\\ LEO BAHCK CGLLEGE \. LIBRARY (4/!) THE SEVENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE WORLD UNION FOR PROGRESSIVE JUDAISM John D. Rayner "I! is a great pleasure and satisfaction {or me to have the privilege of welcoming you all." With these words, Claude Goldsmid Monlefiore, standing where I am standing now, give or take a few feet, opened the inaugural session of lhe first international conference of Progressive Jews on Saturday evening, 10‘“ July 1926‘ My task in the next Iwenty~nine minutes is to evoke the occasion, to offer a few glimpses into the history of the organisation it brought into being, and to speculate a little about its future. But I also want to touch on two related anniversaries. The first is ‘he 200m anniversary of the establishment of [he first progressively conceived Jewish school at Seesen near Hanover. For it was there in 1801 that the founder of the school, Israel Jacobson, carried out the first significant experiments in worship reform. But if Progressive Judaism goes back ‘hat far, why was it only in 1926 that it created a world movement? What took so long? I suppose the answer is in part that prior to the twentieth century people were not so inclined to think internationally as they have since become. After all, the League of Nations was not founded until 1920. In fact, there was a slightly earlier attempt m create a World Union in 1914, when the Liberal Jews of Germany invited their French, English and American counterparts to attend their annual conference that autumn, with a view to selling up an international organisation. But the outbreak of the First World War put paid to that Nevertheless, a seed had been planted, and it fructified in the minds of a woman and two men, collectively known as ’The Three Ms’, a few years after the war. The prime mover was Lily Montagu, a pioneer social worker and a devoutly religious woman who dedicaked every waking moment of her long life t6 the service of God as she understood it. That understanding she derived largely from the writings of Claude Goldsmid Montefiore, offspring of two founder families of the West London Synagogue, Bible scholar and philanthropist, and a man of saintly disposition. With Montefiore's co-operalion, Lily Montagu had founded in 1902 the Jewish Religious Union which later added to its name ‘for the Advancement of Liberal Iudaism’, proceeded to establish the Liberal Jewish Synagogue, and appbinted Israel 1. Mattuck (the third ‘M') as its first rabbi. He was a man of razor sharp mind and excellent Jewish scholarship, who combined rationality and spirituality in a way few people understood then or understand now. By 1926 the Liberal Jewish Synagogue had outgrown its first home, a disused chapel in Hill Street, and built what was then the largest synagogue in the country, on this site. Consecraled in 1925, it was still very new when the conference we are commemorating was held in it. Just for a moment, let us get our wider historical bearings. 1926 was the year of the General Strike, but it was also the year in which John Baird invented television, the BBC was founded, Kitty Godfrey won the Wimbledon ladies' singles title, and England defea‘ed Australia to regain the ashes after fourteen years. L , It was Lily Montagu who had sent out the invitations, and over a hundred people came from abroad in response to her call. They included, from the United States: Dr Julian Morgenstem, President of the Hebrew Union College, and Rabbi Stephen Wise, the great orator and Zionist leader. From Germany: Professor lsmar Elbogen and Rabbis Max Dienemann, Georg Salzberger, Max Wiener, Caesar Seligmann, and Bruno ltaliener — whose daughter we salute here tonight. Rabbi Leo Baeck did not come but submitted a paper. There were several delegates from France. Sweden was represented by Dr Henrik Wolf from Stockholm, and India by Dr Leah Jhirad from Bombay. In his Shabbal Morning Conference sermon, Rabbi Mattuck expressed the sense of historic mission which animated the organisers. ‘The times," he said, “present us with a great opportunity... If Jews have grown weak in their attachment to what is Jewish, it is because Judaism has lost its hold on the spirit of the Jew. All who love Judaism and believe in the destiny of lhe Jewish people must feel a challenge in these conditions‘ And the challenge is no less a one than this: Can Judaism live? And our answer is: It must live!" On Shabba‘ afiernoon there was a garden party at the home of Rabbi and Mrs Malluck on the edge of Hampstead Heath. On the Sunday and Monday papers were delivered on such subjects as ‘The Synagogue and Modern Life', 'Judaism in Relation to Modern Thought and Life' and ’The Inspiration of the Bible’. The Monday morning session became momentarily