Wessex LJC - Meet Rabbi Miri Lawrence

Meet Wessex Liberal Jewish Community Rabbi Miri Lawrence 

By Henri Ruff

There cannot be many Rabbis, like Rabbi Miri pictured here, who include acrobatics as a pastime! She recently brought her gymnastics skills to Ealing’s Jewish community, where she is the part-time Rabbi at Ealing Liberal Synagogue, arranged around a small circus event to attract members and non-members in that community.

Since Pesach 2023 Rabbi Miri is now part of the Wessex Jewish Liberal Community, WJLC, on a part-time basis, following Rabbi René Pferzel’s regrettable departure due to pressure on his health, post-Covid.  Eventually, Rabbi Miri may bring the circus to town, along with talks on the history of Jewish travelling circuses based on her research into German-Jewish circus families before the First World War. But her primary role at WJLC will be to the Sabbath services, officiate at funerals, and respond to the Community’s ‘Ask-the-Rabbi’ questions. 

Becoming a Rabbi is vocational in the true sense of having a ‘calling’. Rabbi Miri’s passion to become a Rabbi owes much to her up-bringing in the Liberal Jewish tradition in south London. But the light-bulb moment came after returning from a religious studies summer camp in America. Having studied at Leo Baeck College, she was ordained in 1992, only the 12th female Rabbi to do so. Rabbi Miri’s other studies took her from a first degree in Drama and Religious Studies at Roehampton Institute, to a Masters in Jewish Studies, and a PhD with Queen Mary University of London and the Museum of Home. Her doctoral thesis examined Judaism in the post-war suburban home (1945-1979). 

Stories, including oral history, and storytelling, have been a key feature in her life. For twelve years since 2003, Miri was the Director of Education at Beginnings Early Childhood Centre at the West London Synagogue. In 2020 she curated the ‘Lily’s Legacy’ project – a multi-media exhibition featuring the voices, visions, memories, and archival records of Liberal Judaism through the 20th and 21st century. As part of a multi-disciplinary research team, Rabbi Miri led a study examining multi-faith religious practice in the home during the Covid pandemic. This involved interviewing migrants, refugees and people from diverse cultural backgrounds, alongside people working in related groups. Its results form the basis of a report @ https://www.stayhomestories.co.uk/faith-resource-guide 

During my recent interview with Rabbi Miri I had the opportunity to ‘Ask-the-Rabbi’ several questions ranging from her views on faith in the Divine, conversions to Judaism, and politics from the pulpit. She commented that the latter-most was the trickiest question. Broadly speaking, her inclination is to keep politics out of the sermonising. But inevitably there are occasions when current political events and trends can hardly be overlooked in the sense of ‘the elephant being in the room’. Her approach to momentous Politics is to be thought-provoking yet balanced, and where possible to link it in to the week’s Parshah. When it comes to social politics, she is proud of the Liberal Jewish tradition of having been a trailblazer in embracing the LGBGT movement, with both tangible and moral support offered to refugees. 

Having been a student of drama, Rabbi Miri might feel that following Rabbi Pferzel as WJLC’s Rabbi is ‘a difficult act to follow’. Daunting as that prospect may be, Rabbi Miri has found the warmest possible welcome, not only from WLJC’s members, but also no doubt from the wider Wessex Jewish community. 

-----------------------------

Since this article was written Rabbi Miri performed with her Circus Troupe at JW3 in the summer of 2024.  A filmed recording of the whole show was presented to WLJC in December that year.  With grateful thanks to Wessex Jewish News, here’s Alan Day’s article about the show and the history of the Blumenfeld Circus: