SECULARISM

Secular Humanistic Judaism has existed as an alternative in Jewish life for over one hundred years. For most of its history it was an informal option in Jewish life. There was no awareness of a single movement. Secular Jews participated in a wide variety of Jewish movements - Zionism, Yiddish nationalism, and Bundism. They created Jewish schools, reading circles, and cultural associations. they joined fraternal societies, community life and fought against antisemitism. Some lived in tight-knit Jewish communities like kibbutzim in Israel. Others lived unaffiliated lives in big urban centers, expressing their Jewish identity through family and social relationships, through reading Jewish newspapers and attending Jewish cultural events. All were uncomfortable with the institutions of the well-=organized Jewish religious world, whether those institutions were Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, or Reconstructionist.

In recent years secular and humanistic Jews have coalesced into an international movement, with self-identified communities, national organizations, publications, publicly proclaimed statements of belief, and schools for training leaders of the movement.

Secular Humanistic Judaism is a reflection of the enormous changes that have occurred in Jewish life over the past three centuries. From the perspective of the age of science and or modern Jewish live as actually lived by millions of contemporary Jews, it is quite conventional. From the perspective of traditional religion - and event the official ideology of liberal religion- it is a radical departure from established norms.