A senior rabbi in the US Reform Judaism stream recently issued a rare warning about the potential split in the movement if some of the anti-Israel elements are not countered.
Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram
Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, the senior rabbi of Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York City, delivered the keynote address at the Re-CHARGING Reform Judaism Conference in late May. The conference convened "thought leaders, Jewish scholars, philanthropists, and committed lay leaders from throughout the US and Canada for an extraordinary opportunity to assess this crossroads moment and offer a call for a bright future." In part, this was designed to address "the growing distance between North American liberal Jews and Israel, and their fraying connection with the concept of Jewish peoplehood."
The conference was a rare event, as Reform leaders have generally tried to avoid speaking about Israel in temples due to it becoming a divisive issue.
In his address, he set a clear distinction between those who support Jewish peoplehood and Zionism and those who don't.
"To turn against Israel; to join our ideological opponents and political enemies in castigating Zionism, is a sign of Jewish illness, an atrophying of our intellectual and emotional commitment to our people. Israel is the Jewish people's supreme creation of our age," he told the gatherers.
He further offered a stark assessment: "I fear that we are losing the soul of the Reform movement." He added that on the one hand, it is acceptable "to critique decision-makers" because "that is what Jews do; it is a sign of health, energy, and vitality," but he lamented that this sometimes goes beyond the pale and must be answered with a rebuttal.
"We are the leaders. We must lead. We must be proactive. We must aggressively counter intensifying and expanding anti-Zionist, anti-peoplehood forces in liberal spaces throughout the Western world. We must let people know, with clarity and conviction, what we believe. We must take on forces in American society, whether local or national, grassroots or in the halls of Congress, with whom we may agree on many other matters, but who disdain Israel, support her enemies, or are connected to elements in American society that hate Jews. We cannot march arm-in-arm with Israel-haters, lending them our moral authority, and confusing our own followers. We must oppose them. And we must let everyone know why we cannot join them," he said.
He also noted that "given the growing hostility to Israel in our circles, liberal and progressive spaces, and mindful of the increasing disdain for Jewish particularism, it is not enough for us to proclaim our Zionist bona fides every now and again, often expressed defensively, and with so many qualifications, stipulations and modifications, that our enthusiasm for Zionism is buried six feet under an avalanche of provisos. It is not enough to issue occasional press releases or tweets that we are a Zionist movement committed to the age-old religious value of the covenant of the Jewish people."
According to Hirsch, failure to address these shortcomings could be a bad omen for the entire movement. "Sooner or later we will have to attend to the growing fissures in the Reform movement, itself. We cannot pretend they do not exist for the sake of a false sense of unity. Otherwise, the rifts that emerged between the anti-peoplehood, anti-Zionist Reform Jews of the first half of the 20th century, and the Zionists who were committed to Jewish particularism, will reopen in our movement with devastating consequences for 21st-century Reform synagogues. We must develop curricula from early childhood through advanced Jewish studies that instill a love of our people and a commitment to the Jewish state."
Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!
