Editorial

E-ISSN： 1752-2323|49|1|1-4

ISSN： 0014-3006

Source： European Judaism, Vol.49, Iss.1, 2016-03, pp. : 1-4

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Abstract

This issue of the journal coincides with the ninetieth anniversary of the founding of the World Union for Progressive Judaism (WUPJ) in London in 1926. It addresses aspects, in particular, of the history of the European Union (formerly European Region) (EUPJ) and Youth Section of the World Union (WUPJYS). But it has also been in some ways an exercise in nostalgia for the editor. In 1964 Rabbi Lionel Blue was appointed European Director of the European Region, with a second task of working with the Youth Section. Shortly before taking up the post, he, together with Rabbi Dow Marmur, had asked me if I would take over as chairman of the Youth Section, ‘for six months while it was wound up’. In the end I filled the role for over two years during which we organized a series of conferences, in Amsterdam, Berlin, Arnhem and Jerusalem, that proved to be major recruiting grounds for rabbinic students for Leo Baeck College, challenged the taboos against engaging as Jews with Germany, helped create new congregations on continental Europe, and sowed the seeds for the development of uniqueprogrammes in both Jewish–Christian and Jewish–Christian–Muslim relations that continue to this day. In retrospect it was a European Jewish expression of the phenomenon of ‘the sixties’; at the time, however, we were only conscious that we were on an exciting journey, in part revolutionary, in part seeking to rebuild a Jewish world all but destroyed, and in part a personal spiritual adventure which also meant bringing new life and a new sense of purpose to Judaism itself. Something of the enthusiasm, but also our awareness that what we were engaged in was of major significance, can be seen in the Documenta section (WUPJYS in the 1960s) that includes excerpts from reports of some of these conferences.