Rabbi John Desmond Rayner (30 May 1924 – 19 September 2005) was born in Berlin as Hans Sigismund Rahmer. He left Berlin in 1939 on one of the last Kindertransports. There were about 10,000 children on the train. Both his parents, Ferdinand Rahmer and Charlotte Landshut, were murdered in the Holocaust. Between 1943 and 1947 Rayner served in the British Army. In October 1947 he took up an open scholarship in modern languages that he had previously won at

Emmanuel College, Cambridge Emmanuel College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1584 by Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Exchequer to Elizabeth I. The site on which the college sits was once a priory for Dominican mon ...

five years earlier. In his second year he switched to Moral Science which comprised philosophy, logic, ethics and psychology and graduated in 1950 with First Class Honours. In his third year Rayner specialised in Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac and Semitic

Epigraphy Epigraphy () is the study of inscriptions, or epigraphs, as writing; it is the science of identifying graphemes, clarifying their meanings, classifying their uses according to dates and cultural contexts, and drawing conclusions about the wr ...

. In his sixth year Rayner began working as a research student on a thesis about Maimonides' conception of Revelation. Rayner was ordained in the Liberal Jewish ministry on 21 June 1953 and served the South London Liberal Synagogue, in

Streatham Streatham ( ) is a district in south London, England. Centred south of Charing Cross, it lies mostly within the London Borough of Lambeth, with some parts extending into the neighbouring London Borough of Wandsworth. Streatham was in Surrey ...

until 1957. He then worked at St John's Wood Liberal Synagogue until in 1963 he left for Cincinnati, Ohio, in the United States. Rayner had been invited to the

Hebrew Union College Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

to take up a graduate fellowship. He returned to the UK to serve as Minister at the Liberal Jewish Synagogue in June 1965. He wrote books on diverse topics including '' halakha'', marriage, ethics, Zionism, theology and Jewish-Christian relations. He also gave a large number of sermons. He was voted one of the best preachers in Britain by ''

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'' magazine in 1976. During the late 1960s and 1970s Rayner made several appearances on national television and radio. He was an active participant in

inter-faith Interfaith dialogue refers to cooperative, constructive, and positive interaction between people of different religious traditions (i.e. "faiths") and/or spiritual or humanistic beliefs, at both the individual and institutional levels. It is ...

work as co-chairman of the London Society of Christians and Jews. As a result of this work in 1993 he was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire. His thought emphasises the importance of ethics and the need for a more halakhic approach to Progressive Judaism. On 19 September 2005 he died, at home, after a long illness. A carer was by his side on his last night. Her name was "Comfort". John Rayner was married and had three children and two grandchildren.

Works

* ''The Practices of Liberal Judaism'' (1958) * ''Guide to Jewish Marriage'' (1975) * ''Judaism for Today'' (1978) * ''An Understanding of Judaism'' ( Berghahn Books, December 1997) * ''A Jewish Understanding of the World'' (Berghahn Books, March 1998) * ''Jewish Religious Law. A Progressive Perspective'' (Berghahn Books, May 1998) * ''Principles of Jewish Ethics: From a Progressive Point of View'' (New Jewish initiative for social justice, 1998) * ''Aspects of Liberal Jewish Thought'' (1999) * ''Signposts to the Messianic Age: Sermons and Lectures'', Vallentine Mitchell (2006).

References

Obituary
'' The Independent'', 22 September 2005
Obituary
'' The Guardian'', 26 September 2005, and follow-u
letter

Obituary
'' The Times'', 29 September 2005
Tributes to John Rayner
''European Judaism'', 39(1), Spring 2006 * Brownfeld, Allan C
Rabbi John D. Rayner 1924–2005
''Issues'', American Council for Judaism, Winter 2006 * Middleburgh, C. H. "A Final Interview with John D. Rayner", ''European Judaism,'' 40(1), Spring 2007, pp. 93–99 * Friedlander, A. H. 'The German Influence on Progressive Judaism in Great Britain", ''Second Chance:Two Centuries of German-speaking Jews in the United Kingdom,'' (1991), pp. 425–436 * Goldstein, A. "German, English, American Liturgist", ''European Judaism,'' 40(1), Spring 2007 {{DEFAULTSORT:Rayner, John 1924 births 2005 deaths 20th-century English theologians 20th-century English male writers 20th-century English rabbis 21st-century English male writers 21st-century English theologians 21st-century English rabbis Alumni of Emmanuel College, Cambridge British Army personnel of World War II British Jewish theologians British Liberal rabbis Commanders of the Order of the British Empire English male non-fiction writers English sermon writers British Jewish writers Kindertransport refugees Naturalised citizens of the United Kingdom People educated at Durham School Rabbis from Berlin Rabbis from London Writers from London German emigrants to the United Kingdom