Iwassilencedandyouneedtoknowwhy
ON JULY 30 2015, I was informed that I had been banned from teaching at the London School of Jewish Studies (LSJS).
Since October that year, following Chief Rabbi Mirvis’s warning against “inappropriate” speakers, my offers to teach in the educational programmes of Kinloss Synagogue, where I am a member and have taught previously, have been consistently rebuffed.
I was told by a senior figure at the LSJS that I was being banned for four reasons:
1. That in spite of the policy of the Chief Rabbi, president of LSJS, I had engaged with Jewish students at JCoSS and set up a programme for advanced Jewish studies there.
2. That in response to pronouncements by the Chief Rabbi and others, I had suggested we needed to think deeply and carefully about the ways we related to the Torah, and be wary of advocating fundamentalist readings with dangerous political consequences.
3. That I had been involved in organising a partnership minyan, and dared to dispute in writing, the con- demnation of such services by the US rabbinic council.
4. That, in an attempt to heal wounds which had fractured our community for 55 years, I had agreed to work with the Friends of Louis Jacobs organisation to help develop their educational programme.
Let me state very clearly that I have no regrets about any of the above. Furthermore, I feel that it reflects very poorly on all concerned — the Chief Rabbi, United Synagogue and LSJS — that these have been viewed as grounds for silencing me.
The objection to my involvement with the Friends of Louis Jacobs is particularly dismaying. Whilst I thought it was time to build bridges, others clearly felt that these rifts had become so final they could now generate exclusion simply by association. As people have since said to me, any mention at all of Louis Jacobs in the United Synagogue is unacceptable and automatically renders an individual
Where does this leave me? On a personal level, I find it increasingly difficult to identify with the United Synagogue, and attend Kinloss. I take my silencing as an exclusion. But I also feel there is Rabbi Mirvis a bigger story here, and people need to know about it. Put simply, the United Synagogue is becoming ever more accommodating to the fundamentalism of the hard right, of the strictly Orthodox and Charedi world.
All of the causes I stand for represent a Judaism that is open, tolerant and willing to engage with its own history. It stands for a conception of halachah that is dynamic and responsive, as any serious study of its development shows it to be. And it is these values — a willingness to learn from others and history, the possibility of evolution — which the fundamentalist rejects.
In its approach to gender issues, it is not even the case that the United Synagogue is standing still, that it is simply preserving the traditions that have always been. As late as 1986 there was a mixed choir during services at Hampstead Synagogue. Going further back to an even more enlightened era, Chief Rabbi Joseph Hertz’s Chumash (completed in 1936) shows a careful consideration of biblical scholarship way ahead of its time. Following his lead, historical Bible scholarship was a regular part of Rabbinic training at Jews’ College well into the 1950s. Such a curriculum could not even be entertained in the current inwardlyfocused atmosphere. Partnership minyanim actually provide a very gentle test case for contemporary halachah, raising one simple question: “Are we ready to have a sensible conversation about gender and halachah?” I don’t think we are. While I don’t believe Chief Rabbi Mirvis bears full responsibility for this accelerated move to the right, I do feel that under his leadership the right wing in his Beth Din and rabbinate have felt emboldened and pushed a harder agenda. Chief Rabbi Sacks certainly frustrated people, but he made it clear, through his sophisticated exposition of Judaism, that thinking was welcome, that one did not respond to challenge with exclusion. Now there is a new spirit of demonisation at work, one which perhaps hasn’t been felt since the Jacobs affair.
But this isn’t simply repeating history. In 1961, no one was speaking about the dangers of religious fundamentalism. If anything, religion was viewed as a spent force. In today’s world, religious fundamentalism is a major global concern.
The United Synagogue membership need to carefully consider if they wish to support an institution which is gathering momentum in such an intolerant direction. The proud historic legacy of Anglo Jewry is at stake. Elie Jesner is a UKCP psychotherapist, teacher and writer. His Jewish studies blog is at http://thinkingdafyomi.com