Samuel Holdheim was a German rabbi and author, and one of the more extreme leaders of the early Reform Movement in Judaism. A pioneer in modern Jewish homiletics, he was often at odds with the Orthodox community.
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.
The Union progressiver Juden in Deutschland is a "Körperschaft des öffentlichen Rechts", a publicly chartered association, founded in 1997 as the congregational arm of Liberal Judaism in Germany. It is headed by Irith Michelsohn and has around 5,200 members. It is an affiliate of the World Union for Progressive Judaism. Rabbi Walter Homolka was former President and was also the most senior rabbinic figure associated with the UPJ, and the Abraham-Geiger-Kolleg serves as rabbinical seminary since 1999.
The Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion is a Jewish seminary with three locations in the United States and one location in Jerusalem. It is the oldest extant Jewish seminary in the Americas and the main seminary for training rabbis, cantors, educators and communal workers in Reform Judaism. HUC-JIR has campuses in Cincinnati, Ohio, New York City, Los Angeles, and Jerusalem. The Jerusalem campus is the only seminary in Israel for training Reform Jewish clergy.
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.
Abraham Geiger was a German rabbi and scholar who is considered the founding father of Reform Judaism. Emphasizing Judaism's constant development through its history and universalist traits, Geiger sought to re-formulate received forms and design what he regarded as a religion compliant with modern times.
The Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR), founded in 1889 by Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, is the principal organization of Reform rabbis in the United States and Canada. The CCAR is the largest and oldest rabbinical organization in the world. Its current president is Rabbi Erica Asch.
Regina Jonas was a Berlin-born Reform rabbi. In 1935, she became the first woman to be ordained as a rabbi. Jonas was murdered in the Holocaust.
Kaufmann Kohler was a German-born Jewish American biblical scholar and critic, theologian, Reform rabbi, and contributing editor to numerous articles of The Jewish Encyclopedia (1906).
The World Union for Progressive Judaism (WUPJ) is the international umbrella organization for the various branches of Reform, Liberal and Progressive Judaism, as well as the separate Reconstructionist Judaism. The WUPJ is based in 40 countries with 1,275 affiliated synagogues, of which 1,170 are Reform, Progressive, or Liberal and 105 Reconstructionist. It claims to represent a total of some 1.8 million people, both registered constituents and non-member identifiers. The WUPJ states that it aims to create common ground between its constituents and to promote Progressive Judaism in places where individuals and groups are seeking authentic, yet modern ways of expressing themselves as Jews. It seeks to preserve Jewish integrity wherever Jews live, to encourage integration without assimilation, to deal with modernity while preserving the Jewish experience, and to strive for equal rights and social justice.
The University of Potsdam is a public university in Potsdam, capital of the state of Brandenburg, northeastern Germany.
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.
Annette Mirjam Böckler is a German scholar of Judaism, who worked as librarian at Leo Baeck College in London, and a writer and translator in the Jewish subject area. She briefly held a post with ZIID in Zurich. She helped translate Seder haTefillot, the first liberal Jewish prayerbook after the Shoah in Germany, and the translator and editor of the German edition of the W. Gunther Plaut's Torah commentary.
The Imperial Austrian Order of Franz Joseph was founded by Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria on 2 December 1849, on the first anniversary of his accession to the imperial throne.
Walter Jacob is an American Reform rabbi who was born in Augsburg, Germany, and immigrated to the United States in 1940.
Abraham Geiger College is a rabbinic seminary at the University of Potsdam in Potsdam, Germany, founded in 1999 and named after Abraham Geiger, a rabbi and scholar.
Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums was a Jewish German magazine devoted to Jewish interests, founded in 1837 by Ludwig Philippson (1811–89), published first in Leipzig and later in Berlin. In 1860 it had a circulation of approximately 1,500. It was read not only in Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands but also in Eastern Europe, and continued to appear until 1922.
Alina Treiger is the first female rabbi to be ordained in Germany since World War II.
Gunda Trepp is a German author and journalist.
Ulla Wolff-Frankfurter, also known by the pen names Ulla Frank and Ulrich Frank, was a German Jewish playwright, novelist, and journalist.
