Judaism, migration and religious pluralism

What you'll learn

• How migration shaped Jewish life in Britain and produced a diverse Jewish community.
• What religious pluralism means, both within Judaism and between Judaism and other faiths.
• How Jewish ideas of being the chosen people can be understood in a multicultural society.
• How Ignaz Maybaum and Richard Rubenstein responded differently to the Holocaust.

The starting point: migration, diaspora and multicultural Britain

To understand this topic, begin with context. Judaism in Britain did not develop in isolation. It has been shaped by migration, legal change, antisemitism, emancipation, Holocaust memory, and life in a modern secular state.

Jewish life in Britain has a long but interrupted history. Jews lived in medieval England but were expelled in 1290 under Edward I. A Jewish presence was re-established from 1656, often linked to Oliver Cromwell’s readmission of Jews and the influence of the Sephardi Jewish leader Menasseh ben Israel. Later, Britain saw Sephardi communities, Ashkenazi migration, and then large numbers of Eastern European Jews arriving in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many fleeing pogroms and poverty.

In the twentieth century, Britain also received Jewish refugees from Nazi Europe, including children on the Kindertransport, as well as Holocaust survivors. Later Jewish migration included communities from the Middle East, North Africa, South Africa, Russia and Israel.

Diversity within British Judaism

British Judaism includes many different forms of Jewish identity and practice. There are Haredi or strictly Orthodox Jews, mainstream Orthodox communities, Masorti Judaism, Reform Judaism, Liberal Judaism, Sephardi and Mizrahi traditions, and Jews who identify culturally or ethnically rather than religiously.

Orthodox Judaism generally sees halakhah — Jewish religious law — as binding and rooted in divine revelation. Progressive movements such as Reform and Liberal Judaism tend to place more emphasis on ethical development, historical context and individual conscience.

This diversity matters for exam essays because “Judaism teaches…” is often too vague. A stronger answer asks: which Jewish tradition, and why?

Freedom of religion in European law

Modern British Jewish life is also shaped by the legal protection of religious freedom. The key European reference point is Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights, incorporated into UK law through the Human Rights Act 1998.

For Jewish communities, this can affect issues such as wearing a kippah, keeping Shabbat, kosher food, Jewish schooling, circumcision, synagogue security, eruv boundaries, and religious slaughter for kosher meat.

A secular state is not necessarily anti-religious. In this topic, it usually means a state where law and citizenship are not controlled by one religious authority, and where different religious and non-religious groups are expected to coexist.

Religious pluralism and Pluralistic Judaism

Pluralistic Judaism refers to forms of Jewish thought and practice that recognise the legitimacy or value of diversity within Judaism. It can support cooperation between Orthodox, Reform, Liberal, Masorti, Sephardi, Mizrahi and secular Jewish communities.

This has practical implications. It can encourage shared Jewish schools, inter-denominational dialogue, common responses to antisemitism, and cooperation through organisations such as representative Jewish bodies. However, it also creates tensions. Some Orthodox authorities do not recognise Progressive conversions, women rabbis, or certain approaches to marriage and divorce. For them, pluralism may look like relativising halakhah.

Pluralistic Judaism also affects relationships with other faiths. Many Jewish thinkers support interfaith dialogue, especially after the Holocaust and after centuries of Christian antisemitism. Jewish-Christian relations, Jewish-Muslim dialogue, and shared social action can all be seen as responses to life in a multicultural society.

AO2 evaluation should be balanced. Pluralism can promote peace and reduce prejudice, but it may also raise concerns about assimilation, loss of distinctiveness, or weakening Jewish law and identity.

Chosen people: privilege or responsibility?

A central Jewish belief is that the Jewish people are in a special covenant relationship with God. This is often called being the chosen people.

Key biblical roots include God’s covenant with Abraham in Genesis and the Sinai covenant in Exodus. Exodus 19 describes Israel as a “kingdom of priests” and a “holy nation”. This suggests vocation: Jews are called to live in a way that witnesses to God’s holiness.

