UK’s two top Progressive rabbis: Israel’s policies risk becoming ‘incompatible with Jewish values’

Israel’s political direction is at risk of becoming “incompatible with Jewish values,” two of the UK’s progressive rabbinical leaders tell The Guardian.

Rabbi Charley Baginsky and Rabbi Josh Levy, co-leads of the country’s Progressive Judaism movement, say that criticism of Israel’s government is “a Jewish obligation” rather than an act of disloyalty.

“We’ve often talked about the direction of Israel being an existential threat not to Jews per se, but to Judaism,” Baginsky says in an interview promoting the movement’s new book. “What happens when the direction of the government within Israel takes Israel down a line that makes it incompatible with our Jewish values? That’s a huge worry.”

The Progressive Judaism movement was formed last year in a merger of the Liberal Judaism and Reform Judaism movements. It claims to represent about 30% of the country’s Jews who are affiliated with synagogues.

The movement’s first book, “Progressive Judaism, Zionism and the State of Israel,” is a collection of 40 essays from Jewish clergy and community leaders debating issues surrounding Jewish identity, Zionism and Israel.

“We have a responsibility to show that our religious Zionism is not the religious Zionism that we see sometimes coming out of the West Bank,” Baginsky says. “My Zionism is also a recognition of Palestinian self-determination.”

Last summer, the two rabbis were booed off the stage at a London rally in support of Israeli hostages held in Gaza after they called for an end to the war in Gaza and expressed support for the idea of a Palestinian state.