Following the tragic death of Rabbi Sherwin T. Wine in an auto accident in Morroco, his family has suggested that contributions in his memory be directed to support the Secular Humanistic Jewish Movement he established.

They have selected the 21st Century Fund, which benefits the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism, the Society for Humanistic Judaism and the Birmingham Temple. Donations may be made payable to the 21st Century Fund and sent to:

Rabbi Sherwin T. Wine Memorial Fund
c/o The Birmingham Temple
28611 West Twelve Mile Road
Farmington Hills, MI 48334

Rabbi Sherwin Wine was "the best friend of our Congregation. He worked very hard to get us off the ground and sustain us year by year. We were the very first congregation outside of Michigan and we were the establishing congregation for The Society For Humanistic Judaism.
        Those who knew Sherwin only from his brilliant pragmatic scholarship and articulate sermons may not be aware of his strength as a compassionate human being. He was the finest minister we have ever known. Whether it was a minor problem or major catastrophe--his warmth, instinctive understanding and wisdom was a blessing to us and to anyone who sought him in confidence.
       Knowing Sherwin and his sense of irony, the manner of his passing would have given him a great conversation piece. He was after all the ultimate health nut who walked vast distances every morning, rain or shine. We can only be grateful that it was instantaneous with no suffering."
                   John Franklin, Co-Founder, CHJ Fairfield County

SHERWIN WINE—MEMORIAL SERVICE by John Franklin at CHJ Yom Kippur Service.

Rabbi Sherwin T. Wine—the founder, enabler, and soul of Humanistic Judaism is on a different kind of journey…the culmination of which none of us really knows.We used to kid back and forth—that if I ever saw him on a cloud playing a harp I’d have a big laugh. Somehow I hope I will.

Sherwin’s whole life has been a journey.

To Israel, Russia, Britain, Brazil, Morocco!

From the complexities of Orthodox, Conservative and Classical Reform Judaism to his own vision of a people centered ,culturally Jewish philosophy.

On his long daily walks from the Jewish neighborhoods of his beloved Detroit to its downtown—or along the Champs D’Lysee or Westport’s Compo Beach.

From Midwestern conventional to his own unique lifestyle. From public intellect to caring Minister.

From pontificator of life’s most serious issues to infectious laughter at life’s most ridiculous ironies.

Sherwin –we miss you. We really miss you. But the journey of your unique legacy…that has just begun.

Sherwin Wine, 79, Founder of Splinter Judaism Group, Dies

By DENNIS HEVESI Published: July 25, 2007

Rabbi Sherwin T. Wine, founder of a movement in Judaism that says there is no reason to believe in God but that the religion’s highest ethical traditions and the value of each person should be revered, died on Saturday in Essaouira, Morocco.

He was 79 and lived in Birmingham, Mich.

Rabbi Wine was killed in a car accident while on vacation with his companion, Richard McMains, said Rabbi Miriam Jerris, president of the Association of Humanistic Rabbis. The association is an affiliate of the Society for Humanistic Judaism, which Rabbi Wine founded in 1969. Mr. McMains was injured in the accident.

Rabbi Wine started the Society for Humanistic Judaism six years after he sent ripples through the American Jewish community by urging eight families who were doubtful of their faith to join him in establishing the Birmingham Temple, in a Detroit suburb.

The congregation, now based in nearby Farmington Hills, eliminated the word “God” from its services. For example, “You shall love the Lord your God,” became, “We revere the best in man.” The congregation also stopped reciting the Shema, the basic Jewish proclamation of faith in the unity of God.

As word of his innovations spread, Rabbi Wine became controversial. He was castigated by other rabbis.

In 1965, he was the subject of articles in The New York Times and Time magazine.

“I find no adequate reason to accept the existence of a supreme person,” Rabbi Wine told Time.

In the interview with The Times, he said the existence of God required “empirical criteria.” As a substitute, Rabbi Wine preached “humanism,” describing it as a religion “because, like all other religions, it enables man to relate himself to his universe.”

He also emphasized ethical imperatives of Judaism.

Although the Society for Humanistic Judaism has 10,000 members in 30 congregations in the United States and Canada, its tenets are held, to varying degrees, by more Jews. According to the American Jewish Identity Survey of 2001 by the Center for Jewish Studies at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, about half of the 5.3 million Jews in the United States identify themselves as “secular” or “somewhat secular.”

Sherwin Theodore Wine was born on Jan. 25, 1928, in Detroit, the son of immigrants from Poland, Herschel and Teibele Israelski Wengrowski. His father was a cap maker and trouser cutter.

Besides Mr. McMains, a sister, Lorraine Pivnick, of Farmington Hills, survives Rabbi Wine.

