Editing Humanistic Judaism (section)

==Origins==
In its current form, Humanistic Judaism was founded in either 1963<ref name="KareshHurvitz_Humanistic" /> or 1965<ref name="Cohn-Sherbok" /> (sources differ) by American [[Rabbi]] [[Sherwin Wine]].<ref name="KareshHurvitz_Humanistic" /><ref name="IFSHJ_Homepage">{{cite web | url=http://www.ifshj.org/ | title=International Federation for Secular & Humanistic Judaism | access-date=2010-12-16 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110516082310/http://www.ifshj.org/ | archive-date=2011-05-16 | url-status=dead }}</ref><ref name="nytobit">{{cite news |title=Sherwin Wine, 79, Founder of Splinter Judaism Group, Dies |last=Hevesi |first=Dennis |date=July 25, 2007 |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |access-date=2010-12-16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/25/us/25wine1.html |archive-date=2011-12-06 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111206183744/http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/25/us/25wine1.html |url-status=live }}</ref> As a rabbi trained in [[Reform Judaism]] with a small, [[Secular Judaism|secular]], non-theistic congregation, he developed a Jewish liturgy that reflected his and his congregation's philosophical viewpoints by combining Jewish culture, history, and identity with [[humanistic]] outlooks while excluding all prayers and references to a god of any kind. This congregation developed into the [[Birmingham Temple]] in [[Farmington Hills, Michigan]]. It was soon joined by a previously Reform congregation in [[Illinois]] and a group in [[Westport, Connecticut]].

In 1969, all three congregations were organizationally united with other groups under the umbrella of the [[Society for Humanistic Judaism]] (SHJ). The SHJ had 10,000 members across 30 congregations in the United States and Canada in 1994; however, there are many congregations that identify with Humanistic Judaism's teachings but are not members of the SHJ.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Niebuhr|first=Gustav|date=June 30, 1994|title=Humanist Synagogue Tests Reform Judaism|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1994/05/17/humanist-synagogue-tests-reform-judaism/1ac3f620-73ab-4cfb-aebb-8057245f5ad2/|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220809115340/https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1994/05/17/humanist-synagogue-tests-reform-judaism/1ac3f620-73ab-4cfb-aebb-8057245f5ad2/|archive-date=August 9, 2022|access-date=|newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]}}</ref>

As of 2020, the [[Pew Research Center]] estimated that Humanistic Judaism, along with [[Reconstructionist Judaism|Reconstructionism]] and other smaller denominations, constituted 4% of the United States's 7.5 million Jews.<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Alper |first1=Becka A. |last2=Cooperman |first2=Alan |display-authors=etal |date=2021-05-11 |title=Jewish Americans in 2020 |url=https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/05/11/jewish-americans-in-2020/ |access-date=2022-08-09 |website=[[Pew Research Center]] |language=en-US |archive-date=2022-08-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220809115335/https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/05/11/jewish-americans-in-2020/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

The [[International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism]] (IISHJ), founded in 1986, is the academic and intellectual center of Humanistic Judaism. It currently has two centers of activity: the original in [[Jerusalem]] and another in [[Lincolnshire, Illinois]]. Rabbi [[Adam Chalom]] is the dean of the IISHJ's American site. The IISHJ offers professional training programs for spokespersons, educators, leaders (also referred to in Hebrew as ''madrikhim/ot'' or Yiddish as ''vegvayzer''), and rabbis, in addition to its publications, public seminars, and colloquia for lay audiences.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2016-01-18 |title=Mission |url=https://iishj.org/about-us/mission/ |access-date=2022-08-09 |website=[[International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism]] |language=en-US |archive-date=2021-04-19 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210419024905/https://iishj.org/about-us/mission/ |url-status=live }}</ref>