Reform Judaism is a member of the National Council for Voluntary Youth Services (NCVYS). As of November 2021, the post of chair of Reform Judaism is currently vacant. Until a new chair is appointed, MRJ's board is being led by the joint Vice-Chairs, Michael Harris and Paul Langsford. Rabbis Kathleen Middleton and James Baaden co-chair the Assembly of Reform Rabbis and Cantors, and Rabbi Jackie Tabick is Convenor of the Beth Din. Sir Trevor Chinn is President. History In the 1820s and 1830s, a small intellectual current arose in English Jewry, influenced by the Anglican environment which laid great emphasis on the Bible alone and scorned the Jews for valuing the Talmud. Represented by such figures as Isaac D'Israeli, they were sometimes named "neo-Karaites", though their actual knowledge of Karaism was scant. This group rejected rabbinic authority and espoused a bibliocentric view. Concurrently, wealthy members of the Sephardi Mocatta and Ashkenazi Goldsmid families, who were related by marriage, were complaining about lack of decorum and rigid regulations in the Bevis Marks and Great Synagogue of London, respectively. The Mocattas were forced to walk miles on the Sabbath as an old communal ordinance banned forming prayer groups in a radius of ten miles from Bevis; Isaac Goldsmid vied for more clout with the wardens, and repeatedly protested against the protracted blessings for family members during services. They were also inclined to worship together. Eventually, a group of Mocattas, Goldsmids, Montefiores and other supporters withdrew from their two congregations on 15 April 1840, declaring their intention to found a house of worship for neither Sephardi nor Ashkenazi, but "British Jews". They appointed David Woolf Marks to lead services in their new West London Synagogue, dedicated on 27 January 1842. A former reader in Liverpool, he was deeply influenced by the "neo-Karaite" tendency and refused to cantillate the Torah on the second day of festivals, grounded only in rabbinic tradition. His stance suited the secessionists mainly on the practical level; Most never cared much for the bibliocentric issue but were content to abolish the second day. Although the term "Reform" was occasionally conferred on the congregation, Todd Endelman stressed that they were "unique and owed nothing" to the continental movement. Jakob Josef Petuchowski emphasised that Marks' philosophy was the polar opposite to that espoused by the German founding fathers of Reform Judaism. The latter regarded the Beatified Sages as geniuses and progressives who