Sherwin Wine (January 25, 1928)

Sherwin Wine probably would have liked to be recognized as the head of the secular Jewish Sanhedrin. (In case you aren’t familiar with the Sanhedrin: it was the priestly ruling body in ancient Israel, as well as the historically-conscious name of a body of Jewish leaders installed by Napoleon. So it means an official ruling body of Jews – which obviously no secular Jews would recognize if it tried to come back today.)

Actually Sherwin Wine founded Humanistic Judaism as a movement in 1963. He also organized The Society for Humanistic Judaism in 1969. The Society's mission is “to mobilize people to celebrate Jewish identity and culture consistent with a humanistic philosophy of life.” Based in his congregation, The Birmingham Temple, in Birmingham MI, he was the movement’s leader until his death a few years ago, but there are lots of other parallel atheist or secular Jewish organizers and organizations.

Personally, I'm a non-organizational secluar Jew. I've met people who belong to the Birmingham Temple, and  I find it interesting that he ordained other rabbis of secular Judaism, but in fact, I have more difficulty understanding organized secular Judaism than I have understanding organized religious Judaism. I don't know why you need the temple model to assemble and celebrate culture as opposed to performing religious rituals. My problem.