MONTAGU, LILY (1873–1963), founder of the Liberal Jewish movement in England. Born in London on December 22, 1873, Lily H. Montagu was the sixth child of Ellen Cohen Montagu and Samuel Montagu. Her father was a wealthy banker and leading member of the Orthodox Anglo-Jewish community. Convinced that Orthodoxy offered her, and other women, little room for religious self-expression, she found in the works of Claude Montefiore a vision of Judaism that mirrored her own understanding of true religion as personal in nature, universal in outlook, and best revealed through daily conduct.

In the January 1899 issue of the Jewish Quarterly Review, Montagu published "The Spiritual Possibilities of Judaism Today," an essay in which she asked all religiously committed Jews to help her form an association aimed at strengthening the religious life of the Anglo-Jewish community through the propagation of Liberal Jewish teachings. Membership would not necessarily demonstrate allegiance to...