Secular Jewish culture embraces several related phenomena; above all, it is the international culture of secular communities of Jewish people, but it can also include the cultural contributions of individuals who identify as secular Jews. Derived from philosophy of Moses Mendelssohn, since the early 19th century the international community of Jewish people is generally considered to be an ethnoreligious rather than solely a religious grouping. Judaism guides its adherents in both practice and belief, so that it has been called not only a religion, but an orthopraxy. This makes it difficult to draw a clear distinction between the cultural production of members of the Jewish people, and culture that is specifically Jewish. Furthermore, not all individuals or all cultural phenomena can be easily classified as either "secular" or "religious", a distinction native to European Enlightenment thinking and foreign to most of the history of non-European Jews.

Culture, in its etymological meaning, retains the linkage to the land of origin, the people named for its last pre-Roman vestige, study of Jewish texts, practice of community charity, and Jewish history. The term "secular Jewish culture" therefore refers to many aspects, including: Religion and World View, Literature, Media, and Cinema, Art and Architecture, Cuisine and Traditional Dress, attitudes to Gender, Marriage, and Family, Social Customs and Lifestyles, Music and Dance. "Secular Judaism," is a distinct phenomenon related to Jewish secularization - a historical process of divesting all of these elements of culture from their religious beliefs and practices.

Sherwin Theodore Wine (January 25, 1928 – July 21, 2007) was a rabbi and a founding figure in Humanistic Judaism. Originally ordained a Reform rabbi, Wine founded the Birmingham Temple, the first congregation of Humanistic Judaism in 1963, in Birmingham, Michigan, outside Detroit, Michigan (the temple later relocated to its current location in Farmington Hills, Michigan).

In 1969 Wine founded the Society for Humanistic Judaism. He later was a founder of several other organizations related to Humanistic Judaism, a humanist movement within Judaism that emphasizes secular Jewish culture and Jewish history rather than belief in God as sources of Jewish identity. Wine was also the founder of several humanist organizations that are not specifically Jewish, such as the Humanist Institute and the International Association of Humanist Educators, Counselors, and Leaders, as well as the cofounder of Americans for Religious Liberty, which promotes separation of church and state. Wine was the provost of the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism at the time of his death.