Julia Neuberger, Baroness Neuberger

Rabbi Julia Babette Sarah Neuberger, Baroness Neuberger, DBE (née Schwab; born 27 February 1950) is a member of the British House of Lords. She formerly took the Liberal Democrat whip, but resigned from the party and joined the Crossbenches in September 2011 upon becoming the full-time Senior Rabbi to the West London Synagogue.

Julia Schwab was born on 27 February 1950 to Walter and Liesel ("Alice") Schwab. She attended South Hampstead High School and Newnham College, Cambridge, obtaining her Rabbinic Diploma at Leo Baeck College, London, where she taught from 1977–97. She was Chancellor of the University of Ulster from 1994–2000.

Her father was born in the UK to German Jewish immigrants who arrived before the First World War. Her mother was a refugee from Nazi Germany, arriving at age 22 in 1937. The Schwab Trust was set up in their name, to help support and educate young refugees and asylum seekers. In 2016, the Baroness stated she was applying for a German passport.

Neuberger was Britain's second female rabbi after Jackie Tabick, and the first to have her own synagogue. She was rabbi of the South London Liberal Synagogue from 1977 to 1989 and is President of West Central Liberal Synagogue. On 1 February 2011, the West London Synagogue (a Movement for Reform Judaism synagogue) announced that she had been appointed as Senior Rabbi of the synagogue.

She also regularly appears on the Pause for Thought section on BBC Radio 2.

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