Bringing Judaism Home by Rabbi Charley Baginsky

Rabbi Charley Baginsky, is CEO of Liberal Judaism

As Liberal Judaism celebrates our 120th year, it feels like this is our moment. We have grown our reach, grown our profile and grown the number of people accessing what we and our communities do.

There has, however, been one thing holding us back: we haven’t grown our capacity.

The pandemic showed us the need for a fully operational online hub to support communities and individuals with resources, music and learning wherever they may be.

The cost of living crisis emphasised how we need to support members in financial difficulty, through initiatives such as our LJY-Netzer bursary scheme.

Feedback from our membership made clear that there are gaps in our offer at all stages of the lifecycle that need filling. A reinvigorated b'nei-Mitzvahand Kabbalat Torah programme, a university chaplain, a social justice department and a way to support Jewish residents in non-Jewish care homes will fill those gaps.

Not only has the need become greater, but our success has made the expectations greater too.

We were the movement that led the way online during the pandemic and we have always been the movement known for inclusion. We have seen that when you are known for these things, people find you because of them and therefore the need grows.

So we needed to do something we had traditionally been very bad at… ask people for money.

We have so far raised £275,000 – five times more than Liberal Judaism has ever raised in the past. But a lot of time and effort went into preparing for the first wave of fundraising.

First, we had to define clearly what Liberal Judaism is.

We are the Judaism for the Jews on the margins, but we are not a marginal Judaism.

We represent those who were born into Liberal Judaism and those who have found a home for their Jewish story with us, for whatever reason that may be.

Reading the stories of our 120 fundraising Ambassadors, a very fitting number in our 120th year, really brought this home.

Some found us because they fell in love with someone from outside our faith, some after discovering Jewish ancestry and some inspired by our work fighting for LGBTQI+ equality. Then there are those, living in an area where there is no Jewish community at all, who joined us online during the pandemic and liked what they saw.

Next we had to set a target and were ambitious – both in terms of financial aims and what we want to achieve for our members and Judaism in general.

The final task was to work out how to ask.

On one level, people don’t think that infrastructure for a religious movement is a sexy thing to fundraise for, but when you talk to them about where their real need is, and how to provide resources to our communities to achieve the things that they are looking for, you show that it is actually vital.

We are also fulfilling a need for belonging. People from all over the country found Liberal Judaism in the pandemic – but how can they properly belong if we can’t bring everyone all together as one, as a movement.

And people were inspired. What impressed me more than anything was the level of engagement. Social media accounts were flooded, people shared their stories and in the end we had more than 1,000 individual donors.

The final thing we had to overcome was how to ask Jews of other denominations, and even non-Jews, to contribute.

How we connected to them was through the radical work we are doing that they can relate to.

We are changing the face of what it means to be religious and to engage in society. There are many people who benefited directly from our successful campaign for equal marriage. There are those who have seen our pioneering work on inclusion or for refugees and have been inspired.

That is why this is a cause way beyond just ourselves and why over those 36 hours we received donations from Orthodox, Masorti and Reform Jews and even three priests and a Christian radio DJ.

But all of this was just our launchpad – we are now aiming to use the rest of the year to get our total to £500,000 and truly fulfill our mission to bring Judaism home.

If you can help, please visit campaigns.causematch.com/LJ