Raising the voice of Reform Judaism

Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner is one of the most media-savvy rabbis in the UK.

A radio panellist and self-described “broadcaster”, she regularly tweets on issues of public interest and is rarely without her iPad and mobile phone.

As the senior rabbi to the Movement for Reform Judaism, which is made up of 40 communities and two affiliate synagogues, she sees it as her job.

We met at the Sternberg Centre a couple of days after she returned from Lithuania, where she was filming a Holocaust Memorial Day documentary with the BBC on her family’s roots in Plunge.

From her office in Finchley, north London, she admits: “I’m always tweeting, Facebooking, trying to take a picture.

“Having an accessible and sane Jewish voice out there is a good thing.

“Getting media attention is my job; it’s what I’m meant to be doing. In fact, I don’t think we’re there yet.

“We have more work to do with worlds we’re not reaching — primarily on the Muslim and Christian channels.

“The truth is I really absolutely hate having my photo taken. I put on a lot of make-up. But I grew up with my father as an MP, so I’m used to the media attention.”

As Lord Janner’s daughter, she is used to being in the public eye and shrugs-off attacks via social media.

“After I recently went on the radio, I had pro-Palestinian people tweeting against me; then I had pro-Israel people tweeting against them,” she says. “I thought, ‘okay, do what you got to do’.”

As a dual British-Israeli citizen, who lived in Jerusalem for 15 years, she has often faced criticism over Israel. But her heartfelt support for the Jewish state is unwavering.

“Israel is so personal for us as British Jews,” she says, commenting on Operation Protective Edge.

“It’s not that we value Israeli life more, it’s that we know the life more. We feel it in our kishkas. I look at it as a rabbi. I’m frightened. I’m frightened for Israeli life, I’m frightened for Gazan life and I’m frightened by what Hamas is doing. I just hope it ends soon.”

Rabbi Janner-Klausner’s journey into Reform Judaism, after becoming disenchanted with the United Synagogue after her batmitzvah, is well-recorded.

But despite having a fiery reputation, she has been known to suppress her opinions at times.

For example, she stands by her refusal to personally comment on the Assisted Dying Bill, which was read in the House of Lords last month.

The advocate of same-sex marriage says she stays silent when her opinion could distract from that of other rabbis. But given her reputation, does she ever resent having to toe-the-line?

“No. I don’t care,” she says. “Protecting our diverse voices is the line.

“That’s what sets us apart. We are an egalitarian movement.

“I’m accountable to other rabbis. It makes our structure and the power dynamic ‘fantabulous’.”

That is why she is now writing a book on the transference of religious power, “from the ivory tower to grassroots movements”.

A feminist, the great-niece of the late Chief Rabbi Israel Brodie, who read divinity at Cambridge University before she enrolled at Leo Baeck College in 2004, says she is “super grateful to the women in the generation before me who put up with all the rubbish”.

Though she works with Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis on common issues from the Holocaust and antisemitism — she believes his widely hailed Limmud visit last year was blown out of proportion.

“The bar was set pretty low before,” she says. “It’s the largest, most vibrant Jewish event. Obviously, he should have come. It’s outrageous he didn’t before.”

The North Western Reform Synagogue member believes: “We undo a lot of the trauma. We get an enormous amount of, ‘I was treated badly in Orthodoxy. How can I comfort my partner?’

“There is a very strong difference in how the Reform Movement treats conversions. Our concern is that people who want to be Jewish can be. I believe everyone is a Jew by choice.

“My driving force is to give people on the margins a voice. That’s what I’m passionate about.”

The former South Hampstead School pupil sees her strong teenage spirit in her three children — Tali, Natan and Ella — and would not be surprised if they too became rabbis.

For now, she lives in east Finchley with her husband David, a former director at the UJIA, but they have not ruled out making aliyah in the future.

“I’m much more Israeli in my personality, but I really adore living in Britain,” she says polishing off a bag of nuts at the end of our interview.

“I’m very much a split soul. I spend my life backwards and forwards. I am global warming.

“But aliyah? I’m certainly not ruling it out.”