In a plural society, this belief can be interpreted in different ways. A traditional view may emphasise the unique covenant and the binding nature of mitzvot. A more pluralistic view may stress that Jewish chosenness is about service, ethical responsibility and being a “light to the nations”, not domination over others.

The belief can support good relations with other faiths when linked to ethical monotheism, justice and the idea that righteous non-Jews can have a relationship with God. However, it can create tension if other groups see chosenness as incompatible with equality in a secular democratic society.

Jewish responses to freedom of religious expression

Jewish responses vary. Orthodox Jews may stress the need for legal protection so that halakhic life remains possible in Britain. Progressive Jews may also defend religious freedom, but often link it closely to equality, conscience and human rights.

Common areas of response include:

• defending the right to wear Jewish symbols in public;
• campaigning against antisemitism and hate speech;
• protecting Jewish schools and synagogue security;
• supporting Shabbat observance where possible in work and education;
• defending kosher food production and religious circumcision;
• joining interfaith campaigns for freedom of religion or belief.

This context influences Jewish thought by making questions of identity more public. Jews in Britain must often negotiate between integration and distinctiveness: how to participate fully in national life while preserving Jewish practice and memory.

Post-Holocaust theology: Maybaum and Rubenstein

The Holocaust forced Jewish thinkers to ask whether traditional beliefs about God, covenant and chosenness could still be affirmed. Two important but very different responses are those of Ignaz Maybaum and Richard Rubenstein.

Ignaz Maybaum: churban, remnant and suffering servant

Ignaz Maybaum was a Reform rabbi and theologian. He interpreted the Holocaust using the idea of churban, a Hebrew term meaning destruction or catastrophe, especially associated with the destruction of the Jerusalem Temples. Maybaum saw the Holocaust as a kind of “third churban”.

He also used the idea of the remnant: the surviving Jewish people who continue Jewish life after catastrophe. For Maybaum, survival was not merely biological. It carried religious significance because the remnant had a duty to continue Jewish witness.

Most controversially, Maybaum described Jewish suffering through the image of the suffering servant, drawing on Isaiah’s servant imagery. He suggested that Jewish suffering had a role in the moral and spiritual transformation of humanity. He even compared Auschwitz to a kind of modern Golgotha, which many Jews find deeply problematic because it sounds too close to Christian ideas of redemptive suffering.

Maybaum preserves meaning, covenant and divine purpose. But his view is vulnerable to criticism because it can appear to make Jewish victims serve a divine plan, which risks justifying or spiritualising atrocity.

Richard Rubenstein: the “death” of God and the Covenant

Richard Rubenstein took a much more radical position. In After Auschwitz, he argued that the Holocaust makes it impossible to believe in the traditional covenantal God who acts in history to protect or punish Israel.

For Rubenstein, if God directly governs history, then the Holocaust would have to be part of God’s will. That conclusion is morally intolerable. Therefore, he speaks of the “death” of God, meaning the death of the traditional Jewish idea of an omnipotent, covenant-making God who directs history. He also rejects the traditional Covenant as a guarantee of Jewish meaning or divine election.

This does not necessarily mean simple atheism in every sense. Rubenstein still saw value in Jewish ritual, community and identity. But he denied that history has a secure divine purpose.

Comparing Maybaum and Rubenstein

Bringing the topic together

This whole topic is about the relationship between context and theology. Migration produced a diverse Jewish community in Britain. Secular human rights law protects Jewish practice but also places it within a wider framework of competing freedoms. Religious pluralism encourages dialogue, but it can challenge traditional claims about truth, law and chosenness.

Post-Holocaust theology then deepens the issue: if Jews are chosen, what does Jewish suffering mean? Maybaum answers by preserving covenantal meaning through churban, remnant and suffering servant. Rubenstein answers by rejecting the traditional God of history and the Covenant as no longer believable after Auschwitz.