An unusual warning by a senior Reform rabbi in the United States against a split in the movement, if anti-Israel trends continue, in a stream that defines itself as progressive and liberal.
Over the weekend, Rabbi Amiel Hirsch initiated a conference in New York at the Stephen Weil Synagogue, attended by some 300 Reform Jewish leaders from across the United States. According to Hirsch, the purpose of the conference was to reverse the anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist drift in the movement, which could destroy it.
This is such an unusual gathering, since for many years Reform rabbis have refrained from speaking in synagogues about their support for Israel, because the issue has become "controversial."
Hirsch, on the other hand, drew clear lines of separation between those who support the Jewish people and Zionism, and what he defined as "a Jewish sickness of anti-Jewish uniqueness and anti-Zionism."
The gathering is part of a painful and ongoing analysis that is underway mainly by the non-Orthodox streams in the United States. At the heart of the process, the Zionist elements in the Jewish community are reorganizing and making it clear that alongside holding "progressive" positions, their commitment to the Jewish people and to Israel is complete. In this spirit, Conservative Rabbi Stuart Weinblatt founded the Zionist Rabbinical Coalition several years ago in order to stem the growing anti-Israel drift in the American Jewish public against it.
Among other things, Hirsch said in his speech: "I am afraid that we are losing the soul of the Reform movement. To come out against Israel, to join our ideological opponents, and our political enemies who degrade Zionism – this is a sign of Jewish sickness. and the atrophy of intellectual and emotional commitment to our own people.
"Given the growing hostility to Israel in our own circles, liberal and progressive spaces, and in attention to the growing contempt for Jewish particularism, it is not enough for us to declare our 'Zionist loyalty' from time to time, which is often expressed defensively with so many stipulations and changes that our enthusiasm for Zionism is buried under an avalanche of reservations.
"It is not enough for us to issue occasional press releases or tweets about the fact that we are 'a Zionist movement committed to the age-old religious value of the Jewish Covenant.' We are the leaders! We must lead! Be proactive. And sooner or later, we will have to address the growing cracks in the Reform movement itself. We cannot pretend that they do not exist for the sake of a false sense of unity.
"The rifts created between the anti-Peoplehood and anti-Zionist supporters in the Reform movement in the first half of the 20th century (referring to the majority of the American Jewish establishment that opposed the Zionist enterprise in Palestine prior to the establishment of the State of Israel) and the Zionists who were committed to Jewish particularism will reopen in our movement, with devastating consequences for our Reform synagogues in the 21st century."
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