Welcome to
NEWCASTLE REFORM SYNAGOGUE
Ner Tamid נֵר תָּמִיד
Reform Judaism
"Reform Judaism is a journey into the future towards a world transformed. It is both the journey of a people and a myriad of individual journeys – yours and mine – freely engaged in, yet bound up in the collective journey."
What is Reform Judaism?
Reform Judaism – living Judaism – is rooted in nearly four millennia of Jewish learning whilst actively engaged with modern life and thought. This means both an uncompromising assertion of eternal truths and values and an open, positive attitude to new insights and changing circumstances. We adopt an open and positive attitude to Jews, welcoming all as they are rather than as others think they should be. We include many whose families have been Reform Jews for generations. We constantly welcome others whose upbringing was in orthodox communities. We are also a beacon of welcome for those who have drifted away from formal association with the community through apathy, antipathy or outmarriage.
We welcome.
We count people in.
We solve problems rather than create them.
We seek to open doors, not to erect barriers.
We prize our Jewish tradition of questioning. We understand doubt and unbelief. We know that answers are often provisional, fragmentary glimpses on a journey towards a living truth and reality that is always before us.
Movement for Reform Judaism
In Britain, Reform Judaism is embodied in the Reform Movement which embraces some 35,000 Reform Jews throughout Britain, more than forty synagogue communities in England, Scotland and Wales, three primary schools, the Sternberg Centre for Judaism in North West London, the Leo Baeck College-Centre for Jewish Education (shared, along with the schools, with ULPS) and the Movement’s organisational engine, the Movement for Reform Judaism.
We are affiliated to the World Union for Progressive Judaism, the largest organisation of synagogues in the world. We declare again and again that Reform Judaism is living Judaism. This emphasises that our Judaism is a living, growing, developing faith, always moving on. It underlines our insistence that Judaism must be something that people can and want to live by.
Living Judaism is also an initiative in which many of our congregations are currently engaged which is concerned with the renewal of the sense of Jewish journey, rekindling the vision and the passion for Jewish learning, a multiplicity of programmes and the valuing of each individual in the context of community. We are determined to continue the journey towards a world transformed and want nothing more than for you to come along with us.
To learn more vist the Movement for Reform Judaism organisation at www.reformjudaism.org.uk
