Reviews
The launch of our new Siddur has received wide spread coverage inspiring discussion in some of the most unexpected places. There have been pieces in the national press and radio with Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner of North Western Reform Synagogue and Rabbi Shoshana Boyd Gelfand, Executive Director of the Movement appearing on BBC radio.
The Jerusalem Post
In the Jerusalem Post, Rabbi Reuven Hammer writes:
"Of making many prayer books there is no end. Abraham Joshua Heschel remarked that at the time when Jews prayed they had no need for new editions, but now that prayer is difficult and mostly forgotten, we are constantly revising the siddur. All the movements have issued new editions - the Conservative Movement created a new Sim Shalom plus an edition with commentary Or Hadash. Most recently British Orthodoxy issued a new siddur with a fine translation and commentary by Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. And now we have Forms of Prayer, the most recent liturgical work of the Movement for Reform Judaism in Great Britain. Evidently there is a need."
Read the full article here at www.jpost.com
The Independent
In a major article in The Independent, Cahal Milmo writes:
"The unveiling of Forms of Prayer, a 700-page book of daily prayer designed for use at home and in synagogues, is the culmination of eight years of debate and consultation within Britain's 43 reform congregations. Reform Judaism, which bills itself as the progressive arm of the Jewish faith, also makes up about 70 per cent of American synagogues. The authors of the new British prayer book say it will underline a key distinction with Orthodox Jews by providing a "commitment to the equality of the sexes"."
Milmo also quotes Reform Movement Executive Director, Rabbi Shoshana Boyd Gelfand as saying:
"Faith is still seen as fundamentally discriminatory and still almost exclusively promotes male images of God, with which only a minority any longer identifies. The launch of our new prayer book can play an important role in challenging such thinking and re-engaging those who feel cut off by current attitudes. It will make Reform Judaism the natural home for the majority of British Jews."
Read the full review at www.independent.co.uk.
The Times
In The Times, Ruth Gledhill writes:
"For the first time the Reform movement will use gender-neutral language to refer to God and will give female figures in the Bible, such as Sarah and Rachel, equal prominence to males."
Read the full article at www.timesonline.co.uk.
In his review for The Times, Simon Rocker comments:
“For one of the Reform’s youngest rabbis, Miriam Berger, 29, the value of the new book is its capacity to help people to think. Her Finchley congregation has been using draft editions of it for two years. “For me the issue of gender-inclusive language is not really a feminist statement any more,” she says. “I’ve felt that generations of women rabbis who have gone before me have managed to fight those battles for me.”
Read the full article at www.timesonline.co.uk.
The Telegraph
In his article on the Telegraph website, entitled ‘God is a Bloke: Official’, George Pitcher reports:
“A survey of 1,050 people carried out on behalf of the Movement for Reform Judaism in Britain, which speaks for around a quarter of Britain's 266,740 Jews, found 62 per cent considered God to be male, with only 1 per cent thinking of God as female.”
Read the full article at http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/.
The Church Times
Rabbi Jonathan Romain: “the new liturgy acknowledges that many who use but lack religious certainty; not all attenders are believers, and even many believers have doubts. […] So some of the new prayers express the confusion that some feel, and emphasise that religion is a journey that contains many detours and cul-de-sacs.”
Read the full article at www.churchtimes.co.uk.
Pink News
Read the full article at www.pinknews.co.uk.
Church of England Newspaper
In the Church of England Newspaper, Reverend John Bowden tells of his experiences sharing in the creation of the new siddur. He writes:
“[The new siddur] is a world away from its predecessor. Only the title, ‘Forms of Prayer’, remains the same. Open it, with its text printed in black and blue and the marvellous clarity of the page layout, and one is immediately won over. It will be a joy to use. The controversial passages of transliterated Hebrew are not intrusive, and the informative footnotes which provide commentary on and explanation of material, together with various brief introductions, are just right.”
New Humanist
In the New Humanist magazine, Editor Caspar Melville wrote: “What caught our eye […] was the broad selection of writers and thinkers drawn upon in the prayers.”
