Religion and society

What you'll learn

• How migration and secular multicultural societies affect Jewish practice and interfaith dialogue.
• How Jews may respond to other faiths through exclusivism, inclusivism and pluralism.
• Why Jewish identity can involve birth, belief, ethical action and ritual belonging.
• How gender equality is debated in family life, education and synagogue leadership.

This topic is about how Judaism responds when society changes: migration, secularism, religious diversity, feminism and debates about sexuality all raise questions about authority, identity and practice.

1. Religious pluralism

In Judaism, pluralism is complicated because Judaism is not only a set of beliefs. It is also a people, a covenant community, a legal tradition and a way of life. A covenant is a binding relationship between God and the Jewish people, traditionally linked to Abraham and Moses.

Migration, multicultural society and practice

Migration has shaped Jewish life for centuries. The diaspora means Jewish communities living outside the land of Israel. In the UK, Jewish life includes Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Mizrahi, Israeli, Russian-speaking and other communities. In Israel, Jewish migration through aliyah — immigration to Israel — has created a Jewish-majority society with internal ethnic, religious and political diversity.

In a secular multicultural society, Jewish practice may need negotiation. Observant Jews may seek accommodation for Shabbat — the weekly day of rest from Friday evening to Saturday evening — and kashrut, the Jewish dietary laws. Schools and workplaces may need to consider Jewish festivals, kosher food, prayer, modest dress or an eruv, a symbolic boundary that helps some Orthodox Jews carry items on Shabbat.

Interfaith dialogue and the Messiah

Interfaith dialogue means purposeful conversation and cooperation between people of different faiths. Jewish-Christian dialogue became especially important after the Holocaust, and Jewish-Muslim dialogue is significant in both the UK and Israel.

One sensitive issue is the Messiah. In traditional Judaism, the Messiah is usually understood as a future human descendant of King David who will bring peace, justice, restoration and knowledge of God. Jews generally reject the Christian claim that Jesus is the Messiah because, from a Jewish perspective, the messianic age has not yet arrived. Reform Judaism often places more emphasis on a future Messianic Age than on a single personal Messiah.

Exclusivism, inclusivism and pluralism

Judaism often has an inclusivist tendency. It does not normally teach that everyone must become Jewish. The Noahide laws are universal moral laws traditionally seen as binding on non-Jews. Rabbinic teaching that “the righteous among the nations have a share in the world to come” supports respect for non-Jewish moral and spiritual life.

At the same time, Judaism is strongly monotheistic and rejects idolatry, the worship of created things or false gods. So Jewish respect for other faiths has limits: not every truth claim can be accepted as equally true.

Persoff and Hick

John Hick argued for a pluralist “Copernican revolution” in religion: instead of placing one religion at the centre, we should see religions as different culturally shaped responses to “the Real”, Hick’s term for ultimate divine reality. For Hick, the key evidence is transformation from self-centredness to Reality-centredness.

Meir Persoff, writing on modern British Judaism and religious pluralism, is useful because he shows that pluralism is not only about Jews and non-Jews. It is also about recognition between Jewish denominations. Orthodox, Reform and Liberal Jews may cooperate socially, but they often disagree sharply over authority, conversion, marriage and who can speak for Judaism.

2. Jewish identity

Jewish identity may include birth, faith, works and ritual.

• Birth: Orthodox Judaism usually defines Jewish status through a Jewish mother or valid conversion. Some Reform and Liberal communities may recognise a person with one Jewish parent if they are raised and identify as Jewish.
• Faith: Belief in one God matters, but Judaism is not only a creed. A secular Jew may still be ethnically, culturally or communally Jewish.
• Works: Mitzvot are commandments or religious duties. Ethical action, charity, justice and keeping commandments can express Jewish identity.
• Ritual: Circumcision, naming ceremonies, bar or bat mitzvah, Shabbat, festivals, prayer and synagogue life all mark belonging.

3. Gender, sexual identity and equality

Jewish teaching traditionally sees sex positively within marriage, linked to love, holiness and family life. However, traditional halakhah restricts sexual behaviour, including prohibitions on male same-sex intercourse in Leviticus. Orthodox communities often maintain these norms, though pastoral approaches vary. Reform, Liberal and some Masorti communities are usually more affirming of LGBTQ+ relationships and may conduct same-sex marriages.

Equality: equal worth or equal roles?

A major debate is whether equality means equal dignity with different roles or equal access to the same religious roles. Orthodox Jews may argue that men and women have equal spiritual worth but different obligations. For example, women are traditionally exempt from some time-bound positive commandments. Progressive Jews often argue that this becomes discriminatory if it excludes women from public religious leadership.

4. Women in family life, home and education

Women have often had central roles in the Jewish home: lighting Shabbat candles, maintaining kashrut, shaping children’s Jewish education and preserving festival practice. In Orthodox Judaism, women also have a key identity role because Jewish status is traditionally matrilineal.

Education has changed significantly. Historically, advanced Torah study was mainly male, but modern Jewish education for girls expanded dramatically. Orthodox girls’ schools, women’s seminaries and higher Jewish learning are now common, even where synagogue roles remain restricted. Progressive communities usually educate boys and girls equally for bat and bar mitzvah and adult leadership.

5. Women in synagogue leadership

A synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer, study and community. A rabbi is a teacher and religious leader trained in Jewish law and tradition. A minyan is the quorum traditionally required for certain public prayers; in Orthodox practice it usually means ten adult Jewish men.

Orthodox synagogues generally do not ordain women as rabbis in the same way as men, do not count women in a traditional minyan, and often separate men and women with a mechitzah, a partition. Some Modern Orthodox communities have developed women’s leadership roles, such as female scholars, advisers in family purity law, or “maharat”-style roles, but these remain debated.

Reform and Liberal Judaism are usually egalitarian. Women may be rabbis, cantors, Torah readers, synagogue chairs and members of the minyan. Regina Jonas was ordained in Germany in 1935 and is widely recognised as the first woman rabbi. Julia Neuberger is a major British example of female rabbinic leadership in Liberal Judaism.

Jewish feminism: Koltun, Moore and Kaplan

Elizabeth Koltun is associated with Jewish feminist thought that challenges women’s exclusion from public ritual, leadership and interpretation. Her work supports the idea that women should not merely be “included” in existing structures but should help reshape Jewish life.

Deborah Dash Moore and Marion Kaplan, as historians of gender and Jewish history, argue that gender changes how we tell Jewish history. If we only study male rabbis, institutions and public authority, we miss the home, migration, education, work, family and women’s agency.

6. Pulling the topic together

For essays, avoid writing as if “Judaism” has one view. The strongest answers compare Orthodox, Reform and Liberal approaches, and also notice the difference between Jewish life in Israel and in the UK.

Religious pluralism asks: how can Jews respect other faiths while preserving covenant, Torah and distinctive identity? Gender equality asks: how can Jews honour tradition while responding to modern claims about justice, sexuality and leadership?