We were saddened to hear of the death of Rabbi Sherwin Wine, founder of the Society for Humanistic Judaism, killed in a car crash in Morocco on 21 July 2007.

Rabbi Sherwin Wine, 79, was born in Detroit in 1928, graduated from the University of Michigan and the Hebrew Union College. In 1963 he founded The Birmingham Temple, the first congregation of Humanistic Judaism.

In 1969, he helped establish the Society for Humanistic Judaism and in 1986, he helped to create the International Federation of Secular Humanistic Jews.

In 2003 he was named Humanist of the Year by the American Humanist Association. A charismatic and speaker and an inspiring leader, Sherwin Wine was well known within the international Humanist community. He spoke at many Humanist gatherings, most recently at the 30th anniversary conference of the Harvard Humanist Chaplaincy in April this year. A long-time friend, Harvard Chaplain Greg Epstein, described him as “...among the greatest and most knowledgeable orators I have seen, he was also a compassionate and wise leader who showed thousands of people what it means to be good without god”.