Principles:
Torah in Modern Times
Liberal Judaism, also known as Reform or Progressive Judaism, was
founded in the 19th Century in Germany and embodied the search for a
religious form which paired the wish for civic and social equality
with a positive Jewish identity.
Liberal Judaism grew out of the
ideas of Moses Mendelssohn, Israel Jakobsson, Leopold Zunz and
Abraham Geiger. Important scholars and institutions emerged such as
Rabbi Leo Baeck and the Academy for the Science of Judaism (Hochschule
fuer die Wissenschaft des Judentums) in Berlin.
By the end of the 19th Century Liberal Judaism dominated the
landscape of
German Jewry, until all Jewish life was extinguished by the Nazi
dictatorship. German Jews who were able to flee the Nazis or who
survived the concentration camps saved and exported the ideas of
Liberal Judaism to North America, Great Britain and Israel, helping
it to become the largest religious movement within Judaism.
The spirit of Liberal Judaism has been revived on German soil with
the founding of the new Liberal Jewish Congregations in the early
1990s and the 1997 founded Union of Progressive Jews in Germany. The
Union of Progressive Jews in Germany houses 21
Liberal Jewish communities throughout Germany, the Abraham Geiger
College in Potsdam, the first rabbinical seminary in continental
Europe since the war, the nationwide organization of young adults,
'Jung and Juedisch' and the progressive Zionist movement in Germany,
Arzenu.
In turn, the Union of Progressive Jews in Germany are members of the
World Union for Progressive Judaism, founded in 1924 in Berlin by
Rabbi Leo Baeck. The WUPJ is the world's largest Jewish religious
organization with membership totalling 1.8 million Liberal Jews in
46 countries. |