tense over the question of Zionism In 1926 most Jews were not Zionists and some were strongly opposed to Zionism. In these circumstances it was deemed best to omil the subject from the agenda, for fear of wrecking the spirit of unity on which the success of the conference was going to depend. Nevertheless two delegates — the Rev. Maurice Perlzweig of the Jewish Religious Union and Rabbi Stephen Wise — insisted on raising the controversial issue. Rabbi Mattuck, who was in the chair, allowed them to speak bul then gave a ruling to the effect that the present Conference had no official altitude to Zionism, which however did not preclude future conferences from taking a different view, and that, since the subject was not on the agenda, there should be no further discussion of it. This was accepted by the delegales without further dissent The question of setting up a pemmnent organisation was broached on the Monday afternoon, _ when Lily Montagu said to (he delegates: “I do not want this Conference to end without some definite, practical, durable result." After much discussion |he delegates plumped for the adjective ’Progressive’ as the most acceptable umbrella term for the various shades of Liberal and Reform Judaism represented, and so resolved to establish ’The World Union for Progressive Judaism’, with Claude Monlefiore as President, Rabbi Israel Mattuck as Chairman, and Lily Montagu as Hon. Secretary. On the Monday night Lily Montagu's eldest sister Mrs Henrietta Franklin entertained the delegates in her house, and on the Tuesday afternoon Mr and Mrs Montefiore gave a concluding garden party in Roehampton. So the World Union was launched, and for the next thirty-four years its leadership remained in London. Monlefiore, as Presidem, was essentially a figurehead. He died in 1938 on 9‘“ July (please note the date) and was succeeded in the following year by Rabbi Leo Baeck Lily Montagu did the day-to-day work, first from an office in her West Central Club, and when that was destroyed by enemy bombing during the Second World War, from her Kensington home, the Red Lodge at 51 Palace Court. There, with the help of her devoted Secretary Jessie Levy, she conducted an incredibly voluminous correspondence with individuals interested in Progressive Judaism all over the world. But if Lily Montagu relentlessly stoked the engine that drove the ship, Rabbi Mattuck was the helmsman, [or and] matters of policy she consulted him and deferred to him, and when he retired in 1948 she relied similarly on his successor and son-in-law, Rabbi Leslie 1. Edgar. At this point you may wonder what was the role of the British Reform movement in all this. Part of the answer is that, as a movement, it did not yet exist in 1926‘ For the Association of Synagogues in Great Britain, later to become the Reform Synagogues of Great Britain, was not formed until 1942. The West London Synagogue did indeed join the World Union, but not until 1930, and the Association of Synagogues only in 1945. Even then its membership remained somewhat lukewarm, chiefly because the Senior Minister of the West London Synagogue, Rabbi Harold Reinhart, developed an antipathy towards Rabbi Mattuck and his Liberal movement and, more generally, towards anylhing that seemed to him to smack of sectarianism. His motto was ‘non- adjectival Iudaism', and this did not arouse in him any great enthusiasm for an organisatiOn that existed for the very purpose of propagating a distinctively Progressive version of Judaism. The situation began to change in 1957, when Rabbi Reinhart resigned from the West London Synagogue, to be succeeded by Rabbi Werner Van der Zyl, and still further in 1964, when he was succeeded by Rabbi Hugo Cryn. But more of that anon. Meanwhile back to the pre-war period. Although the World Union, from its inception, entailed a great deal of work behind the scenes, its public face was seen principally at “5 international conferences, which were held approximately every other year, except of course during lhe war. The first, afler ils foundation here in 1926, was held in Berlin in 1928, and you will find one or Iwo photographs from it among the exhibits _in the foyer. It was a memorable conference for at least two reasons First, because Lily Montagu gave (in German) the conference sermon. It was probably the first time any woman had ever preached in Germany. Secondly, because of a remarkably perceptive address by Rabbi Leo Baeck in which he said that “in the nineteenth century Liberal Judaism had been too concerned with confomwily, with how it appeared to others rather than what it really was. Now the lime had come to throw away the mirror and to look inside. True Liberalism was an intensive ¥ Judaism, a religion of piety that took itself seriously.