Jewish and Humanist

Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677)

Born in Amsterdam in 1632, Spinoza has been called the ‘founding father of modern unbelief’. He rejected the concept of miracles, and denied the efficacy of prayer, asserting that God was the substance of nature. For some, Spinoza’s name became synonymous with atheism, for others with pantheism, but though he never argued against the existence of a deity, he nevertheless placed the responsibility for living squarely with humankind. In dispensing with supernaturalism, and emphasising instead human beings’ capacity to strive for goodness – with no expectation of divine intervention, punishment, or reward – Spinoza laid the groundwork for the vocabulary of humanism today.

Felix Moscheles (1833-1917) & Margaret Moscheles (1854–1924)

Felix and Margaret Moscheles were founding members of the West London Ethical Society in 1892, and actively involved in the Ethical movement for decades. Felix Moscheles – born in 1833 into a German Jewish family in London – was a painter, peace activist, and promoter of Esperanto, whose advocacy of a ‘universal language’ was rooted in the desire to overcome international conflict and division. Margaret (Greta) Moscheles (née Sobernheim) was also an artist, and both she and her husband were active in the international peace movement. Felix was president of the International Arbitration and Peace Association, and nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize no fewer than 19 times.

Josephine Gowa (1854-1941)

Josephine Gowa was a driving force in the Hampstead Ethical Institute (later Hampstead Humanist Society, and part of what is now Humanists UK) for over three decades, many years of which she spent as its honorary secretary. Gowa, like many others in the early Ethical movement, was also actively engaged in Liberal politics and the peace movement: she was the honorary secretary of the Women’s Branch of the Hampstead Liberal and Radical Association, on the executive committee of the Rationalist Peace Society, and represented the Union of Ethical Societies (Humanists UK) at the International Peace Congress of 1908. In his history of the British Ethical movement, Gustav Spiller singled Gowa out for her active devotion to the life of the Hampstead humanist group.

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

Austrian physician Sigmund Freud remains one of the most recognisable names in psychology: the founder of psychoanalysis, who helped bring the study of mental health to the public eye and mainstream media. Born into a largely non-observing Jewish family, Freud was a lifelong atheist, who wrote of religion as a comforting illusion, and became an Honorary Associate of the Rationalist Press Association. Freud’s ideas on the origins of the religious impulse were a significant contribution to a tradition of scientific humanist thought, in which research and reason were the means of uncovering truth. They also served to highlight the powerful resonance of childhood influences on adult lives, not least in the realm of religion.

Chapman Cohen (1868-1954)

Chapman Cohen’s first foray into religious debate was in defence of a man in Victoria Park whose speech impediment had been mocked by a Christian lecturer, but he ultimately became a prominent freethought writer and lecturer, and President of the National Secular Society for over three decades (1915-1949). As editor of The Freethinker for 36 years, as well as the author of numerous books and pamphlets, he espoused a reasoned, compassionate, but unflinching rationalism, and shifted the focus from ‘bible-bashing’ to the more positive benefits of thinking freely, and arguments from history, philosophy, and science. Chapman’s father Enoch Cohen was a confectioner, and though the family was Jewish, Cohen’s childhood was not especially observant. He would later confess that ‘In sober truth I cannot recall a time when I had any religion to give up’.

Leonard Woolf (1880–1969)

Leonard Woolf was a Jewish atheist writer, the husband of Virginia Woolf, and one-time lecturer for the South Place Ethical Society (now Conway Hall), as well as for other humanist groups. An eloquent atheist and a deeply compassionate man, Woolf’s humanist credentials were evident in his close working relationship with Gilbert Murray, his tenure as Vice President of the Progressive League – a humanist campaigning organisation – and his becoming, just before his death, an Honorary Associate of the Rationalist Press Association.

Harold Laski (1893–1950)

Harold J. Laski was born into a prosperous Manchester family, who were prominent in the city’s Jewish and political communities. With his marriage to Frida Kerry in 1911, Laski rebelled against the traditional values of his parents, who disapproved of his marrying a non-Jew. He struggled to reconcile the tenets of religion with science and personal freedom, ultimately becoming an outspoken rationalist. An academic and a political activist, Laski was active in the Labour movement and in Fabian circles, a suffragist and a socialist. Of Laski’s impact, his biographer Michael Newman wrote:

…few people have devoted such energy to a sincere attempt to combine liberty, equality, and internationalism in theoretical terms and to promote these ideals through teaching and participation in public life. He deserves full recognition for this.

