Laura Janner-Klausner

Laura Naomi Janner-Klausner (Hebrew: לוֹרָה ג׳אָנֶר-קלְוֹזנֶר, born 1 August 1963) is a British rabbi and an inclusion and development coach who served as the inaugural Senior Rabbi to Reform Judaism from 2011 until 2020. Janner-Klausner grew up in London before studying theology at the University of Cambridge and moving to Israel in 1985, living in Jerusalem for 15 years. She returned to Britain in 1999 and was ordained at Leo Baeck College, serving as rabbi at Alyth Synagogue (North Western Reform Synagogue) until 2011. She has been serving as Rabbi at Bromley Reform Synagogue in south-east London since April 2022.

Janner-Klausner represents a progressive Jewish voice to British Jewry and the wider public, speaking on affairs including Israel-Palestine, social justice, same-sex marriage and interfaith relations. Janner-Klausner is a regular broadcaster on programmes such as BBC Radio 4’s Thought for the Day, BBC Radio 2’s Pause for Thought and BBC One’s The Big Questions and Sunday Morning Live. In November 2014, The Huffington Post reported that Janner-Klausner was "fast becoming the most high-profile Jewish leader in the country" and described her as "wildly likeable, emphatic, intense, and outspoken". In 2018 she featured in The Progress 1000 list of London's most influential people. She has written a book on the theme of resilience, Bitesize Resilience: A Crisis Survival Guide, which was launched on 7 May 2020. She is Co-Chair of the Global Interfaith Commission on LGBT+ Lives and an honorary fellow of The Edward Cadbury Centre for the Public Understanding of Religion at the University of Birmingham. She is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.