The Union progressiver Juden in Deutschland (UPJ) ("Union of Progressive Jews in Germany") is a registered association, founded in 1997, that represents liberal Jewish organisations. It is headed by Sonja Guentner and has around 3,000 members.
The publication work of the union began in 1997 with Seder ha-Tefillot, the Jewish prayer book by Jonathan Magonet in cooperation with Walter Homolka, from the Hebrew by Annette M. Böckler. In 1998 a Passover Haggadah was published. From 1999 to 2004 Annette M. Böckler translated W. Gunther Plaut's commentary on the Torah into German.
The Zentralrat der Juden in Deutschland ("Central Council of Jews in Germany") rejected the association and insisted on a single representative voice for Jewish organisations. In particular this concerned the contract with the government, signed with the Zentralrat on 27 January 2003, and its associated aid money.
In April 2004 open hostility broke out between the Zentralrat's president Paul Spiegel and then chairman of the UPJ, Jan Mühlstein. Mühlstein called for financial equality between the liberal Jewish organisations regarding the distribution of 3 million Euros of state money annually, set by a contract with the government. On 20 November 2005 two Jewish State Associations with numerous congregations of the Union were absorbed into the Zentralrat, after the status of a corporate body of public rights was conferred to them.
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“We hope the day will soon come when every girl will be a member of a great Union of Unmarried Women, pledged to refuse an offer of marriage from any man who is not an advocate of their emancipation.”
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“It took six weeks of debate in the Senate to get the Arms Embargo Law repealed—and we face other delays during the present session because most of the Members of the Congress are thinking in terms of next Autumn’s election. However, that is one of the prices that we who live in democracies have to pay. It is, however, worth paying, if all of us can avoid the type of government under which the unfortunate population of Germany and Russia must exist.”
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