Rabbi James Baaden served a Liberal synagogue congregation for eight years and is at present engaged in full-time academic work at the University of Oxford.

He grew up in the United States and Canada and was educated at the University of Texas (Austin) and the University of Cambridge. James Baaden has lived in the UK for over 25 years and is a British citizen.

He was a journalist in London in the 1980s for some years and subsequently worked in the area of social research and policy (health and social services). He was a trade union officer for a number of years and also taught postgraduate courses in social policy at the University of North London - now London Metropolitan University.

In the 1990s he studied for the rabbinate for 5 years at Leo Baeck College (London) and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, receiving rabbinic ordination from the late Rabbi John Rayner. Afterwards, James Baaden was the rabbi of South London Liberal Synagogue (2000-2008):  during this period he played an active part in community affairs in London and in inter-religious relations and was, for example, joint chairman of the “Local Strategic Partnership” in the London Borough of Lambeth.  He continues to belong to the steering group which organises the annual “International Jewish-Christian Bible Week” (formerly at Bendorf in Germany, since 2004 at Ohrbeck/Osnabrueck).

Rabbi Baaden left his post as a congregational rabbi in London to become a full-time doctoral student in Oxford (Wolfson College) and at present – 2011 – is completing his dissertation, The Phenomenon of Edith Stein: Narratives of History and Holiness, a work which reflects a “reception history” approach to the life, death and work of the Jewish-born philosopher and Roman Catholic saint Edith Stein (1891-1942).  He has lectured in recent years in the UK, Germany, Austria and Poland, and taught courses in the history of Judaism at Leo Baeck College. Rabbi Baaden has likewise conducted services on an occasional basis in recent years as a visiting rabbi in a variety of Jewish communities in Britain and on the Continent.