Chairman’s report December Council.

It has been customary for the Chairman’s report to be essentially backward facing. Indeed there has been much activity over the last three months and as I reviewed my reports to the Officers’ Group at our last three meetings I can point to Kent Liberal Progressive Community’s Bat Mitzvah celebrations, the decision of Sukkat Shalom in Edinburgh to affiliate to the movement, the first service of the Manchester Liberal Community, the meeting of the Education Action Group, the inaugural service at Harrow and Wembley’s beautiful new building and Finchley’s rebuilding project to name but a few.

However, at this point at the end of a calendar year, I should like to focus on the future. This seems particularly appropriate at Chanukah, for the Chanukah lights symbolise hope and desire for the future.

I am proud to be associated in some small way with this marvellous movement of ours. To be candid, I am quite nervous of taking on more than a century of our rich heritage and there are many days on which I wonder what I have let myself in for. However I face the future with confidence for a number of reasons.

Firstly, I am delighted that the appointments panel unanimously selected Rabbi Danny Rich to be the Chief Executive of the movement. Danny, a Liberal Jew through and through, comes to us with impeccable credentials. He has been community rabbi at Kingston for more than 15 years, he is a worker for interfaith understanding, a justice of the peace, and a hospital and prison chaplain. He has been a key figure with colleagues in developing and enunciating the social and ritual policies of the movement, he has a deep love of Israel, and he was until this year the director of our highly successful Kadimah summer camp. In short, although he faced stiff opposition from well qualified candidates during the selection process, he was the obvious choice for the job and I look forward to working with him.

Secondly, and after all the changes, we are and remain a confident movement. We have integrity and value it above pragmatism, we are honest with ourselves and with others and we have the humility to admit when we are wrong. This makes us strong and enables us to engage with Jews and those who choose to become Jews offering them a kind of Judaism that is clearly distinguished from the other strands of Anglo Jewry.

Thirdly I look at our lay leaders on the Officers Group and in our communities, the staff at the Montagu Centre, our President and Vice Presidents and at our Rabbis and see the quality of people involved in our movement. If I knew anything at all about football, I would probably find a suitable metaphor here. I do not and will not strain your credibility by feigning one. I do realise that we have an unbeatable winning combination in our people.

What then will we seek to do over the next three years?

We will continue to develop our understanding of Judaism and its relationship with today’s world. My colleagues in the rabbinic conference will provide us with context and explanation as they push at the open door of Jewish knowledge. As funding allows, we will appoint the new rabbinic post of Religion and Learning Executive here in the Montagu Centre who will work with our rabbis to extend this work.

We will develop Social Action programmes that are relevant to the needs of today’s world and that promote participation by a wide range of individuals across our communities.

We will seek to grow and develop our movement.

We will expand the base of donor funding and as soon as we have proved the model, we will appoint a professional fund raiser to establish reliable long term financing for our movement and reduce the funding burden on the movement’s membership.

We will build our profile both nationally and internationally. Rabbi Dr Jonathan Sacks cannot speak for all of Anglo Judaism and Rabbi Tony Bayfield certainly does not speak for the whole of Progressive Judaism. The spokespeople of Liberal Judaism need to have an equal voice in press, on radio and TV, on public platforms and on the Internet with their counterparts in the other strands of our religion.

We will continue the work of Outreach so ably led by Rabbi Aaron Goldstein, and expand the ‘tent’ model so that those individuals, for whom the traditional synagogue model has no current attraction, have a place in which to be Jewish. A tent, remember, is a place into which we enter. A ‘tribe’ by contrast is something to which you belong.

We will open new communities, not necessarily four walled synagogues, in the places where there are Jews who need Liberal Judaism. We will not be constrained by the presence of existing communities that are associated with other organisations. We have proved that the small community model works as well as, and is as viable as the larger model.

We will equally expand the support we can offer to our membership outside the metropolitan areas. We have a responsibility to members from Eastbourne to Edinburgh, from Bristol to Norwich and from Maidstone to Manchester. We will fulfil that responsibility, by the use of field workers, possibly working out of some of our regional synagogues and focusing on the areas in which they are based.

We will expand the reach of our Youth movement, LJY Netzer, so that young people can experience Liberal Judaism through the whole of the UK. Our youth movement inculcates a love of Liberal Judaism, Progressive Zionism and Tikkun Olam through informal education and personal example in a fun, friendly and inclusive community run by its members. In this way we develop the community leaders and rabbis of the future.

We will work with other synagogal bodies in equal partnership when it is appropriate and for the greater good of our communities. We will however not shrink from expressing independent views or opposing those organisations when we truly disagree with them.

We will care for our staff, volunteers and lay leaders, providing them with support, encouragement, respect and appreciation. We will never cease to be conscious of the needs of individuals and communities and will pace those needs ahead of any other ambition.

We will only do all these things with your support and agreement and we will only do them when we can afford to, but above all we will never forget that we are first and foremost a Jewish organisation and that being said, we will do all these acts in a Jewish manner.

I look forward with excitement to the next few years and I look forward to working with my colleagues on the Officers group, with the rabbis and lay leaders of our communities and with you.

Thank you.