Julia Babette Sarah Neuberger, Baroness Neuberger, DBE (born 27 February 1950 as Julia Schwab) is a rabbi, social reformer and member of the House of Lords. She used to take the Liberal Democrat whip, but resigned from the party and joined the Crossbenches in September 2011 on becoming the full-time Senior Rabbi to the West London Synagogue.[1]
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Julia Neuberger was born on 27 February 1950, the daughter of Walter and Liesel (Alice) Schwab. She was educated at South Hampstead High School and Newnham College, Cambridge. She obtained her Rabbinic Diploma at Leo Baeck College, London, where she taught from 1977 to 1997. She was Chancellor of the University of Ulster from 1994-2000.[2]
Her father Walter Schwab was born in the UK, the son of German Jewish immigrants who came before the First World War. Her mother Liesel Schwab was a refugee from Nazi Germany, arriving aged 22 in 1937. The Schwab Trust was set up in their name, to help support and educate young refugees and asylum seekers.[3]
Neuberger was Britain's second female rabbi after Jackie Tabick, and the first to have her own synagogue. She was rabbi of the South London Liberal Synagogue from 1977 to 1989 and is President of West Central Liberal Synagogue. She has been president of the Liberal Judaism movement since January 2007. On 1 February 2011, the West London Synagogue (a Movement for Reform Judaism synagogue) announced that she had been appointed as Senior Rabbi of the synagogue.
She was also Chair of Camden and Islington Community Health Services NHS Trust from 1992 to 1997, and Chief Executive of the King's Fund from 1997 to 2004. Who's who lists a large number of voluntary and philanthropic roles she has undertaken.[4]
Her book, The Moral State We're In, a study of morality and public policy in modern Britain (ISBN 0-00-718167-1), was published in 2005. The title is an allusion to Will Hutton's 1997 book, The State We're In.
Neuberger was appointed a DBE in the New Year Honours of 2003. In June 2004 she was created a life peer as Baroness Neuberger, of Primrose Hill in the London Borough of Camden.
On 29 June 2007, Baroness Neuberger was appointed by the in-coming Prime Minister Gordon Brown as the government's champion of volunteering.[5][6][7]
Neuberger is married to Prof. Anthony Neuberger.[8] They have two adult children, a son and a daughter. Her husband is the son of Prof. Albert Neuberger and the brother of Prof. Michael Neuberger, Prof. James Neuberger and Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury, Master of the Rolls.
In 1997 she criticised education in Northern Ireland as sectarian at the opening of Loughview Integrated Primary School.[9] The Irish News claimed that she had criticised Catholic schools as sectarian, leading to criticism from the Director of the Catholic Council for Maintained Schools.[10][11] However, she said that the report from the Irish News had given a misleading impression and that she was quoted out of context:[12][13][14]
| “ | In fact, I think in what I actually said at the opening I didn't mention Catholic schools. I think I actually mentioned Protestant, Muslim and Jewish but then I was interviewed afterwards and I certainly said to the reporter that what I said applied just as much to Catholic schools as to Protestant or Jewish or Muslim or whatever. | ” |
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—Rabbi Julia Neuberger Irish News - 22 September 1997 |
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Rabbi Julia Neuberger