By
Tony Bayfield
When a communal boss stands down, that is usually an end of it. Not in my case…
April 15, 2010 10:32Retiring? Me? "It's not a characteristic I associate with you", someone said. And I'm not. Not only do I still have 15 months to go but, in July 2011, I start the next chapter of my career.
The Reform movement has come a long way over the 37 years since I first became a congregational rabbi in Weybridge, Surrey. Back then, the UK's Jewish community was very different both in demography and composition. It had barely started to face up to the challenges presented by being a tiny minority in an aggressively secular society and by the sheer diversity of needs.
After 10 of the happiest years of my life in Weybridge, cutting my teeth on those pressing issues, I opened new chapters, first as director of what grew into the Sternberg Centre and then as chief executive of RSGB.
This was a time that saw some radical changes in British Jewry including, for example, the blossoming of faith schooling. In 1980, there were less than a dozen Jewish schools in the UK. Today there are 40. The United Synagogue had seen the importance of day schools long before the Reform Movement. But we finally cottoned on and helped create a different kind of Jewish schooling - inclusive, respectful of diversity and responsive to the needs of families from right across the community.
By contrast, the United Synagogue has been led in another direction by its many Charedi-orientated and Lubavitch-trained rabbis. That has left many Jews high and dry, whereas our open and inclusive philosophy increasingly meets the needs of the mainstream.
This trend has inspired a self-confidence in the Reform movement that had previously been lacking. We have moved from the margins to the very centre of British Jewry. Acting together with the Liberal and Masorti movements, we set the standard for collaborative leadership in the interests of the community at large. Significantly, this has also involved working more closely and amicably with the US than ever before.
We have faced up to the practical and theological implications of being a tiny minority in a secular environment. We have increased our outreach to mixed-faith families. We have developed new liturgy. We have helped foster cross-communal institutions - Limmud, ResponseAbility, JCoSS --- and done so without indulging in back-biting.
In 2005, RSGB - essentially a "trade organisation" for synagogue lay leadership - became the overtly religious Movement for Reform Judaism, and I was designated its head. We made an explicit commitment to reach out to people, engaging them wherever they are, recognising that there are many ways of travelling the Jewish journey.
My remaining 15 months will be a crucially important period. The General Election may throw up a new government with new priorities, with implications for all faith organisations and for Israel. JCoSS will open in September.
My personal new chapter could well be part of a wider generational shift in leadership both rabbinic and lay. I have been invited to become the Reform movement's president, come July next year, with Sir Sigmund Sternberg as honorary life president. In my new, unpaid role, I intend to expand my writing and continue to contribute to the philosophy and theology of Reform Judaism.
I will continue as co-president of the Council of Christians and Jews and have projects in mind across my interfaith work. I'll continue to represent the Reform movement when appropriate, preach and teach. But it will be my agenda. Never again will I miss a West Ham home match because of a council meeting!
Recently, I "chaired" a demonstration Seder for leading faith correspondents. Three of my rabbinic colleagues held the hard-bitten, seen-it-all-before journalists spellbound for more than two hours. One of the three was the exceptional Rabbi Shoshana Boyd Gelfand, who will succeed me as professional head of the Reform movement and whose educational and leadership talents are adding to the vision and excitement of a vital and dynamic movement.
As I begin to prepare for a new role and a new chapter of my life, I am confident that, whatever the future holds for the movement I love, it is in unbelievably good hands. That is good news for me but even more so for British Jewry.
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