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Unapologetic Zionism Is the Key to Reform Judaism's Survival

(Tablet) Interview with Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch by Armin Rosen - Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch of the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York, a flagship of the Reform Movement, spoke in a Friday night sermon in November of a letter signed by American rabbinic students criticizing Israel during the May 2021 conflict with Palestinian terror groups based in Gaza. "It isn't that you are critical of Israel," he said. "Go ahead. We need critics. The issue is that you never seem to speak about Israel's enemies or their threats against us." Ammiel Hirsch is the most prominent Reform rabbi who is willing to publicly challenge his colleagues' alleged complacency toward the movement's commitment to Israel. Hirsch explained, "I think there is a risk in our movement that we will revert to the default position of liberalism, which is the elevation of universalism at the expense of Jewish peoplehood, not as an extension of Jewish peoplehood." Without peoplehood, and without commitment to a shared purpose and destiny, liberal Judaism risked losing its ability to stand for anything recognizably Jewish.
2022-01-27 00:00:00
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