The rabbi came from a Conservative Jewish tradition. His parents kept a kosher home. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in philosophy at the University of Michigan and was ordained a Reform rabbi after graduating from Hebrew Union College in 1956.

By 1960, Rabbi Wine had founded a Reform congregation in Windsor, Ontario. After three years, he acknowledged his discomfort in addressing a God he was not sure existed and broke from Reform Judaism.

Part of his estrangement was rooted in the Holocaust. In an interview with The San Diego Jewish Journal, Rabbi Wine said, “The message of the Holocaust is that there isn’t any magic power.”

Rabbi Sherwin T. Wine, 79; founded Humanistic Judaism

By Elaine Woo, Times Staff Writer July 26, 2007

Rabbi Sherwin T. Wine, who entered public life as "the Atheist Rabbi" more than 40 years ago when he founded Humanistic Judaism, a movement that celebrates Jewish history and culture without invoking God, has died. He was 79.

Wine was on vacation Saturday in Essaouira, Morocco, when the taxicab he was riding in collided with another vehicle. He and the cabdriver died in the crash, and Wine's partner, Richard McMains, was hospitalized with injuries, said Bonnie Cousens, executive director of the Society for Humanistic Judaism, which Wine founded in 1969.

Trained as a Reform rabbi, Wine took a long-standing humanist strain in Jewish thought and developed it into a movement that now claims 40,000 members around the world, including several congregations in California. Although its numbers are small in comparison to the Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist branches, it is sometimes called the fifth denomination of American Judaism.

In 1965, two years after Wine formed the first Humanistic Jewish congregation in his hometown of Detroit, he was featured in Time magazine as a self-proclaimed "ignostic," his term to denote a type of atheist who suspends belief in divinity until it can be empirically proven. Humanistic Jews instead place their faith in the power of people to solve problems and shape the world.

"For me, a good religion doesn't make people feel weak and needy and force them outside to find power. A good religion," Wine once told the Detroit News, "helps you find the power within yourself."

"He changed the lives of many, many people," said Rabbi Peter Schweitzer, past president of the Assn. of Humanistic Rabbis and leader of the City Congregation for Humanistic Judaism in New York City. "He made it possible for secular cultural Jews to celebrate our form of Judaism together in communities with excitement and joy and with integrity."

The son of Russian immigrants, Wine grew up in a Conservative Jewish household and embraced the traditions he was taught. He attended the University of Michigan, where he earned a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in philosophy by 1951. Instead of pursing a doctorate, however, he decided to become a rabbi and enrolled at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, where he felt free to challenge orthodoxy.

"He had a contrarian nature where authority was concerned. He took God on right at the bat," recalled Alfred Gottschalk, a former classmate who later served as president of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York for 24 years.

According to Gottschalk, Wine had no trouble challenging theologians at the college, especially when they professed to be in communication with God.

"Sherwin always wanted to know what language did God speak to you in? How did you know it was God and not the devil or some other divine voice? How could you be sure it was God?" Gottschalk said.

"He took the concept of God very seriously," Gottschalk added, but Wine's doubts eventually led him to a most unorthodox position.

Wine was ordained in 1956 and spent the next two years as an Army chaplain. In 1958 he became an assistant rabbi in Detroit before leaving to organize a Reform congregation in Windsor, Ontario.

In Canada his "philosophic doubts" about Reform Judaism grew stronger, so when a group of families in suburban Detroit approached him in 1963 about forming a new congregation, he happily accepted.

The Birmingham Temple in Farmington Hills, Mich., became a Humanistic congregation "virtually immediately," said Cousens. "It was the '60s, a time of rebellion and questioning. He had congregants eager to embrace the ideas he had embraced."

Wine rewrote rituals to reflect a people-centric viewpoint. Thus, at Friday night services, "You shall love the Lord your God" became "We revere the best in man." Poems were recited instead of prayers, and presentations on Lincoln and Eleanor Roosevelt replaced Torah readings at bar and bat mitzvahs.

His approach was condemned by other rabbis as sacrilege; the local Jewish newspaper refused to publicize events at the temple. But in two years, Birmingham Temple grew from eight to 140 families. It now has 500 families and is the largest of 50 Humanist congregations and communities reaching from L.A. to Australia.

Wine retired as the head of Birmingham Temple in 2003 but retained his top role in other organizations he founded, including dean of the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism, which oversees the training of rabbis. He was also co-chairman of the International Federation for Secular Humanistic Jews. Wine wrote several books, including "Judaism Beyond God" and "Staying Sane in a Crazy World."

He is survived by his partner; a sister, Lorraine Pivnick, of Detroit; and two nieces.