Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism

IMPJ brings together Reform congregations and institutions within a nonprofit umbrella organization, forming the Israeli expression of a worldwide Progressive Jewish movement encompassing approximately 1,200 communities and community centers in more than 50 countries.[2] Its work connects synagogue worship with education, youth leadership, social responsibility, and engagement with the wider Jewish world.[1] The movement’s stated aims include promoting Israel as a Jewish and democratic state in the spirit of the Declaration of Independence, enriching Israelis’ Jewish identity, and influencing religious, educational, and public discourse in Israel and abroad.[1]

The movement uses both “Reform” and “Progressive” in its name, reflecting a history in which Israeli leaders initially preferred Yahadut Mitkademet, or “Progressive Judaism,” to avoid negative associations some Israelis attached to American Reform Judaism.[4] A Hebrew-language rebranding toward “the Reform Movement” subsequently took place under Gilad Kariv.[7] Its religious practice emphasizes gender equality, religious pluralism, accessibility, and acceptance, with women and men participating together in services.[8]

Its institutional reach extends beyond formal synagogue membership: congregations provide holiday celebrations, educational activities, and life-cycle ceremonies for people who do not necessarily join as members.[9] A 2021 account placed formal synagogue membership at approximately 10,000 people, while describing a substantially wider population using movement institutions.[9] In 2024, the network included 54 communities alongside schools, a youth movement, a pre-military preparatory program, a humanitarian aid fund, an Israel–Diaspora relations department, and the Israel Religious Action Center, its public and legal arm.[10]

The movement’s geographical reach encompasses communities from the Upper Galilee to the kibbutzim of the Arava.[2] Its development has included urban synagogue centers, rural and outlying congregations, educational institutions, and collective settlements, giving it several different settings for expressing Reform Jewish life in Israeli society.[2][9]

An early liberal congregation, Beth El, was founded in Haifa in 1935 by Rabbi Max Elk, an immigrant from Germany, but survived only a few years.[11] In Israel’s early years, the Reform presence remained small and included refugees from 1930s Germany with congregations in Jerusalem and Haifa.[12] Maurice Eisendrath advocated creating an Israeli Reform movement as early as 1953.[4]

The establishment of a lasting Jerusalem congregation developed through initiatives in 1957 and 1958.[5][11] Following a visit by Rabbi Herbert Weiner, a founding committee headed by Shalom Ben-Chorin organized services that began in an apartment, moved to a public hall, and eventually relocated to the congregation’s own Har-El synagogue in 1962.[5] Harel’s founding in 1958 marked the modern movement’s beginning in an early historical account.[11] By 1963, Har-El in Jerusalem and Leo Baeck in Haifa were the country’s two Reform synagogues, both established by German Jewish immigrants.[13]

The Progressive community joined the World Union for Progressive Judaism in 1959, receiving rabbis through the international organization.[5] Congregations subsequently developed in Tel Aviv, Haifa, Ramat Gan, Kefar Shemaryahu, Nahariyyah, Upper Nazareth, Beersheba, and Netanyah, as well as at Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem.[5] After the Six-Day War, groups of Reform and Conservative immigrants established congregations and local institutions both to serve their own communities and to build their movements’ presence in Israel.[12]

Early congregations were organized through a Va’ad Arzi, or National Board, working with the World Union and the Israel committees of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.[5] Four full-time rabbis formed the Mo’etset ha-Rabbanim ha-Mitkaddemim, known as Maram, the Council of Progressive Rabbis, to address liturgy, halakhah, and public affairs.[5] The World Union held a conference in Jerusalem in 1968, and IMPJ was incorporated under Israeli law in 1971.[4] As its international activity expanded, the worldwide Reform movement also established its international headquarters in Jerusalem.[12]

The 1970s brought stronger institutional and Zionist connections.[5] The Central Conference of American Rabbis held annual meetings in Israel in 1970 and 1974, and Israeli Independence Day became an official religious holiday within the movement, with a special service incorporated into its liturgy.[5] In 1976, the World Union became the first international Jewish religious organization to affiliate with the World Zionist Organization.[5]

