Progressive leader addresses young interfaith activists

Rabbi Charley Baginsky, co-lead of Progressive Judaism, has encouraged participants of a new interfaith initiative to “speak with moral courage”.

The rabbi, who was a keynote speaker at the launch of the Young Professionals Interfaith Network, offered insights into the positive aspects and challenges of interfaith work, telling the audience: “Real interfaith work does not mean pretending we are all the same. It means learning how to act from within our differences, with clarity, with love, and with accountability. And it means challenging the systems that keep those differences hierarchical, rather than mutual.

“So, my hope is not just that you stay in this work. It is that you stay in it fully. That you bring your full self. That you speak with moral courage. That you do not give in to simplicity or despair, but hold onto complexity, compassion, and justice.”

Rabbi Baginsky has long been a champion of interfaith work, and in February, was one of 12 senior Muslim and Jewish denominational leaders who signed a landmark agreement, The Drumlanrig Accord, establishing a structured framework for sustained Jewish-Muslim-Jewish collaboration in the UK.