Chief Executive
Rabbi Danny Rich JP BA (HONS)
Rabbi Danny Rich
JP BA (HONS)
Rabbi Danny Rich was born into a classical English Liberal
Jewish South London family. Danny was state educated at Hearnville
Primary School and Sir Walter St.John’s Grammar School
of which he became Head-boy. Following A-levels in German, History,
and Government & Politics, Danny worked as a bureaucrat
at the London Fire Brigade before gaining a place at Manchester
University to read Politics and Modern History where he completed
his undergraduate thesis on ‘The Palestinian Experience
in Jordan : 1948-1970’.
A good 2(ii) may have partly been the result of his continual
activity in student union politics (Danny was twice elected
the Chairperson of the then country’s largest Student
Union and its Sabbatical Welfare Officer for a year); in Jewish
student affairs (he was the organiser of the local, and convenor
of the national, Progressive students); and in the Jewish community
(he served as the visiting Lay Minister to the Leicester Progressive
Jewish Congregation, as a supervisor of the Kadimah Summer School
from 1979-1985, and a Teacher/Service Leader at Manchester Reform
Synagogue.
In 1984 Danny began his rabbinic studies at the Leo Baeck
College in Finchley, retaining his links with the Leicester
Congregation in addition to teaching at Alyth Gardens (Reform
Synagogue).Danny served as an Assistant to Rabbi Julia Neuberger
at South London Liberal Synagogue, as part-time Minister to
Kingston Liberal Synagogue, as Student Rabbi to Hull and South
Hampshire Reform communities, before returning as the full-time
Rabbi at Kingston in l988. Danny was ordained in 1989, submitting
a thesis on ‘The Teaching of Torah to non-Jews’.
Although Kingston was, for nearly two decades, the focus of
Danny’s activities, he was for three years the part-time
Director of the Youth Department of Liberal Judaism, and completed
his 15th and final year as the Director of the Kadimah Summer
Camp in 2005.
Danny currently serves as Jewish Chaplain to Her Majesty’s
Prisons, Latchmere House in Richmond, and Coldingley in Bisley,
and to Kingston Hospital, and to Surrey Oaklands National Health
Service (NHS) Trust. Danny is the founding Chairperson of the
Dittons Branch of the Council of Christians & Jews, the
first Chair of the recently formed Royal Borough of Kingston
upon Thames Inter Faith Forum, and a joint Convenor of the new
Surrey Three Faiths Forum.
Danny is a past Chair of the Rabbinic Conference of Liberal
Judaism, and a supervisor of rabbinic students at the Leo Baeck
College. He was until recently the Director of Leo Baeck College’s
Apprenticeship, Internship & Mentoring programme for the
training of students in congregations.
Danny is a former Trustee of Mental Aid Projects and a past
Governor of Hinchley Wood Junior School.
Danny was appointed a Justice of the Peace by the Lord Chancellor
on 20 December 1996, and received a Diploma in Criminology from
the Scarman Centre for the Study of Public Order (Leicester
University) in 2001.
In December 2004 Danny was appointed the Chief Executive of
Liberal Judaism (a grouping of nearly 10,000 Jews in 34 communities
from Edinburgh to Bristol and from Norwich to Dublin and formerly
known as the Union of Liberal & Progressive Synagogues).
Most importantly, Danny is the father of four children.
For further information contact:
Rabbi Danny Rich c/o:
Liberal Judaism
The Montagu Centre
21 Maple Street
London W1T 4BE
020 7580 1663
Email d.rich@liberaljudaism.org |