Kibbutz Yahel, established in the Negev in 1976, expressed the movement’s commitment to participation in Israeli society and its departure from earlier Reform anti-Zionism.[11] At its November groundbreaking, Rabbi Alexander Schindler declared: “We demonstrate Reform’s full flowering in its return to Israel—the people and the land.”[11] The movement also established an Israeli youth movement and a national youth center in Jerusalem, while Haifa’s Leo Baeck School developed a new campus.[5]

By 1978, Reform synagogues accounted for 741 family units within a combined Reform and Conservative total of approximately 2,049; the Reform share was 36 percent.[11] An account published in 1983 identified approximately 12 Reform congregations holding regular Saturday services, all but four founded before 1970.[11] Many congregations had been established through the work of movement rabbis or national-office staff, and most Reform and Conservative groups used rented halls or school buildings rather than premises of their own.[11]

The movement’s organizational structure at that time resembled a federation of synagogues rather than a centralized body directing satellite congregations.[11] Representatives of congregations and affiliated institutions—including the youth movement, Leo Baeck School, Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion, and the Council of Progressive Rabbis—participated in the national organization, with a national council taking major day-to-day policy decisions.[11] More than half its budget then came from the World Union, which also subsidized some Israeli Reform rabbis’ salaries.[11]

During the 1980s and 1990s, synagogue centers expanded in Haifa, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and surrounding communities, combining worship with youth activities, education, and preschools.[14] The Israel Religious Action Center was founded in 1986, bringing conversion, marriage, religious councils, alternative burial, and religious pluralism into legal and public discussion.[14] North American federation funding began reaching liberal Jewish movements in Israel in the late 1980s, following pressure on the Jewish Agency to support Progressive and Masorti affiliations during disputes over Jewish status.[14]

Congregational development continued through immigrant outreach and locally tailored education.[4] In August 2000, a congregation for immigrants from the former Soviet Union began in Ashdod with Saturday-night havdalah services, later adding Friday-night services led by Hebrew Union College rabbinical students.[4] IMPJ employed a community organizer there and community workers for other Russian-language groups.[4] In Jerusalem, Mercaz Shimshon, the World Union’s cultural center, opened in October 2000 beside Beit Shmuel and the Hebrew Union College campus on King David Street; the Moshe Safdie-designed facility was reported to cost $15 million.[4]

The network reached 26 congregations in 2005.[5] Later reports recorded 37 communities in 2012 and 45 in 2015.[15][16] Its expansion in the decade before 2021 included particular attention to rural and outlying areas.[9] Anna Kislanski oversaw congregational and educational work as deputy director general from 2010 to 2021, during a period in which the congregational network increased from 23 to 54.[3] She became CEO in September 2021, succeeding Gilad Kariv, who had led the movement for more than a dozen years before entering the Knesset.[3][9]

Congregational services bring women and men together without a partition, combining traditional piyyutim with modern Hebrew songs and welcoming participants without requiring formal membership or prior familiarity with prayer.[8] The movement conducts weddings, bar and bat mitzvah ceremonies, and other life-cycle observances alongside regular worship.[16] Its congregations also offer batei midrash, family-oriented Jewish activities, Jewish-calendar programming, and Tikkun Olam projects.[17]

The movement’s liturgical development included a prayer book issued entirely in Hebrew, described as the first Reform prayer book of that kind, and a High Holy Day mahzor.[5] Earlier services featured mixed-gender prayer and congregational singing accompanied by organ.[5] The Council of Progressive Rabbis worked on an Israeli Reform prayer book and addressed religious questions arising from Reform kibbutz life.[11] Liturgical adaptation remains part of its practice: at Shimon Peres’s burial in 2016, his daughter Tzvia Walden added “And upon all humankind” to the final line of the Kaddish.[7]

