Rabbi Tony Bayfield | |
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Born | Anthony Michael Bayfield 1946 Ilford, Essex (now in Greater London), UK |
Nationality | British |
Education | Royal Liberty Grammar School, Romford |
Alma mater | Magdalene College, Cambridge and Leo Baeck College, London |
Occupation(s) | Reform rabbi President of the Movement for Reform Judaism 2011–16 |
Spouse | Linda Rose (died 2003) [1] Jacqueline Fisher (m. 2021) |
Children | Three children, including Rabbi Miriam Berger [1] [2] |
Anthony Michael "Tony" Bayfield [3] [4] CBE is a Reform rabbi and former President of the Movement for Reform Judaism, [5] the second largest organisation of synagogues in Britain.
Bayfield was born in 1946 [4] in Ilford, Essex (now in Greater London), the elder son of Sheila (née Mann) and Ron Bayfield, a head teacher.
He was educated at the Royal Liberty Grammar School in Romford and Magdalene College, Cambridge. He studied law and had a doctoral place at the Cambridge Institute of Criminology and then moved to the Leo Baeck College to train as a rabbi. He received rabbinic ordination ( semichah ) in 1972 [2] from rabbis John Rayner, Hugo Gryn and Louis Jacobs.
After ten years as a congregational rabbi at North West Surrey Synagogue, Bayfield became director of the Sternberg Centre for Judaism in Finchley in 1985. [2] He was head of the Movement for Reform Judaism from 1994 (when the organisation was known as Reform Synagogues of Great Britain) until 2011. [5] From 2011 to 2016 he was President of the organisation. [5] [6]
Bayfield was awarded a CBE in the 2011 New Year Honours List for services to Reform Judaism.
London's National Portrait Gallery holds a photographic portrait of him by Don McCullin. [4]
Tony Bayfield married Linda Rose, a teacher and Jewish educator in 1969; she died in 2003. In 2011, he met Jacqueline Fisher, whom he married in a small ceremony in June 2021.
Bayfield has three children [1] and six grandchildren. His younger daughter, Miriam Berger, received semichah in July 2006 and is a respected rabbi in her own right. [7]
Bayfield is a member of Finchley Reform Synagogue (FRS).
Bayfield is a specialist in modern Jewish thought and contemporary Reform Judaism. He also specialises in Jewish-Christian and Jewish-Muslim dialogue and has published quite widely in this area. Bayfield has also written about Christian–Jewish reconciliation. [8]
Leo Baeck was a 20th-century German rabbi, scholar, and theologian. He served as leader of Reform Judaism in his native country and internationally, and later represented all German Jews during the Nazi era. After the Second World War, he settled in London, in the United Kingdom, where he served as the chairman of the World Union for Progressive Judaism. In 1955, the Leo Baeck Institute for the study of the history and culture of German-speaking Jewry was established, and Baeck was its first international president. The Leo Baeck Medal has been awarded since 1978 to those who have helped preserve the spirit of German-speaking Jewry in culture, academia, politics, and philanthropy.
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.
Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums, or Higher Institute for Jewish Studies, was a rabbinical seminary established in Berlin in 1872 and closed down by the Nazi government of Germany in 1942. Upon the order of the government, the name was officially changed to Lehranstalt für die Wissenschaft des Judentums.
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 is 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.
Albert Hoschander Friedlander OBE was a rabbi and teacher.
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Jonathan David Magonet is a British rabbi theologian, Vice-President of the World Union for Progressive Judaism, and a biblical scholar. He is highly active in Christian-Jewish dialogue, and in dialogue between Jews and Muslims. He was the long-time Principal, now retired, of London's Leo Baeck College, the first Liberal Jewish seminary of all of Europe since World War II. He resides in London with his wife Dorothea.
Jonathan Anidjar Romain is a writer and broadcaster and director of Maidenhead Synagogue in Berkshire, England. He has a PhD in the history of British Jewry. He writes for The Times,The Independent, The Guardian, The Huffington Post, and The Jewish Chronicle and appears on radio and television.
Golders Green Jewish Cemetery, usually known as Hoop Lane Jewish Cemetery, is a Jewish cemetery in Golders Green, London NW11. It is maintained by a joint burial committee representing members of the West London Synagogue and the S&P Sephardi Community.
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.
Werner van der Zyl was a rabbi in Berlin and in London, where he came in 1939 as a refugee rabbi from Germany. He was the prime mover and first director of studies of the Jewish Theological College of London. The college was inaugurated in 1956 and was renamed Leo Baeck College shortly afterwards at his suggestion.
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.
Barbara Marcy Borts is an American-born Movement for Reform Judaism rabbi. She was one of the first women in Europe to be ordained as a rabbi and the first woman to have her own pulpit in a UK Reform Judaism synagogue.
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.
Mark Goldsmith is a British rabbi in the Movement for Reform Judaism. He is Senior Rabbi at Edgware & Hendon Reform Synagogue, a post he took up in 2019. He was previously a rabbi at North Western Reform Synagogue and a vocational programme tutor at Leo Baeck College in London.
Miriam Berger is a British Reform rabbi, and Senior Rabbi of Finchley Reform Synagogue in London.