Sidney Brichto

Who was Sidney Brichto?

Rabbi Dr Sidney Brichto was a British Liberal rabbi. He was born in Philadelphia into an immigrant Orthodox Jewish family. As an adolescent, he began to reject religious orthodoxy in favour of Progressive Judaism. He studied in New York, before being ordained in 1961. The same year he moved to England to do post-graduate work at University College London and also became Associate Minister of the Liberal Jewish Synagogue in St John's Wood. In 1964 he became the first Executive Director of the Union of Liberal and Progressive Synagogues, now known as Liberal Judaism.

Brichto was also a prolific author, having written extensively in the Jewish and national press. His most recent project was the publishing of a series of new translations of the Bible, both the Old and New Testaments. The project is entitled "The People's Bible". Rabbi Brichto believes that the concept of God is more important than questions of his existence. Equally, the Bible is relevant not because of the veracity of its stories, but because of the morality of its myths. His translations aim to achieve accessibility as literature, and to do this, he controversially added sections to improve readability and removed large areas of non-consequential material to the appendices.