Leo Baeck College

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The Leo Baeck College in London is a rabbinical seminary , the liberal reform - and Masorti - Rabbis for all European countries formed and ordained . Jewish religion teachers are also trained. In North London it has classrooms, offices, student lounges and one of the leading Judaica libraries in Europe with over 50,000 volumes and an archive with around 80,000 tracts and sound recordings.

history

In 1933 there were 9 liberal or reform churches in Great Britain. In 1945 the number had risen to 16 due to the large number of immigrants from Germany, and in 1956 to 32. The rabbis of the communities at that time were at the American Hebrew Union College , but above all at the University for the Science of Judaism in Berlin or at the Jewish -Theological seminar was trained in Wroclaw . After the Second World War, the European training centers in Germany were now destroyed. American Reform Judaism had grown so rapidly that it itself had a shortage of rabbis.

The Orthodox Jew's College in London refused to accept non-Orthodox students and the universities did not offer sufficient opportunities for the training of rabbinical figures. In the 1950s the reform churches and the liberal churches in Great Britain were therefore convinced of the need to create their own opportunities for the training of rabbis. The liberal synagogues established a Minister's Training Scheme, the reform communities a Leo Baeck Scholarship Fund. But it was not until September 30, 1956, with the founding of the Jewish Theological College, that a permanent institution came into being. The founding director was Rabbi Dr. Werner van der Zyl . Rabbi Leo Baeck had actually been appointed for this office, but a serious illness prevented this and when Leo Baeck died a few months later on November 2, 1956, the Jewish Theological College was named in his honor in Leo Baeck College for the Study of Judaism and the Renamed Training of Rabbis, Ministers and Teachers .

It began its work with half a dozen students, two full-time lecturers and four part-time lecturers in a room in the West London Synagogue. The first lecturers were predominantly teachers at the University for the Science of Judaism in Berlin, such as Rabbis Ignaz Maybaum , Arjeh Dörfler , and Ellen Littmann . The large proportion of German-language works in the college library goes back to these first German lecturers.

In 1963 the college moved to the newly built extension of the West London Synagogue and now had its own classrooms, a library room and a student room. Since 1964, the college has been sponsored by the Reform Synagogues of Great Britain (now Movement for Reform Judaism ) and the Union of Liberal and Progressive Synagogues (now Liberal Judaism ). In 1967 the first woman was admitted to the rabbinical program. Her name is Jacqueline Tabick . She was ordained as the first woman rabbi at Leo Baeck Colleges in 1975. In the same year, Professor Dr. Hyam Z. Maccoby the series of scholars who systematically built the college library into a unique collection of Judaica in Europe.

Leo Baeck moved into its current premises in the Sternberg Center for Judaism in North London in 1982. Four years later, the Center for Jewish Education was founded for the training and further education of religious teachers, which merged with rabbinical training in 2001 and is now its Department for Education and Professional Development works. Among other things, it also offers video conferences for school classes on Judaism.

In the meantime, a total of 153 rabbis have been ordained at Leo Baeck College, who officiate in various countries, above all in Great Britain, Germany, Holland, France, South Africa and the USA, and since 1999 also in Russia and the Ukraine.

The college publishes the magazine “European Judaism. A Journal for the New Europe ”.

Rectors (principals)

Graduates (selection)

literature

  • Jonathan Magonet: From Artilleriestrasse to Upper Berkeley Street: The Origins of a Rabbinical College. In: European Judaism. 39 (2006), pp. 3-15.
  • Jonathan Romain: Fifty Years of Leo Baeck College: An Overview (1956-2006). In: European Judaism. 39 (2006), pp. 27-31.
  • Ellen Littmann: The First Ten Years of the Leo Baeck College. In: Dow Marmur (Ed.): Reform Judaism. Essays on Reform Judaism in Britain. RSGB, London 1973, pp. 160-178.
  • Jonathan A. Romain: Leo Baeck and the College. In: Jonathan A. Romain (Ed.): Renewing the Vision. SCM Press, London 1996, pp. Xi-xvi.
  • Michael Leigh: 1956 and All That. In: Jonathan A. Romain (Ed.): Renewing the Vision. SCM Press, London 1996, pp. 165-181.
  • Jackie Tabick: I Never Really Wanted to be First. In: Sybil Sheridan (Ed.): Hear Our Voice. Women rabbis tell their stories. SCM Press, London 1994, pp. 16-26.

Web links