Julia Neuberger

Julia Babette Sarah Neuberger, Baroness Neuberger DBE (born 27 February 1950), is a British rabbi, life peer, and health policy expert who has advanced progressive Judaism and public service in the United Kingdom. Ordained in 1977 as the second female rabbi in Britain by Leo Baeck College, she became the first woman to lead a congregation as rabbi of the South London Liberal Synagogue from 1977 to 1989, later serving as president of Liberal Judaism until 2011 and senior rabbi of the West London Synagogue from 2011 to 2020. Ennobled in 2004 as a Liberal Democrat peer in the House of Lords, she took the crossbench in 2011 upon assuming her full-time rabbinical role and has contributed to debates on health, ethics, and social inclusion. In health policy, she directed the King's Fund think tank from 1997 to 2004, chaired the review of the Liverpool Care Pathway in 2012, and currently leads University College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Whittington Health NHS Trust as chair. Her career bridges religious leadership with secular influence, emphasizing empirical approaches to care ethics and institutional reform over ideological conformity.

Julia Neuberger was born Julia Babette Sarah Schwab on 27 February 1950 in Hampstead, London, as the only child of Jewish parents whose families originated from Germany and escaped Nazi persecution. Her mother, Alice Rosenthal, an art critic whose relatives were killed or affected by the Holocaust, and father, Walter Manfred Schwab, a civil servant from a German banking background, instilled a strong sense of Jewish heritage amid the refugee community's post-war challenges.

Raised in an observant Reform Jewish household enriched with rare Hebrew books, Neuberger attended the West London Reform Synagogue, where family synagogue involvement exposed her to progressive interpretations of Judaism emphasizing ethical responsibility and community engagement. This environment, shaped by her parents' experiences of displacement and cultural preservation efforts like those of the Association of Jewish Refugees—where her mother contributed—fostered an early orientation toward public service and Jewish identity rooted in moral inquiry rather than orthodoxy.

They have two children: a daughter, Harriet Elinor Clare Neuberger, and a son, Matthew Benedick Robert Neuberger. The family emphasized domestic support and Jewish traditions, though details of the children's professional paths remain private beyond general academic influences from their father.