Collections Online
Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales
Advanced Search
Recordiad sain / Audio recording: Charles Middleburgh
Oral history recording with Charles Middleburgh collected as part of The Hineni Project, an insight into the life and stories of a Jewish community in all its diversity. Hineni was a collaborative project between Cardiff Reform Synagogue and Butetown History & Arts Centre.
I was born in Hove, East Sussex, in 1956. My father was a dental surgeon and one of the founders of the Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue. He served the community in most of the offices that could be held by a lay leader, and my mother led the choir for a number of years. We were not an extremely observant family but we regularly went to synagogue and I became bar mitzvah. We had a number of good rabbis, but I came under the influence of one in particular, and it was then I decided I wanted to become a rabbi, and my personal involvement in Judaism increased from that point onwards. I did a Hebrew O-level, taught at religion school and participated in services as a lay person. The rabbi also encouraged me to give sermons occasionally and read from the Torah, which I loved. After finishing secondary school, I went to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, returning to the UK to do a BA in Semitic Studies and a PhD in Aramaic Studies at University College London. After graduating from rabbinical school in 1986, I served as rabbi to a Progressive congregation in Wembley for eleven years, and was the national head of the Liberal movement in the United Kingdom and Ireland. I was also the founder rabbi of the Progressive synagogue in Copenhagen, and for nine years was the rabbi of the Progressive synagogue in Dublin. My present full-time job is as Director of Jewish Studies at the Leo Baeck College, London. I’m also currently the rabbi of Cardiff Reform Synagogue, where I’ve served part-time since 2004. I come to Cardiff two weekends a month, and am in touch with the congregation and work on Cardiff-related things during the week. Over the weekend I do all the things a regular rabbi would do. I teach, I visit people, I take services, and I officiate at life cycle events such as bar mitzvahs, weddings and funerals. I am also on the board of the Cardiff branch of the Council of Christians and Jews. I would say, beyond any question, that this is the nicest community I’ve ever served. It is immensely hospitable, and full of interesting and extraordinarily nice people, and the level of Jewish commitment and knowledge is also high. I feel very comfortable and at home here; so much, in fact, that my wife and I plan to move down to South Wales to live, and largely as a result of our experience with the congregation. Our community, as elsewhere, is changing. I do think the community will get smaller but I am very committed to it. Being pessimistic about the future doesn’t change the future, and it may be unnecessary to be pessimistic. I’d rather just get on with what’s here, here and now. JudAism for me is a religion of actions rather than beliefs. It’s not just about what you think but also about what you do. Our system of commandments requires us to do certain things at certain times, and to behave in a specific way all the time. It’s also about keeping alive a history, an integrity, a spirituality, and above all, an optimism about the future. Reform Judaism is simply a harmonisation of an ancient religion with modernity. It makes it possible for people to be committed to Judaism, but fully part of the twenty-first century world they live in.