By Rabbi Leah Jordan
Chaplain for Progressive Jewish Students
PJS@progressivejudaism.org.uk

Having worked as a Chaplain for university students up and down Britain for more than a decade, I often get asked – are you ‘pro’ the merger between Liberal Judaism and the Movement for Reform Judaism? I always answer with a confident ‘yes’.

Visiting campuses in all parts of the UK since 2013, and meeting hundreds of Jewish university students in and outside of Jewish Societies large and small, if there is one thing I am certain of, it’s that we will be much stronger together and better able to meet the needs of our students on campus if we unite as one Progressive movement.

The reason is twofold: in the past, we have sometimes fought each other over scarce resources, when we are much better off creating vision and content together; and we are being completely out-resourced by Orthodox offerings when we could be building up our own Progressive Chaplaincy together.

The challenge

When the graduates of our youth movements (LJY-Netzer and RSY-Netzer) and young members of our synagogues arrive on campus, they enter a sea of largely non-Jewish peers. Of the Jewish students who are there, according to a Union of Jewish Students (UJS) survey from last year, almost 40% identify as Modern Orthodox.

Our students are therefore already a minority within a minority – making plain how important our role is, to support robust Progressive Jewish life on campus.

Progressive students are currently outnumbered and outspent on campus

The good news is that almost a quarter of Jewish students, 24%, do identify as Reform or Liberal! When Liberal and Reform Judaism don’t cooperate, don’t share databases and resources and relationships, we compete for a quarter of the student body who are much better served by a united, vibrant, joyful Progressive Jewish identity.

There is yet another 15% of the Jewish student body who identify as ‘Just Jewish’. If they go anywhere, they often come to us, rather than to the Orthodox offerings on campus. In total, then, just as many Jewish students, about 40%, identify as Progressive or secular as they do Orthodox. We need to be there for them.

Which brings us to the other reality. University Jewish Chaplaincy, Aish and Chabad are all incredibly well-resourced Orthodox student provisions, and they are much more visible and active on campus than we are at this time.

In part, that is because we have, as mentioned above, been underrepresenting ourselves by working separately. But money is also a major factor.

As we hopefully merge, we have already been told by major donors and stakeholders that the prospect of giving to a future Progressive Jewish Chaplaincy, which represents a quarter of Jewish students on campus, is a much more exciting prospect for them than supporting two separate, smaller Progressive movements.

The vision

Rabbi Josh Levy leads a discussion for Bristol JSoc on Progressive Judaism and the wider Jewish community

And what might this more well-resourced, united Progressive Jewish Chaplaincy look like?

Well, the Union of Jewish Students, the umbrella body which represents Jewish students throughout the UK, has already slowly itself become more pluralist and more Progressive, thanks to our efforts over the years, and this will only continue and intensify.

The UJS’ current elected President, Sami Berkoff, is a graduate herself of RSY, the Movement for Reform Judaism’s youth movement. She and Progressive students and Progressive Chaplaincy have slowly changed the norms on campuses – so that Progressive Jewish students are now appreciated and seen as an integral part of university Jewish life.

This means prayer spaces for Progressive and egalitarian prayer on every campus that wants it and more politically pluralist offerings on Israel education, amongst other structural changes.

The example

Rabbi Leah Jordan, her spouse Rabbi Benji Stanley and their daughter (bottom left) at the cross-communal Student Convention in Scotland

Just this past month, the Union of Jewish Students convened its first ever Student Convention weekend for Scottish and Northern Irish universities in Paisley, Scotland.

There, along with the kind and competent Orthodox rabbi and rebbetzin duo and their children – funded by United Synagogue’s University Chaplaincy to serve Scottish students – were myself, the Progressive Chaplain – already jointly supported by Liberal and Reform Judaism – with my rabbi spouse, Benji Stanley, and our daughter (see the photo)

Each couple, Orthodox and Progressive, taught sessions over the Limmud-style weekend, and each couple led services for the students, and we were all there, most importantly, in the interstitial moments, for coffee chats and meals and walks around the grounds, to hear from students about the most important issues on their minds: mental health and relationships, building vibrant Jewish life on campus, their studies, life after university, and more.

This Shabbaton – along with recents events hosted for Bristol JSoc by Rabbi Josh Levy and Newcastle JSoc at Newcastle Reform Synagogue – provide a vision of the work we can do if Reform and Liberal unite and truly represent the quarter of British Jewish students on campus who need us, and the many other ‘Just Jewish’ students who might join us.

Our students don’t experience life on campus so much as Liberal or Reform Jews but as Progressive Jewish students – who are looking for non-Orthodox Jewish spaces and a more pluralist and progressive approach on the issues that matter to them.