to her children reflect precisely this search for personal religious meaning and exemplify the individual nature of early twentieth-century German Jewish religiosity.

Bram C. 2016. Bridging Messianic Christianity and Liberal Judaism, A Journey of an American Convert. In: "Becoming Jewish: New Jews and Emerging Jewish Communities in a Globalized World". Eds. by T. Parfitt and N. Fisher. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

There are two basic themes in Ludwik Kowalski’s commentary on the NOMA principle. The main one is the socio-political problem: how theists and atheists can live together peacefully. The second issue is the resolution of this problem. Kowalski finds this resolution in the NOMA principle introduced by Stephen Jay Gould, and it is this second issue on which I will focus. I will indicate that: 1) there is an imprecision in Kowalski’s presentation of the NOMA principle; 2) the NOMA principle is not a valid way of presenting theistic religions; 3) the argumentation adopted by Kowalski is inconsistent, due to inconsistency in the NOMA principle itself.

Resumen: Este artículo pretende estudiar los lazos entre la obra crítica de Maurice Blanchot (1907-2003) y el judaísmo. Con este objetivo, repasa la cuestión de su prematuro an-tisemitismo, la fascinación por lo judío en su obra posterior y algunas orientaciones de su reflexión que permiten valorar la relación entre su pensamiento y los fundamentos teológicos de la religión judía: la Escritura, el a-teísmo judío y el horizonte escatológico. Finalmente, se muestra que la lectura del judaísmo hecha por Blanchot parte de una interpretación liberal de dicha tradición que diluye sus presupuestos teológicos funda-mentales. Esto permite conjugarla con una concepción neopagana del tiempo y de la historia.

Abstract: This paper aims to study the links between the critical work of Maurice Blanchot (1907-2003) and Judaism. With this goal, it reviews the issue of his premature anti-Semitism, his fascination for the Jewish thing in his later work, and some guidance from his reflection that allow assessing the relationship between his thinking and the theological foundations of the Jewish religion: Scripture, Jewish atheism and eschatological horizon. Finally, we show that the reading of Judaism made by Blanchot starts from a liberal interpretation of that tradition which dilutes his fundamental theological premises. This allows combining it with a neo-pagan conception of time and history.

It all started with the re-emergence of the German progressive movement in
the early nineteen-nineties of the twentieth century. When progressive Jews
had nothing more than an urge to find a positive Jewish identity from the
sources of the liberal Jewish tradition a common prayerbook became the
unifying factor. With no roofs over their heads and no funding for the
establishment of community centres this prayerbook gave a strong message of
togetherness. Published in two volumes (based on Siddur and Machzor of the
RSGB in Great Britain, edited by Jonathan Magonet) in 1997, Seder haTefillot
soon spread over all our congregations and far beyond in all German-speaking
countries and became the movement prayerbook of the Union of Progressive
Jews in Germany. It was accompanied by the Pessach Haggadah as edited by
Michael Shire.

This article looks at the inclusion of religion within the West Central Jewish Working Girls' Club in London through newspapers, club histories and oral testimonies. Previous scholarship has downplayed the religious element in Jewish youth clubs; however, this article will demonstrate that religion was a factor within the activities of the West Central Club. Drawing on reports from the club leaders, this article will show that religion was present through prayers and services held on the Sabbath, and, where possible, this religion promoted domesticity for young women.

In my response to Kowalski’s commentary I indicate that: 1) there is an imprecision in Kowalski’s presentation of the NOMA principle; 2) the NOMA principle is not a valid way of presenting theistic religions; 3) the argumentation adopted by Kowalski is inconsistent, due to inconsistency in the NOMA principle itself. The Kowalski’s cure for the “Confrontations Between Theists and Atheists” mentioned in the title of the Kowalski’s commentary is the postulate of a “miracle-free” theism, which means the elimination of theism. Another important weakness of Kowalski’s proposal and of the application of the NOMA principle in general is the self-contradictoriness of this position: when we decide on the truth value of this or that factual religious statement by reference to science, then we deny the essence of the NOMA principle itself.

This address is an introduction to Reform Judaism, its history and its message. It also deals with the problems caused by the separate jurisdiction considered by Orthodoxy and Reform Judaism respectively. The video is an excerpt from a seminar about Reform Judaism in Belgium.