A recording of a live panel event from last month

This is a recording of a live event held on 18th September at Mosaic Jewish Community in Stanmore. It was a panel entitled What Would a Jewish Liberation Theology Look Like?, and comprised Rabbis Robyn Ashworth-Steen, Leah Jordan, Anthony Lazarus Magrill, Daniel Lichman and Judith Rosen-Berry, and was chaired by me, Joseph Finlay. This is an edited recording, containing all of the panel contributions but omitting most of the contributions from the floor, as they were sadly not well picked up by the recording.

It’s a rich and multi-faceted conversation, with subjects including the book of Exodus, the character of Moses, the influence of empires, both ancient and modern rabbinic attitudes to poverty, the difficulties of doing liberation theology within a halachic framework, the possibilities of a ‘haskalah chadasha’ (new Jewish enlightenment) and the opportunities and challenges of attempting to organise synagogues around ideas of liberation. It is not especially focussed on issues of Israel/Palestine, although I did bring that subject in towards the end. While the current conflict is omnipresent it seemed important to consider issues of Judaism and Liberation Theology in the broadest possible way. I hope it is of interest, and can lead to many more such conversations.