Private Passions: Rabbi Jonathan Romain – BBC Radio 3, Sunday 11 December

Rabbi, writer and broadcaster Jonathan Romain is minister of Maidenhead Synagogue and one of Britain's leading rabbis in Reform Judaism. He’s the author of twenty books – some scholarly and learned, and others which are very funny – revealing the ups and downs of his day-to-day work, in a way which will resonate with vicars, priests and religious leaders of any description. He’s become a kind of agony uncle, dispensing advice on love affairs, marriage, parenthood, and he’s written about all this in “Confessions of a Rabbi” and in his latest book, “The Naked Rabbi”. On the more serious side, he’s a prominent figure in the campaign for Assisted Dying, he was awarded an MBE for his work on inter-faith marriage, and he’s spent much of the last year working with Ukrainian refugees.

In conversation with Michael Berkeley, ahead of the start of Hannukah on 18th December, Jonathan Romain talks about what he’s learned over the years as a rabbi about love and marriage, and why some of his views put him very much out on a limb. His playlist takes in Max Bruch, Leonard Cohen, Rimsky-Korsakov and a tribute to his love of football. And he tells us his favourite Jewish joke.

A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 3