Februar 1997 - - Adar 1/Adar 2 5757 - - February 1996

The Union of Progressive Jews
in Germany, Austria and Switzerland is founded

Out of the two-year old ‘Group for Reform and Con-servative Communities and Clubs’, where Beth Shalom had refrained from membership due to unclear financial and organizational goals, ‘The Union of Progressive Jews in Germany, Austria and Switzerland’ has been newly constituted. The Union includes only Communities and Religious Groups with the following common goals:

• to uphold the fundamental teachings of Judaism and to foster the understanding and teaching of the Jewish tradition in harmony with the modern world in which we live;
• to foster the formation and cooperation of other pro-gressive Jewish communities in the German-speaking community;
• to actively encourage interest in progressive Judaism to the non-religious Jewish community;
• to represent members in ‘The World Union for Pro-gressive Judaism’ and to foster cooperation with the non-Orthodox Jewish World Community.

The liberal Jewish communities and groups in Kassel, Frankfurt, (Kehillah Chadascha), in Heidelberg (Derech Chadascha), Köln (Gesher LaMassoret), Vienna (Or Chadasch), as well as the conservative-oriented ‘Einheitsgemeinde’ in Göttingen that all belonged to the pre-existing Group (Dachverband) will be members in the newly-formed Union of Progressive Jews.

New members of the Union will be the ‘Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Bamberg’, the New Jewish community of Hannover and Beth Shalom, Munich. The Board of Beth Shalom will formally vote on membership in February.

World Union Shabbat Service worldwide

World Union member congregations all over the world will pay tribute to each other in a solidarity service on Friday evening March 7. The service will be highlighted by Beth Shalom’s multicultural membership. The sermon will be delivered by member Dr. Walter Homolka. During this weekend we welcome Mrs. Frances Sacker, from the Governing body of the Union of Liberal and Progressive Synogogues in Great Britain, who is also in charge of supervising the World Union conference in Munich in November 1997.