Laura Janner-Klausner

Laura Naomi Janner-Klausner (לוֹרָה ג׳אָנֶר-קלְוֹזנֶר, born 1 August 1963) is a British rabbi and an inclusion and development coach who served as the inaugural Senior Rabbi to Reform Judaism from 2011 until 2020.

She returned to London in 1982 and became a founding member of RSY-Netzer, which is now the largest Jewish youth movement in the United Kingdom.

Janner-Klausner studied divinity at Trinity Hall, Cambridge (the alma mater of her father and brother), where she was taught by Rowan Williams, later Archbishop of Canterbury.

She studied alongside Linda Woodhead, now Professor in the sociology of religion at Lancaster University.

Janner-Klausner was on the Union of Jewish Students executive and ran her university's Israel Society and Progressive Jewish Society.

Janner-Klausner grew up in London before studying theology at the University of Cambridge and moving to Israel in 1985, living in Jerusalem for 15 years.

She graduated with a degree in Theological and Religious Studies from the University of Cambridge in 1985.

Following her graduation, aged 22, Janner-Klausner moved to Israel and began teaching Jewish history, Judaism and youth leadership at the Machon L'Madrichei Chutz La'Aretz.

Janner-Klausner began working in 1992 at Melitz, an educational centre specialising in Jewish peoplehood based in Jerusalem, and later served as Director of the Centre for Christian Encounters with Israel, where she helped train Palestinian tour guides in Bethlehem and Jerusalem.

She also led Israeli-Palestinian dialogue facilitation for the European Union’s "The People's Peace" programme, following the Oslo I Accord of 1993.

Before returning to live in London, Janner-Klausner had studied at the Jewish Theological Seminary in Jerusalem and acquired postgraduate degrees in Community Centre Management at the Hebrew University and Jewish Communal Service with a focus on Jewish education at Brandeis University, Massachusetts.

She worked there continuously until 1998 and later became the Director of its English-speaking department.

She returned to Britain in 1999 and was ordained at Leo Baeck College, serving as rabbi at Alyth Synagogue (North Western Reform Synagogue) until 2011.

She has been serving as Rabbi at Bromley Reform Synagogue in south-east London since April 2022.

Janner-Klausner represents a progressive Jewish voice to British Jewry and the wider public, speaking on affairs including Israel-Palestine, social justice, same-sex marriage and interfaith relations.

Janner-Klausner is a regular broadcaster on programmes such as BBC Radio 4’s Thought for the Day, BBC Radio 2’s Pause for Thought and BBC One’s The Big Questions and Sunday Morning Live.

Janner-Klausner returned to London in 1999 with her husband David and their three children, citing the ideological intensity of living in Jerusalem as a primary reason.

She soon began training to become a rabbi at Leo Baeck College, serving many congregations as a trainee rabbi – including Alyth Synagogue (North Western Reform Synagogue), the synagogue where she had developed a passion for Reform Judaism and its egalitarian values as a teenager.

Following her ordination, Janner-Klausner became Rabbi at Alyth.

Janner-Klausner featured in a BBC radio series presented by Jonathan Freedland in 2008 entitled British Jews and the Dream of Zion, discussing the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine.

She then began to broadcast regularly on programmes such as BBC Radio 4's Today programme (in the Thought for the Day slot) and BBC One's The Big Questions.

Whilst Rabbi at Alyth, Janner-Klausner began chairing British Friends of Rabbis for Human Rights, an Israeli human rights organisation.

By 2011, she had served for eight years as Rabbi at Alyth, a community with 3000 members.

In July 2011, Janner-Klausner became first Senior Rabbi to Reform Judaism, a position initially entitled "Movement Rabbi".

Chair-elect of Reform Judaism, Jenny Pizer, said Janner-Klausner was "an influential broadcaster and writer, a great teacher and a popular rabbi of one of our flourishing communities".

The Assembly of Reform Rabbis created the position to increase the voice of Reform Judaism and represent its constituent communities on a national level, both within the British Jewish community and general public.

Shortly after being appointed, Janner-Klausner set improving periodically fraught relations between the Orthodox and Reform Judaism as part of her agenda.

In November 2014, The Huffington Post reported that Janner-Klausner was "fast becoming the most high-profile Jewish leader in the country" and described her as "wildly likeable, emphatic, intense, and outspoken".

In 2018 she featured in The Progress 1000 list of London's most influential people.

She has written a book on the theme of resilience, Bitesize Resilience: A Crisis Survival Guide, which was launched on 7 May 2020.

She is Co-Chair of the Global Interfaith Commission on LGBT+ Lives and an honorary fellow of The Edward Cadbury Centre for the Public Understanding of Religion at the University of Birmingham.

She is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Janner-Klausner was raised in north London and attended South Hampstead High School.

As a young girl, Janner-Klausner regularly travelled to constituency surgeries at the weekends with her father, Greville Janner, a QC and then a Labour Member of Parliament.

Janner-Klausner's great-uncle, Emeritus Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, Sir Israel Brodie, had a profound influence on her growing up.

Her siblings are Marion Janner OBE, a mental health campaigner, and Daniel Janner QC, a barrister.

Initially a member of Hampstead Garden Suburb Synagogue, a congregation affiliated to the United Synagogue of Orthodox British Jews, Janner-Klausner has frequently cited her bat mitzvah as a pivotal moment.

She was so disaffected by the experience that she left Hampstead Garden Suburb Synagogue the very next day.

Janner-Klausner subsequently became involved in youth activities at Alyth Gardens Reform Synagogue near Golders Green, developing a passion for Reform Judaism's values of egalitarianism and social justice and expressing interest in becoming a Rabbi as young as 13.

Janner-Klausner spent her gap year in Israel and was a representative of British Reform Judaism at Machon L'Madrichei Chutz La'Aretz (The Institute for Youth Leaders from Abroad).