The World Union for Progressive Judaism (WUPJ) is the international umbrella organization for the various branches of Reform, Liberal and Progressive Judaism, as well as the separate Reconstructionist Judaism.[1] The WUPJ is based in 40 countries with 1,275 affiliated synagogues, of which 1,170 are Reform, Progressive, or Liberal and 105 Reconstructionist.[2] It claims to represent a total of some 1.8 million people, both registered constituents and non-member identifiers.[1] The WUPJ states that it aims to create common ground between its constituents and to promote Progressive Judaism in places where individuals and groups are seeking authentic, yet modern ways of expressing themselves as Jews. It seeks to preserve Jewish integrity wherever Jews live, to encourage integration without assimilation, to deal with modernity while preserving the Jewish experience, and to strive for equal rights and social justice.
The WUPJ was established in London in 1926 as the Union of all Progressive (also Liberal or Reform) movements. It moved its headquarters to New York in 1959, and to Jerusalem in 1973. In 1990, the Reconstructionists – who espouse a philosophy different from that of the former – joined the WUPJ under an observer status, being the first and only non-Reform member.[3] The WUPJ has regional offices in London, Moscow, and New York City.
As of 2021 the President of the WUPJ was Rabbi Sergio Bergman, and the Chair was Carole Sterling.
The URJ is by far the largest member organization of the WUPJ, with a solid constituency of over 750,000 Jewish members (along with further 90,000 unconverted gentile spouses) and over a million non-members who identify with it in the U.S., and further 30,000 constituents in Canada. As of 2016, 1.5 million of the 1.9 million members of WUPJ are in the U.S.[4]
German immigrants and rabbis brought Reform to America, although a short-lived congregation that espoused a somewhat similar ideal existed in Charleston between 1824 and 1833. The Union of American Hebrew Congregations, URJ since 2003, was founded in 1873.
North America is also home to the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation, which has affiliates, 97 only five of them outside the continent (in Delft, Netherlands, Curaçao; Wiesbaden, Germany; Serrastretta, Italy; Moscow, Russia). The JRF joined as an observer in 1990. It is the only non-Reform organization in the WUPJ, the other members of which do uphold the basic tenets of ongoing revelation, personal God and the like. In 2013, it had some 65,000 constituents.
Claude Montefiore, a major theologian, named his religious ideology "Liberal Judaism", founding the Jewish Religious Union as a platform in 1902. His movement was a founding member of the WUPJ in 1926.[5] British Reform, established officially in 1942, joined the global organization in 1945.
A first congregation was formed at Jerusalem during 1958. The movement was incorporated in 1971. The Israeli surrounding encouraged a more conservative approach on behalf of the local branch. The prayer in vernacular, for example, was Hebrew anyway, and the populace was relatively more familiar with rabbinic sources. Patrilineal descent is not recognized by the IMPJ, as by many other smaller affiliates, which cannot antagonize the Israeli Orthodox religious establishment.
The movement was established in 1931 with the encouragement of Abraham Zevi Idelsohn and Lily Montagu. South African Jewry is mostly nominally Orthodox, with those in Progressive streams accounting for around 10% of South African Jews currently residing in the country.
The movement was established in the 1930s in Melbourne by Ada Phillips with the encouragement of Lily Montagu and Israel Mattuck. Australian Jewry is similar to its South African counterpart in that it is mostly nominally Orthodox. Around twenty percent of affiliated Jews in Australia belong to progressive congregations.
Reform Judaism began in Germany, led by Rabbi Abraham Geiger. It stagnated considerably after the 1840s. In 1898, German Liberal rabbis organized the Union of Liberal Rabbis in Germany under Heinemann Vogelstein. In 1908 the laity formed the Union for Liberal Judaism in Germany. At its height, it had some 10,000 members and half the rabbis in the country. The ULJ was a founding member of the World Union in 1926. After the destruction of the Holocaust, Germany's Jews, mostly refugees of foreign descent, largely favoured Orthodoxy. Liberal Judaism managed to gain inroads slowly, and first prayer groups appeared in 1995. The Union of Progressive Jews was founded in 1997.
The movement is growing in Spain. As of 2016 there are six congregations, while there was only one congregation a decade ago. In 2017 the Reform community there expects to have its first native-born rabbi since the Expulsion in 1492 once he completes his rabbinical training in London.[4]
Latin America
The WUPJ opened a regional office in Buenos Aires in 1963 to "strengthen and build Jewish religious life" in South America.[6]
Since the early 2000s, a Latin American affiliate has been evolving. Officially founded at the Leaders Regional Conference of Progressive Communities in Córdoba (Argentina), in December 2009, then WUPJ-Latin America renamed itself the Union for Reform Judaism - Latin America (UJR-AmLat, the acronym in Spanish and Portuguese) in 2019.
The main concern of the time in the early 2000s was the vulnerability of the Jewish communities of Argentina, which was going through a serious social, economic and political crisis. The embryo of the organization was conceived in 2002 in São Paulo, by activists from liberal communities of Brazil, who chose that city as the regional headquarters of the organization.[7]
Union of Jewish Congregations of Latin America and the Caribbean supports congregations in Latin America and the Caribbean.[12] Shai Pinto, the vice president and COO of the World Union for Progressive Judaism, noted in 2012 that Latin America represented the fastest growing region for the movement.[13]
There are also, Arzenu – the international umbrella organization for progressive religious Zionist organizations, and Netzer Olami, the international youth wing of the progressive movement, jointly sponsored by Arzenu and the WUPJ.[14]
While all eight train rabbis for the worldwide progressive movement, each has a different focus. Leo Baeck College, located in the United Kingdom, focuses on leadership for the UK Reform and UK Liberal.[15] Abraham Geiger College focuses on providing leadership for communities in Germany, Central and Eastern Europe.[18] Hebrew Union College, with campuses in the United States and Israel, trains rabbis and communal service leaders for work in North American Reform and Israeli Progressive congregations. It also provides a year-in-Israel program for students at the Leo Baeck College and Abraham Geiger Institute.[20] The Moscow Institute trains leadership for the Russian-speaking communities, the École Rabbinique de Paris does so for the French-speaking communities, and the Levisson Institute for the Dutch-speaking communities. The Iberoamerican Institute focuses on Latin America and Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking communities, offering an online programme with weeklong, in-person seminars twice a year. The Reconstructionist Rabbinical College trains leadership for the associated Reconstructionist Movement.
