Tony Bayfield

Rabbi Dr. Tony Bayfield was born in Ilford, Essex UK in 1946. Educated at grammar school in Romford and Magdalene College, Cambridge. He read law, had a doctoral place at the Cambridge Institute for Criminology and then moved to the Leo Baeck College to train as a rabbi. He received rabbinic ordination (semichah) in 1972 - from Rabbis John Rayner, Hugo Gryn and Louis Jacobs.

He was a congregational rabbi in Surrey for a decade, then director of the Sternberg Centre for Judaism in Finchley. He is now head of the Movement for Reform Judaism.

The Reform Movement is the second largest organisation of synagogues in Britain. It is the non-conformist section of the community to Chief Rabbi Professor Sir Jonathan Sack’s majority orthodox community. Despite being on opposite sides of a passionate theological divide, Orthodox Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks and Rabbi Tony Bayfield are good friends and have been so since their Cambridge days.

Rabbi Bayfield is a specialist in modern Jewish thought and contemporary Reform Judaism. He also specialises in Jewish-Christian and Jewish-Muslim dialogue and has published quite widely in this area.

He is a widower with three children and three grandchildren. His younger daughter, Miriam Berger, received semichah in July 2006 and is a well respected rabbi in her own right. He is a member of North Western Reform Synagogue (Alyth Gardens). He is a passionate supporter of West Ham

Publications

* Prejudice - Jewish responses (Publisher: Michael Goulston Educational Foundation, Duke Street House 1973)
* Churban: The murder of the Jews of Europe (Jewish responses) ISBN 978-0907372004
* Sinai, Law and Responsible Autonomy: Reform Judaism and the Halakhic Tradition ISBN 978-0947884093
* He Kissed Him and They Wept: Towards a Theology of Partnership ISBN 978-0334028260
* Dialogue With a Difference ISBN 978-0334019800
* Islam and Global Dialogue ISBN 978-0754653073

Sources

* (Source: The Movement for Reform Judaism: [http://www.reformjudaism.org.uk/profile-rabbi-tony-bayfield.html] )
* (Secondary Source: The Guardian Newspaper [http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/tony_bayfield/profile.html] )

External links

* Rabbi Bayfield's pages on the Guardian Newspaper (UK) [http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/tony_bayfield/index.html]
* Rabbi Bayfields pages on The Movement for Reform Judaism site [http://www.reformjudaism.org.uk/articles/from-the-head-of-the-movement/]