Reform Zionism

Zionism is a movement for Jewish self-determination and statehood in the Jewish people's ancestral homeland, the Land of Israel, distinct from endorsement of the policies of any particular Israeli government.[1] Reform Zionism applies that commitment within the framework of Reform Judaism, pairing support for a secure and democratic Israel with the movement's characteristic insistence on religious pluralism, civil equality, and social justice.

The history of Reform Zionism is inseparable from a long and contested institutional evolution. For much of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, mainstream Reform leadership in the United States and Europe held that Judaism was a universal religion rather than a national identity, and therefore rejected the Zionist project as incompatible with Jewish modernity. The movement's formal platforms document the reversal of that position in stages spanning more than half a century. Understanding Reform Zionism thus requires tracing both the theology that initially resisted Jewish nationalism and the historical pressures — persecution, the Holocaust, the establishment of the State of Israel, and the Six-Day War — that shaped an affirmative Zionist commitment.

Modern Zionism emerged in the mid-nineteenth century amid European nationalism and anti-Jewish persecution, with Theodor Herzl helping to organize political Zionism around international recognition of an independent Jewish state in the late 1800s.[1] Early Reform Judaism, however, developed in deliberate tension with Jewish nationalism. The movement's universalist theology held that Judaism carried a prophetic mission to all humanity, and that Jewish dispersion throughout the world was not a punishment to be reversed but a condition enabling the spread of ethical monotheism.[2]

This theological stance produced concrete institutional statements. As early as 1845, the Frankfurt Conference removed references to a return to Palestine and a Jewish state from prayers.[2] The 1869 Philadelphia Conference defined Judaism's goal as "not the restoration of the old Jewish state under a descendant of David, involving a second separation from the nations of the earth, but the union of all the children of G-d in the confession of the unity of G-d."[3] Isaac Mayer Wise and other early Reform leaders opposed Zionism in part because they considered it contrary to their efforts to forge a Judaism consistent with their European and American identities.[3]

The Pittsburgh Platform of 1885 gave the anti-Zionist position its most authoritative expression. Adopted at a gathering of Reform rabbis convened at Kaufmann Kohler's call from November 16 to 19, 1885, with Isaac Mayer Wise presiding, the platform declared that Jews considered themselves "no longer a nation, but a religious community," and therefore expected "neither a return to Palestine nor restoration of laws concerning a Jewish state."[4][5] Its messianic hope was recast entirely in universalist terms, looking toward the establishment of truth, justice, and peace among all humanity.[6] The platform defined American Reform Judaism for more than five decades.[5]

When Herzl organized the First Zionist Congress in 1897, both German Reform and Orthodox rabbis opposed the creation of a Jewish national state in Palestine, describing such efforts as "antagonistic to the messianic promises of Judaism."[7] The alliance was described as momentary, and the underlying rationales differed sharply, but it illustrated the depth of early Reform resistance to political Zionism.[7]

Opposition found support from prominent Reform rabbis. Henry Berkowitz called Zionism "untenable, chimerical and absurd," arguing that Jewish history's purpose was "the maintenance of Judaism, not the maintenance of the Jews."[8] The CCAR adopted a formal resolution in 1917 looking "with disfavor upon the new doctrine of political Jewish nationalism," arguing that Jewish loyalty should be measured by loyalty to Israel's God and religious mission.[2] Following the San Remo Declaration reaffirming the Balfour Declaration, Hebrew Union College explicitly rejected calling Palestine the national home for Jews, stating: "Palestine is not our national home, since we are not now and never expect to be citizens of that land."[2]

In 1919, a petition titled "A Statement to the Peace Conference," presented to President Woodrow Wilson by Congressman Julius Kahn, opposed organizing Palestine as a Jewish state while expressing sympathy for offering refuge there to Jews living under oppression. The petition had 299 signatories and argued that Jewish identity was religious and experiential rather than national — illustrating how even some advocates of refuge for persecuted Jews resisted the nationalist frame.[8]

Reform opposition to Zionism was never unanimous. A minority of Reform figures advocated Jewish nationalism from the movement's early decades, and their careers show that Zionist commitment and Reform identity were not inherently irreconcilable.