Israeli national experience also shapes the movement’s religious calendar.[5][18] Shabbat Tekumah, the “Shabbat of Rebirth,” falls between Holocaust Remembrance Day and Israeli Independence Day and joins remembrance of loss with renewal and reflection on Israel’s future.[18] It was among special Shabbat observances added by movement rabbis in the 1980s as Reform Judaism developed in Israel.[18] In the year preceding a 2024 report, 16 local authorities invited the movement to lead Simchat Torah hakafot, with women and men dancing together and women dancing with Torah scrolls.[10]

Rabbis provide preparation, counseling, and ceremonies for an average of approximately 5,000 Israeli families annually, including britot, bnei mitzvah, weddings, and burials.[17] The movement’s community model accommodates families who participate through particular events rather than continuous synagogue membership.[9] In March 2000, IMPJ and the Masorti movement jointly promoted egalitarian wedding ceremonies through full-page newspaper advertisements and 400 radio advertisements featuring couples married in their ceremonies.[4] The campaign explained that, under the law then described, couples also needed a civil marriage abroad for Interior Ministry recognition.[4]

Education ranges from early childhood to adult study.[2] An undated institutional account lists 50 kindergartens, eight elementary and secondary schools, and educational programs operating in dozens of Israeli schools.[2] Movement communities conduct Jewish studies, study houses, programs about the land of Israel, and learning frameworks for older adults and immigrants.[2] Its educational work also includes curricula for state schools and Yachdav, an interactive program linking Jewish pupils in Israel and the Diaspora.[17]

The Leo Baeck Education Center in Haifa combines formal and informal education with humanistic, pluralistic, egalitarian, and social-justice principles.[19] Its campus includes Ohel Abraham Progressive Synagogue, built in 1978 and active on Shabbat and holidays.[19] Community-center activities have served immigrants, Arab and Jewish residents, and people with disabilities through educational, social, cultural, and religious programs.[19] A door-to-door campaign in 1988 recruited more than 1,000 volunteers, and social-action projects developed both with and without municipal assistance.[19]

Yozma in Modi’in illustrates an education-first approach to community building.[20] Rabbi Kinneret Shiryon began developing the community after losing her education-sector job in 1996, starting with preschools as an accessible introduction to liberal Jewish life for secular families.[20] Eleven years later, Yozma had six preschools, an elementary school, a beit midrash, a synagogue, 250 paying member-families, and approximately 600 additional families using its facilities.[20] Other initiatives included Sulam Ya’akov in Zichron Ya’akov, expanded study programming at Aḥvat Yisrael in Rishon le-Zion, and lectures and field trips for approximately 150 immigrants at Emet Ve’shalom in Nahariyyah.[4] The movement also provided Shabbat programming three times monthly at Kishor, a community then described as housing approximately 70 people with learning, functioning, and adaptive disabilities.[4]

Noar Telem, the Reform youth movement, is the Israeli branch of Netzer Olami and a partner of North America’s NFTY.[21] Its programs include weekly activities in congregations and cities, hiking, Shabbat retreats, and the Havayah summer camp.[17] Young-adult programs include pre-army leadership academies in Jaffa and Holon, a post-army leadership seminar at Kibbutz Yahel, and Tlalim programming and communities.[17] A 2012 national conference combined adult and youth study, children’s activities, music, and discussion of prayer and social responsibility, drawing hundreds of participants.[22]

Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion in Jerusalem provides rabbinical training and programs for educators, spiritual caregivers, and public emissaries.[2] Its campus also hosts North American students’ Israel experience, including the Year-in-Israel Program, while preparing Israelis for rabbinical, pluralistic Jewish education, and pastoral-counseling work.[21] Israeli rabbinical training developed during the 1970s with a requirement that candidates earn a Hebrew University M.A. alongside rabbinical studies; the first student was ordained in summer 1979.[5] Naama Kelman-Ezrachi became the first woman ordained by Israel’s Reform rabbinical school in 1992.[5]

By 2007, 53 Reform rabbis were serving in Israel, including 20 women and 19 immigrants.[23] The Jerusalem college had ordained 88 rabbis by 2015.[16] In a 2026 commentary, Hebrew Union College Jerusalem dean Nachman Shai reported that the college trained six or seven rabbis annually and that 160 graduates of its Israeli program had served in rabbinical roles in civic organizations and education since the program began.[24]

