The Politics of Progressive Judaism, and what it could learn from the Quakers
Things I’ve been writing / reading
I recently published this review of Marc Dollinger’s Black Power, Jewish Politics: Reinventing the Alliance in the 1960s in the journal Racial and Ethnic Studies, including some wider discussion of the scholarly and political issues in question. (This is a limited gift link, if it has expired just email me for a copy)
This is a powerful and disturbing piece from Jewish Currents about ‘October 7th Tourism’ in Israel.
This piece argues that Israel has expanded the human shield argument to new degrees, tracing the history of the concept.
A rich account of a contemporary descendant of a German Jews returning to his family bookshop in Berlin
A provocative but often insightful piece on the antisemitism of the Israeli state
An extraordinary account of the 1989 Mizrachi-Palestinian peace conference in Toledo
This week I want to write about a topic that absolutely nobody is asking for. A subject so niche and so deeply British and Jewish, that it cries out to be covered on Torat Albion. That’s right, you’ve guessed it, it’s the merger of the UK Liberal and Reform movements and the creation of a new single body called Progressive Judaism. To the seven people who are really interested in this: strap right in, it’s going to be one hell of a ride. To everyone else, stay with me, the subject is deceptively interesting, and contains much ideology underneath its managerialist façade.
The merger was first announced in April 2023, in a top-down manner. Presumably the organisers wished to get the announcement out before consulting synagogues – to present it as a fait accompli. Two primary reasons have been given for the move. The first is technocratic: it will save costs. Why run two offices, with two backroom teams, when you can have one? Within a neoliberal hermeneutic, in which everything is reducible to expenditure and profit, this logic is difficult to refute. No doubt there is also a desire to bring in the three independent synagogues who are broadly aligned with progressive Judaism – West London, Westminster, and Belsize Square Synagogues. Bringing some or all of them into the fold would certainly increase funds and reduce costs.
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