Bernhard Felsenthal illustrates one path toward Reform Zionism. Initially a radical Reform opponent of Jewish nationalism, he became involved with East European Jewish immigrants in Chicago, helping with immigrant education and communal needs and developing an interest in Palestine and Hebrew literature. He came to support Palestine colonization as a humanitarian response to persecution, helped found Chicago Zionist Organization No. I in 1896, urged American Jews to participate in the First Zionist Congress, and became a vice-president of the Federation of American Zionists in 1898. His arguments evolved from humanitarian colonization toward support for a Jewish national center, which he argued could resist assimilation, strengthen Diaspora attachment to Judaism, and help Jewish life survive. In 1903, he accepted Uganda as a temporary refuge but not as Zionism's final goal, insisting the movement should continue until Jews lived again in their own land.[9][9]

Gustav and Richard Gottheil, Stephen S. Wise, and Louis Brandeis were among the Reform rabbis or figures who helped establish Zionism in America.[10] Wise's trajectory was particularly consequential. Ordained as a Reform rabbi, he traced his Zionist commitment to meeting Theodor Herzl at the 1898 Second Zionist Congress, where he was elected to the Zionist General Action Committee.[11] He later worked with Louis Brandeis to obtain President Woodrow Wilson's support for the 1917 Balfour Declaration.[11] In 1922, to provide a Zionist alternative to Hebrew Union College, Wise established the Jewish Institute of Religion in New York.[12]

Abba Hillel Silver, born in Lithuania and brought to the United States in 1902, graduated valedictorian from Hebrew Union College in 1915 and led Cleveland's Congregation Tifereth Israel from 1917.[13] He initially explored cultural Zionism without political sovereignty, but during World War II came to see an independent Jewish state as urgent. At a meeting at New York's Waldorf-Astoria in August 1943, Silver asked American Jews: "Are we forever to live a homeless people on the world's crumbs of sympathy?"[13] After the war, he served as president of the American Zionist Organization and the Central Conference of Rabbis, and helped persuade the Republican Party to include a pledge of support for Israel in its 1948 platform.[13] Silver and Wise worked together to form the American Zionist Emergency Council, which lobbied Congress for the Zionist cause.[12]

The transition from institutional opposition to Zionist alignment unfolded under the pressure of catastrophic historical events. As threats to Jewish physical survival intensified — through pogroms, World War I, rising antisemitism, and ultimately the Nazi genocide — the Reform movement moved toward a more particularistic understanding of Jewish identity and an acceptance of political Zionism.[12]

In 1935, the CCAR adopted a neutrality resolution that continued to describe Judaism as a religion rather than affirming Jewish peoplehood, but declared that Zionism and Reform Judaism were no longer incompatible.[14] Two years later, at the 1937 CCAR convention in Columbus, discussion of a new platform was sharply contested: the vote on whether to introduce one was tied 81–81, and CCAR president Felix Levy cast the deciding vote in favor.[14]

The resulting Columbus Platform, officially titled "The Guiding Principles of Reform Judaism," marked the movement's most significant public reversal of the 1885 Pittsburgh position. Its Israel section opened with the declaration: "Judaism is the soul of which Israel is the body," affirming that Jews across the world were bound by common history and, above all, by faith.[15] It described the rehabilitation of Palestine as a promise of renewed life for many Jews and affirmed an obligation to help build it as a Jewish homeland — "not only a haven of refuge for the oppressed but also a center of Jewish culture and spiritual life."[16] The platform presented itself as a new guide rather than a fixed creed, and balanced its homeland commitments with an affirmation of Jewish civic responsibilities in the countries where Jews lived and a continued universal religious purpose of justice, truth, peace, and the kingdom of God.[17][15]

The Columbus Platform did not explicitly call for a Jewish state, and internal disagreement among Reform Jews over political Zionism persisted.[14] Following the Balfour Declaration, the movement had already begun supporting Jewish settlements in Palestine and institutions including Hadassah Hospital and the Hebrew University.[10] By 1945, the movement was described as "well on its way" to accepting Zionism and the soon-to-be-created State of Israel.[12]

The establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 and the Six-Day War of 1967 both accelerated Reform Zionist commitment in concrete institutional ways. The 1967 war proved especially catalytic at the level of rabbinical education. After it, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) student participation in voluntary study in Jerusalem rose sharply — from roughly seven to twelve students annually in 1962–1967, to 24 and then 35 or 37 in the 1968–1969 academic year.[18]

On October 23, 1969, HUC-JIR's Board of Governors unanimously approved a required Israel study year for rabbinical students, making it the first American rabbinical seminary to mandate such a program.[18] The inaugural mandatory cohort was the 1970–1971 incoming class, of which 66 of 77 students participated. Students studied Hebrew, Israeli society, and culture, and visited Reform communities in Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Upper Nazareth.[18] The program improved Hebrew skills and established lasting professional connections, and later cohorts were able to combine deep attachment to Israel with critical engagement with Israeli policies and political developments.[18]

A gradual transition in institutional language also continued across the post-1948 decades. One account traces the progression from anti-Zionism through non-Zionism to pro-Zionism to the late 1920s, characterizing it as coming fully to fruition around the time of the 1967 Six-Day War.[19] The 1976 Centenary Perspective, adopted in San Francisco, stated commitment to Medinat Yisrael, affirmed the value of living in Eretz Yisrael, and encouraged aliyah. It also called for an Israel that protects full civil, human, and religious rights for all its inhabitants and strives for lasting peace with its neighbors.[5]

Reform Zionism operates through dedicated institutions within both the global and North American Jewish organizational landscape. ARZENU — the International Federation of Reform, Progressive and Liberal Religious Zionists — is its international body.[20] Its leadership includes figures drawn from both World Zionist Congresses and the Union for Reform Judaism; Harry Levy became the federation's co-chair in August 2023.[20]

ARZA serves as the Zionist arm of the Reform movement in North America. Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, senior rabbi of Manhattan's Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, has led ARZA in the United States.[21] A 2015 HUC-JIR thesis places the World Union for Progressive Judaism's entry into the World Zionist Organization in 1976 and describes ARZA as appearing in the 1978 World Zionist Organization elections.[14]

In Israel itself, the Reform movement has 35 congregations and eight schools.[22] Progressive Jewish institutions in Israel generally do not receive state funding, apart from a few exceptions funded through the Ministry of Sport and Culture rather than the Ministry of Religions — a disparity that has remained a source of ongoing advocacy by Reform and Progressive organizations.[22]

The 1999 CCAR Statement of Principles gives the fullest contemporary account of Reform Zionist commitments as formally adopted by the movement. It identifies the Jewish people as linked across time and place by covenant and history, affirms mutual responsibility among Jews worldwide, and embraces religious and cultural pluralism in Israel and the Diaspora.[23] On Israel, it states the movement's commitment to the State of Israel, encourages aliyah and periodic visits, and calls for an Israel that promotes full civil, human, and religious rights for all inhabitants and strives for lasting peace with its neighbors.[23] It describes Israeli and Diaspora communities as meant to remain vibrant and interdependent, with learning flowing in both directions: Jews outside Israel are urged to study Hebrew and deepen their relationship with the land and its people, while Israeli Jews are seen as having much to learn from the religious life of Diaspora communities.[23] The statement also commits the movement to strengthening Progressive Judaism in Israel and around the world.[23]

In practical terms, contemporary Reform Zionism encompasses youth travel to Israel, synagogue programs on Israeli history and culture, and family and adult trips.[24] The movement's rabbinical training includes the mandatory Israel study year at HUC-JIR, ensuring that future Reform rabbis develop direct personal experience of Israeli society, culture, and the movement's Progressive congregations there.[18]

