Rebecca Birk | |
---|---|
Personal | |
Religion | Judaism |
Nationality | British |
Denomination | Liberal Judaism |
Alma mater | Bristol University, Harvard Divinity School, Leo Baeck College |
Profession | Rabbi |
Jewish leader | |
Profession | Rabbi |
Previous post | Westminster Synagogue |
Present post | Finchley Progressive Synagogue |
Rebecca Birk is an English Liberal Jewish rabbi, rabbi of Finchley Progressive Synagogue in North Finchley, London. In 2016 the Evening Standard listed her as one of "London's most influential people". [1]
Rebecca Birk is a grand-daughter of Alma Birk, Baroness Birk, the journalist and Labour peer, and her husband Ellis Birk, a media lawyer. [2] She grew up in Oxford. She gained a BA in theology from Bristol University and an MA from Harvard Divinity School before training to be a rabbi at Leo Baeck College. [3]
Rabbi Birk led Woodford Liberal Synagogue, and was an associate at Westminster Synagogue, before becoming the Rabbi at Finchley Progressive Synagogue (FPS) in 2010. [3]
At Finchley Progressive Synagogue she has led a successful campaign with Citizens UK to ensure that accommodation was found for refugees from the Syrian Civil War. [4] In October 2015 Barnet Council became the first Conservative-run local authority district to resettle refugees under the Syrian Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme, [5] agreeing to admit 50 Syrian refugees. [6] The synagogue has continued to provide support to the refugees, [7] and in October 2018 the Council pledged to continue to offer sanctuary to child refugees. [5]
Birk has also worked as a Jewish prison chaplain, holding an annual Seder celebration at Holloway Women's Prison:
We have a shortened Haggadah and I bring in food and we do it during the day. It’s truly extraordinary doing a Seder about freedom behind the bars of a prison. [8]
In May 2020 she joined other faith leaders to help hand out free meals from the Queen’s Crescent Community Centre in Kentish Town. [9]
She has been a contributor to BBC Radio 2's Pause for Thought, [10] [11] and written for newspapers including Jewish News . [12]
Liberal Judaism is one of the two WUPJ-affiliated denominations in the United Kingdom founded by Claude Montefiore. It is smaller and more radical in comparison with the other one, the Movement for Reform Judaism. It is considered ideologically closer to American Reform Judaism than it is to the British Reform movement. As of 2010 it was the fourth largest Jewish religious group in Britain, with 8.7% of synagogue-member households.
Julia Babette Sarah Neuberger, Baroness Neuberger, is a British member of the House of Lords. She previously took the Liberal Democrat whip, but resigned from the party and became a crossbencher in 2011 upon becoming the full-time senior rabbi of the West London Synagogue, from which she retired in 2020. She became the chair of University College London Hospitals (UCLH) in 2019.
Reform Judaism, formally the Movement for Reform Judaism (MRJ) and known as Reform Synagogues of Great Britain until 2005, is one of the two World Union for Progressive Judaism–affiliated denominations in the United Kingdom. Reform is relatively traditional in comparison with its smaller counterpart, Liberal Judaism, though it does not regard Jewish law as binding. As of 2010, it was the second-largest Jewish religious group in the United Kingdom, with 19.4% of synagogue-member households. On 17 April 2023, Reform Judaism and Liberal Judaism announced their intention to merge as one single unified progressive Jewish movement. The new movement, which may be called Progressive Judaism, will represent about 30% of British Jewry who are affiliated to synagogues.
The Sternberg Centre for Judaism, in East End Road, Finchley, London, is a campus hosting a number of Jewish institutions, built around the 18th-century Finchley manor house.
The Liberal Jewish Synagogue, or LJS, is a house of prayer in St John's Wood, London, founded in 1911. It is the oldest and largest member of Britain's Liberal Judaism, a constituent member of the World Union for Progressive Judaism.
Leo Baeck College is a privately funded rabbinical seminary and centre for the training of teachers in Jewish education. Based now at the Sternberg Centre, East End Road, Finchley, in the London Borough of Barnet, it was founded by Werner van der Zyl in 1956 and is sponsored by The Movement for Reform Judaism, Liberal Judaism and the United Jewish Israel Appeal. It is named after the inspirational 20th-century German Liberal rabbi Leo Baeck.
Jacqueline Hazel "Jackie" Tabick is a British Reform rabbi. She became Britain's first female rabbi in 1975. She retired in 2023 as convenor of the Movement for Reform Judaism's Beit Din, the first woman in the role, and until its closure in 2022 was also Rabbi of West Central Liberal Synagogue in Bloomsbury, central London.
Alma Lillian Birk, Baroness Birk was a British journalist, Labour Party politician and Government minister.
Shmuly Yanklowitz is an Orthodox rabbi.
Laura Naomi Janner-Klausner is a British rabbi and an inclusion and development coach who served as the inaugural Senior Rabbi to Reform Judaism from 2011 until 2020. Janner-Klausner grew up in London before studying theology at the University of Cambridge and moving to Israel in 1985, living in Jerusalem for 15 years. She returned to Britain in 1999 and was ordained at Leo Baeck College, serving as rabbi at Alyth Synagogue until 2011. She has been serving as Rabbi at Bromley Reform Synagogue in south-east London since April 2022.
Sybil Ann Sheridan is a writer and British Reform rabbi. She was chair of the Assembly of Reform Rabbis UK at the Movement for Reform Judaism from 2013 to 2015 and was Rabbi at Wimbledon and District Synagogue in south west London. As of 2020 she is part-time rabbi at Newcastle Reform Synagogue.
Sylvia Rothschild is a British Reform rabbi. Together with Rabbi Sybil Sheridan, she was Rabbi of Wimbledon and District Synagogue in south west London, from 2003 to 2014, in the first ever rabbinic job share in England. She was Rabbi of Bromley Reform Synagogue from 1987 to 2002, and is currently the Rabbi at Lev Chadash in Milan.
Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah is a British rabbi and author.
Danny Rich is a Labour councillor in the London Borough of Barnet. He was, until 2020, the Senior Rabbi and Chief Executive of Liberal Judaism in the United Kingdom.
Finchley Reform Synagogue, a member of the Movement for Reform Judaism, is a synagogue in North Finchley in the London Borough of Barnet. Its clergy are Senior Rabbi Miriam Berger, Cantor Zöe Jacobs, Rabbi Deborah Blausten, Rabbi Howard Cooper and Emeritus Rabbi Jeffrey Newman.
Deborah Kahn-Harris is the Principal of Leo Baeck College, a rabbinical seminary and centre for the training of teachers in Jewish education, based at the Sternberg Centre, Finchley, in the London Borough of Barnet. She was appointed to the post in September 2011. Kahn-Harris, a graduate of the college, is one of the first woman rabbis to lead a mainstream rabbinic seminary.
Rabbi Harry Martin Jacobi was a rabbi in the United Kingdom, where he came in 1939, via The Netherlands, as a refugee from Nazi Germany. He has been described as "a formative figure in the founding and growth of Liberal Judaism in the UK and Europe".
Miriam Berger is a British Reform rabbi, and Senior Rabbi of Finchley Reform Synagogue in London.
Finchley Progressive Synagogue (FPS) is a Liberal Judaism congregation in North Finchley in the London Borough of Barnet. The Rabbi is Rebecca Birk. Synagogue membership is around 350 families.