Let’s end the rivalry and bring our teams together
By Rabbi Miriam Berger
Founder Director of Wellspring UK and Rabbi Emerita of Finchley Reform Synagogue
The rivalry between Arsenal and Spurs is real and it is nothing to do with the football. It’s to do with the tribalism created by picking teams. If you live in North London, you have choice, just like knowing you are a blue house or a red house in Manchester or an Everton supporter rather than a Liverpool fan.
It’s often easy to understand the roots of one’s association: Some are born into an inherited tradition while others married in. Some went along with friends and stayed while some never found their place. For some it’s how they identify once a year (or every four years) for some it’s every week.
I was given my tribe in no uncertain terms growing up. My dad (Rabbi Tony Bayfield) was head of the Reform Movement and my mum (Linda Bayfield) head of Akiva School. The Sternberg Centre was my second home and there was only one way to do Judaism. My Judaism is and always has been Reform Judaism.
Other clergy go between Liberal and Reform communities, but I always knew I wouldn’t, why? For absolutely only one reason and it isn’t rational or intellectual, it’s purely tribal.
You might think therefore I am getting very het up and anxious about the conversation around the merger. Surely someone who nails her identity to the mast in such a way would be fighting for each movement to preserve its identity.
But what identity?
The umbrella organisations have each returned to being what they started out as, an association of synagogues; an important means to gaining representation in the wider world for all of us, and providing certain resources for us – youth movements, Batei Din and other important elements which would be ludicrous for each individual synagogue to have to replicate. But if the movements truly defined who we were, then you wouldn’t see the wide diversity of communities within each grouping.
After the merger you can still walk down Ballards Lane and turn right to Finchley Reform and left to Finchley Progressive. Both will be in their brand-new buildings by then, both warm, inclusive and both running services each Shabbat. Yet those Shabbat services will continue to have their very different and unique natures.
Some will choose one over the other because it gives them a sense of nostalgia, others because of their partner or friends, some will find a preference for the Siddur, the clergy, the music and some might say its politics or theology is more in tune with theirs.
Yet it is hard to see that any of this is coming from a movement directive. It might be coming from their history and the culture that is long imbedded in these communities but for well over a decade I would struggle to find an example of a decision made by either movement, that impacted either community in a way that created a difference between us.
This is not the same as Arsenal and Spurs becoming one team, or Manchester coming together in a stripy red and blue kit. Each synagogue will retain its character, and its members will feel a deep affinity to it. This is the FA, the Premier League and FIFA saying we replicate so much of what we do, what would a new streamlined organisation look like with fewer replicated roles and more capacity, enabling each club to have more money and resources to make them the best that they can be.
A larger association of synagogues will make our combined voices louder and heighten our purchasing power, but it won’t change the things we love most, the synagogues we call home.