Rabbi Josh Weinberg, a URJ vice president for Israel and Reform Zionism and ARZA executive director, describes the movement's contemporary aims as seeking an Israel that is secure, Jewish, democratic, and pluralistic, with work encompassing advocacy for Israel's security, combating racism, seeking recognition for liberal Jewish movements in Israel, and supporting equality, justice, and shared society between Israelis and Palestinians.[25]

Reform Zionism's significance lies in part in the scale of the movement it represents and in part in the unusual arc of its development. With roughly 900 member congregations and 1.5 million adherents in North America, the Reform movement is one of the largest Jewish denominational bodies in the world.[3] Its embrace of Zionism — reversing a century-old institutional stance — brought a major stream of Jewish religious life into alignment with the project of Jewish statehood and national renewal.

The movement's experience also reflects a broader Jewish historical lesson about the relationship between security and ideology. Stephen S. Wise and Abba Hillel Silver, who worked across Reform and Zionist institutions during the most dangerous decades of the twentieth century, demonstrated that Zionist activism and Reform rabbinical identity could reinforce rather than undermine each other.[12][13] The mandatory Israel study year at HUC-JIR, instituted in 1969, institutionalized that connection for successive generations of Reform rabbis, building a professional cohort with direct ties to Israeli society.[18][18]

Former Israeli Knesset member Einat Wilf has observed that for Israeli Jews, "their 'Reform Judaism' was Zionism" — meaning that the democratizing and pluralist impulse that Reform Judaism channeled through religious innovation in America was channeled in Israel through the national movement itself.[26] This observation highlights how Reform Zionism occupies a distinctive position: applying the Reform tradition's values of justice, pluralism, and social engagement to the project of a Jewish state, rather than treating those values as reasons to oppose or stand apart from it.

Reform Zionism has also shaped Israeli-Diaspora relations more broadly, with the movement consistently advocating for recognition of non-Orthodox conversions for citizenship purposes under the Law of Return and for equal religious rights in Israel. Reform movement president Rick Jacobs described the Law of Return as "one of the foundations of Zionism," warning that changes to it or to conversion recognition would damage the relationship between Israel and Diaspora Jewry.[27] The meeting between Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Reform and Conservative leaders in 2022 — at which Reform and Conservative presidents expressed "unconditional support" for the State of Israel while calling on it to be home to Jews of all religious streams — illustrated how Reform Zionism positions solidarity with Israel and demands for religious equality as inseparable commitments.[28]

Reform Zionism includes internal tensions over Israeli policy, Jewish sovereignty, religious pluralism, and the boundaries of Zionist commitment.

A central tension is the relationship between institutional Zionist commitment and criticism of Israeli government policy. The 2016 Jerusalem Post report noted that no single arm of the Reform movement — not the Union for Reform Judaism, the CCAR, or HUC-JIR — categorically speaks for all Reform Jews, and that views on Israeli policy range from criticism of government decisions to concern for Israel's security, without those criticisms by themselves establishing opposition to Zionism.[19] Reform movement president Rick Jacobs described his love and loyalty to Israel as fundamental and independent of the character or policies of its government, while also opposing settlement policy and supporting a peace process aimed at a stable Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel.[29] Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, arguing that Jewish identity must remain connected to Jewish sovereignty and collective commitment, has placed himself in direct conflict with trends he identifies as influential in Reform Judaism that blur the line between policy criticism and opposition to Israel's existence.[21]

A 2026 emergency conference of the Reform movement in New York focused on concern about younger Jews distancing themselves from Israel. Among resolutions under discussion was a proposal to ordain only rabbinical students who were declared Zionists and supporters of Israel — reported as pending a vote, not as adopted. Rabbi Hirsch said at the conference that a Diaspora community that distances itself from Israel, where half the Jewish people live, has no future, and called support for Zionism the movement's central priority.[30]

Sources emphasize different milestones in the movement's gradual Zionist transition. Some accounts focus on the 1937 Columbus Platform or the change that came to fruition around the Six-Day War.[14][19] The 1976 Centenary Perspective records a later formal affirmation of commitment to Israel and aliyah.[5] Platform statements document institutional positions at particular moments and should not be read as evidence of unanimity among Reform Jews.