Ellen Gottschalk Roy (1904-1960)

Ellen Gottschalk Roy was a German-Jewish radical, writer, and close collaborator with her husband, Indian revolutionary M. N. Roy. With Roy, she was active in the organisation of the Radical Humanist movement in India, including as editor of its journal, and strongly advocated for international sympathy and cooperation.

Joseph Rotblat (1908–2005)

Nobel Peace Prize-winning physicist and humanist Joseph Rotblat devoted his life to advocating the responsible use of science, and working for international peace. Acutely aware, through his own involvement in atomic research, of the dangers of nuclear weapons, Rotblat was a signatory to what became known as the Russell-Einstein manifesto, calling on world leaders to ‘remember your humanity, and forget the rest.’ He was a founding member of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs – which brought scientists together to discuss issues of nuclear weapons and world peace – and, as Rotblat himself recalled, ‘approached the problems in the spirit of scientific objectivity’. Through education, cooperation, and a sense of responsibility, Rotblat hoped that peace could be achieved. ‘Ending war sounds utopian,’ he wrote, ‘but I believe it is possible nonetheless.’

Hermann Bondi (1919-2005)

Hermann Bondi was a mathematician and cosmologist who, for almost two decades, was President of the British Humanist Association (now Humanists UK). He remains the longest serving President, but was just one of a number of Jewish humanists who held the title. In his tenure as President, Bondi worked actively to encourage the growth of the humanist movement and a wider awareness of humanist values. For Bondi, humanism meant ‘a willingness to change the world’, and he expressed this nowhere better than in his 1992 Conway Memorial Lecture:

I quote Thomas Paine: ‘We live to improve’, he said, ‘or we live in vain’. I am not quite clear from the context whether he means improving the world we live in or improving ourselves, indeed I am not at all sure he distinguished between the two. ‘We live to improve or we live in vain’, is a very wise saying. It is in service to others, it is as members of the community, that our existence lies.

George Melly (1926-2007)

George Melly was a singer, writer, critic, and President of the British Humanist Association (now Humanists UK) 1972-4. He lived an ebullient and unapologetic life, and, believing there to be just one, revelled in music, art, and relationships, embracing the joys he felt were all the sweeter without any notion of an encore. Melly featured – along with another Humanists UK President of Jewish descent, Claire Rayner – in The Great Human Detective Story, a film created by the BHA in 1991 exploring the ideas and impact of humanism. In it, Melly expressed his sense of the active, positive qualities of the humanist philosophy.

Lewis Wolpert (1929–2021)

Lewis Wolpert was a developmental biologist and Vice President of the British Humanist Association (now Humanists UK), who did much to raise the public profile of mental illness with his 1999 book Malignant Sadness: The Anatomy of Depression. Born in Johannesburg, Wolpert was raised in a strict Jewish household and trained initially as an engineer, before switching to the study of biology. Like many scientists on this list, Wolpert was an advocate of the wider use and relevance of science, chairing the Committee on the Public Understanding of Science 1993-8. He was also a prominent voice for rationalism and humanism. In an article for the New Humanist in 2017, Wolpert wrote of his belief ‘like the anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski, that religion itself had its origin in relation to death by introducing a belief system that helps to reduce the fear of it’. He concluded his article: ‘I hope that when I die a few people will mourn me – but please, no religious ceremony.’

Claire Rayner (1931–2010)

Claire Berenice Rayner (née Berkovitch) was a nurse, journalist, broadcaster, novelist, and agony aunt, who used her long career to impart thoughtful, compassionate advice to all who came to her. Rayner’s humanism imbued her life and work, and as an advice columnist and journalist, she emphasised compassion and frankness, not least in those areas typically viewed as taboo. As her husband, Des Rayner, recalled: ‘Through her own approach to life she enabled people to talk about their problems in a way that was unique.’ Rayner was awarded the OBE for ‘services to women’s issues and health issues’ in 1996, and became President of Humanists UK in 1999.

Jonathan Miller (1934-2019)

Doctor, comic, writer, and broadcaster Sir Jonathan Miller was born into a Jewish family and grew up in Hampstead. Working first as a hospital doctor, he ultimately became best known as a writer, performer, theatre and opera director, television presenter, and producer – remembered above all for the remarkable range of his interests and talents. A longtime member of Humanists UK, Miller was passionate about humanism and keen to shed light on what he saw as an under-explored history of humanist thinking and its positive impact on society. In 2004, he wrote and presented Atheism: A Rough History of Disbelief, which aired on the BBC and explored his humanism and ‘the hidden story of atheism’ around the world.