Russian-speaking programs combine religious community life with practical integration support.[25][26] Three principal centers—Shirat HaYam in the Haifa area, Shirat HaGan in Ramat Gan, and Shirat HaBe’er in Be’er Sheva—operate alongside smaller groups associated with other congregations.[25] Activities include native-language holiday and prayer services and conversion study, while related movement programs provide women’s empowerment circles and legal aid to immigrants from the former Soviet Union and newer arrivals from Ukraine and Russia.[25][26]

Conversion begins with an interview by a rabbi from the Israeli Council of Progressive Rabbis and referral to a three-rabbi beit din.[27] Candidates normally study for one year, experiencing the Jewish yearly cycle, synagogue prayer, and home rituals while learning Jewish sources, law, tradition, history, thought, and life-cycle practices.[27] The curriculum also addresses synagogue customs and distinctions between Judaism and other faiths.[27]

The movement’s Israel–Diaspora programming includes Domim, launched in 2015 with support from the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs.[28] More than 30 Israeli Reform congregations are paired with close to 120 Reform congregations in North America and elsewhere, meeting in person and online for prayer, holiday events, and cultural activities.[28] The program seeks to deepen mutual understanding and strengthen congregational leadership.[28]

After October 7, 2023, the B’Kavod humanitarian fund organized aid for evacuees, established assistance centers in several Eilat hotels, recruited hundreds of volunteers, and collected donations.[10] Congregations supplied evacuees and prepared food for soldiers, while rabbis traveled to displaced community members for funerals, shiva visits, prayer, song, and consolation.[10] The movement also held Friday-evening services at Jerusalem’s hostages’ tent and Saturday-night havdalah ceremonies in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem calling for the hostages’ release.[10]

Gilad Kariv became the first Reform rabbi elected to the Knesset following the March 2021 elections, bringing the former national movement leader into parliamentary public life.[29] Before his election, he had argued civil-rights cases before the Supreme Court and lobbied in the Knesset.[30] His maiden speech on May 5 called for a “Jewish pluralist renewal,” emphasizing tolerance, equity, and recognition of “more than one way to be a Jew.”[29]

The movement’s public significance extends beyond the number of people formally affiliated with its congregations.[9] Some secular Israelis have turned to Reform and Conservative rabbis for ceremonies, with institutions such as Beit Daniel serving communities in Tel Aviv.[5] The movement’s own historical account describes an organization that initially served mainly immigrants from Europe and North America and established 22 congregations between 1960 and 2008, followed by growing interest among secular and traditional Israelis seeking Jewish expression compatible with a modern, liberal outlook.[1]

A 2024 academic study identified 50 congregations and initiatives offering prayer, holidays, life-cycle ceremonies, study houses, conversion courses, and pre-army programs.[31] Reports in 2024 and 2025 described 54 communities.[10][32] These institutional measures differ from survey-based religious identification and from participation in individual events.[9] A religion-and-state poll cited in 2021 found that 6 percent of Jewish citizens identified as Reform, compared with 5 percent Conservative and 57 percent unaffiliated; an August 2023 poll put Reform identification at 5 percent, Conservative at 4 percent, and unaffiliated at 57 percent.[6][29]

An internet survey commissioned in 2024 sampled 703 Jewish adults and found that 31 percent liked or strongly liked Reform Judaism, 29 percent disliked or strongly disliked it, and 28 percent answered “so-so.”[33] Among secular respondents, 57 percent expressed support.[33] Nineteen percent reported attending a bar or bat mitzvah or wedding conducted by a Reform rabbi during the preceding two years, providing a separate measure of contact with Reform religious practice.[33]

The movement’s legal and advocacy division, the Israel Religious Action Center, works on religious freedom, equal treatment of non-Orthodox streams, and discrimination affecting marginalized groups.[26] Its activities address women’s exclusion, gender segregation, racism, and racist incitement, alongside legal-aid services for immigrants and a racism crisis center offering legal and mental-health advice.[26] Its legal campaigns have included segregated bus lines, women’s exclusion from an ultra-Orthodox radio station, and the disqualification of racist Knesset candidates.[26]

