Tony Bayfield

Tony Bayfield

Rabbi Dr Tony Bayfield, CBE, is a Reform rabbi and President of the Movement for Reform Judaism.

He was born in Ilford, Essex, UK in 1946. Educated at the Royal Liberty Grammar School in Romford and Magdalene College, Cambridge. He read law, had a doctoral place at the Cambridge Institute for Criminology and then moved to the Leo Baeck College to train as a rabbi. He received rabbinic ordination (semichah) in 1972 - from Rabbis John Rayner, Hugo Gryn and Louis Jacobs.

He was a congregational rabbi in Surrey for a decade, then director of the Sternberg Centre for Judaism in Finchley. He was head of the Movement for Reform Judaism from 1994 (when the organisation was known as Reform Synagogues of Great Britain) until March 2011. He is now President of the organisation.

The Reform Movement is the second largest organisation of synagogues in Britain. It is the non-conformist section of the community to Chief Rabbi Professor Sir Jonathan Sacks' majority orthodox community. Despite being on opposite sides of a passionate theological divide, Orthodox Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks and Rabbi Tony Bayfield are good friends and have been so since their Cambridge days.

Bayfield is a specialist in modern Jewish thought and contemporary Reform Judaism. He also specialises in Jewish-Christian and Jewish-Muslim dialogue and has published quite widely in this area.

He is a widower with three children and six grandchildren. His younger daughter, Miriam Berger, received semichah in July 2006 and is a well-respected rabbi in her own right. He is a member of North Western Reform Synagogue (Alyth Gardens). He is a passionate supporter of West Ham United F.C.

Bayfield was awarded a CBE in the Queen's New Years Honours List 2010 for services to Reform Judaism.

Bayfield has also written about Christian–Jewish reconciliation.

Read more about Tony Bayfield:  Publications, Sources