Tony Bayfield

Anthony Michael "Tony" Bayfield^[3][4] CBE is a Reform rabbi and former President of the Movement for Reform Judaism,^[5] the second largest organisation of synagogues in Britain.

Bayfield was born in 1946^[4] in Ilford, Essex (now in Greater London), the elder son of Sheila (née Mann) and Ron Bayfield, a head teacher.

He was educated at the Royal Liberty Grammar School in Romford and Magdalene College, Cambridge. He studied law and had a doctoral place at the Cambridge Institute of Criminology and then moved to the Leo Baeck College to train as a rabbi. He received rabbinic ordination (semichah) in 1972^[2] from rabbis John Rayner, Hugo Gryn and Louis Jacobs.

After ten years as a congregational rabbi at North West Surrey Synagogue, Bayfield became director of the Sternberg Centre for Judaism in Finchley in 1985.^[2] He was head of the Movement for Reform Judaism from 1994 (when the organisation was known as Reform Synagogues of Great Britain) until 2011.^[5] From 2011 to 2016 he was President of the organisation.^[5][6]

Bayfield was awarded a CBE in the 2011 New Year Honours List for services to Reform Judaism.

London's National Portrait Gallery holds a photographic portrait of him by Don McCullin.^[4]

Tony Bayfield married Linda Rose, a teacher and Jewish educator in 1969; she died in 2003. In 2011, he met Jacqueline Fisher, whom he married in a small ceremony in June 2021.

Bayfield has three children^[1] and six grandchildren. His younger daughter, Miriam Berger, received semichah in July 2006 and is a respected rabbi in her own right.^[7]

Bayfield is a member of Finchley Reform Synagogue (FRS).

Bayfield is a specialist in modern Jewish thought and contemporary Reform Judaism. He also specialises in Jewish-Christian and Jewish-Muslim dialogue and has published quite widely in this area. Bayfield has also written about Christian–Jewish reconciliation.^[8]

• Prejudice (Jewish responses) (1973). London: Michael Goulston Educational Foundation
• Churban: The murder of the Jews of Europe (Jewish responses) (1981). London: Michael Goulston Educational Foundation ISBN 978-0-907372-00-4
• Sinai, Law and Responsible Autonomy: Reform Judaism and the Halakhic Tradition (1993). London: Reform Synagogues of Great Britain ISBN 978-0-947884-09-3
• (with Sidney Brichto and Eugene Fisher) He Kissed Him and They Wept: Towards a Theology of Jewish-Catholic Partnership (2001). London: SCM Press ISBN 978-0-334-02826-0
• (with Tony Brayfield and Marcus Braybrooke) Dialogue With a Difference: Manor House Group Experience (1992). London: SCM Press ISBN 978-0-334-01980-0
• "September 11: The Case Against Us All" in Roger Boase (ed.) Islam and Global Dialogue – Religious Pluralism and the Pursuit of Peace (2005), Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate Publishing ISBN 978-075465307-3
• (with Alan Race and Abdullah Siddiqui, eds.) Beyond the Dysfunctional Family: Jews, Christians and Muslims in Dialogue With Each Other and With Britain (2012) London: CreateSpace ISBN 978-1-468-16747-4
• Being Jewish Today – Confronting the Real Issues (2019). London: Bloomsbury Publishing ISBN 978-1-472962-08-9

• The Movement for Reform Judaism: [1])
• The Guardian: [2])