International institutional support has also contributed to the movement’s position.[14] The Jewish Agency allocates approximately $2.7 million annually across Reform, Conservative, Modern Orthodox, and Haredi movements, supporting activities including youth work, leadership training, elementary-school networks, and young-adult programs.[34] IMPJ and Hebrew Union College operate programs receiving this support, although no separate Reform allocation is specified.[34] The movement’s international connections therefore encompass both congregational partnerships and educational and financial cooperation.[28][34]

Equal recognition, access to public resources, and the boundaries of religious authority have been the movement’s principal public disputes.[6][31] Its general public profile remains closely associated with its struggle for equal status, while “Reform Jew” carries a derogatory meaning in some sectors of Israeli society.[31] Public attitudes vary: support for pluralistic Jewish expression is strongest among secular Israelis on the political left and center, with more mixed or hostile responses among traditional, Orthodox, and Haredi groups.[35]

Early demands for equal rights included resolutions at the World Union’s 1968 Jerusalem conference seeking recognition, marriage rights, recognition of conversions abroad for Law of Return purposes, and public support for Progressive congregations.[5] A movement-sponsored resolution adopted by the 29th World Zionist Congress likewise called for guaranteed religious rights, equal recognition of religious authorities, and equal governmental support.[5] Internal strategy was also debated: at the November 1994 movement convention, Rabbi Meir Azari urged grassroots congregation building, saying, “The public wants to know who you are, not who you are against.”[36]

Public funding disputes produced successive legal changes.[20][37] In Modi’in, litigation challenged allocations that had supported eight Orthodox synagogues but no Reform or Conservative synagogues; the court required equal-treatment criteria.[37] Further proceedings froze synagogue allocations in May 2005, and an eventual agreement provided publicly funded buildings for Yozma and four other non-Orthodox congregations.[20] In 2012, following litigation begun in 2005 and associated with Rabbi Miri Gold, the state agreed to support rabbis of non-Orthodox regional communities through the Ministry of Culture rather than the Ministry of Religious Affairs.[38][15] A subsequent report described eased funding conditions and government salaries for 12 non-Orthodox rabbis serving local councils.[39]

The November 2021 budget included 40 million shekels for Conservative and Reform Judaism for 2022 through a new Progressive Judaism department in the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs.[29] Progressive organizations welcomed the allocation, although a Conservative organization objected to placing the department outside the Ministry of Religious Services.[29]

Conversion litigation has distinguished immigration and civil registration from the Chief Rabbinate’s religious jurisdiction.[6] On May 19, 2009, the Supreme Court held that the state need not fund private conversion organizations, but could not favor Orthodox over Reform preparation programs when funding integration programs with equivalent objectives.[40] A 2016 ruling required access to public ritual baths for Reform and Conservative converts; subsequent legislation and arrangements for separate facilities generated further disputes.[41] On March 1, 2021, an 8–1 High Court ruling required recognition of Reform and Conservative conversions performed in Israel for Law of Return purposes, after approximately 15 years of judicial delay while the Knesset was urged to legislate.[42] Civil recognition did not confer Chief Rabbinate recognition for official Jewish marriage, divorce, and burial services.[6]

In 2023, a nine-justice High Court panel ended a blanket policy requiring non-Jewish children being adopted in Israel to undergo Orthodox conversion and be placed only with Orthodox families.[43] The movement had challenged the policy in 2003; the ruling gave force to the state’s revised position that each child’s interests should be assessed individually.[43]

Egalitarian prayer at the Western Wall remains another major dispute.[6] A 2016 agreement provided for a permanent egalitarian plaza, non-Orthodox management, and a shared entrance, but the upgrade remained pending at the end of 2023.[6] Authorities permitted mixed-gender prayer and ceremonies on a temporary platform south of the Mughrabi Bridge while prohibiting mixed-gender services in the main plaza, and IRAC represented petitioners seeking implementation of the agreement.[6]