More ‘sober’ US Reform movement and Israelis reach new understandings, lead rabbi says
After Israel trip, Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch of New York’s Stephen Wise Free Synagogue says visit to northern, southern borders helped young US rabbis better grasp Mideast challenges
Luke Tress is The Times of Israel's New York correspondent.
NEW YORK — During a trip to Israel this month, Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch and a delegation of US Reform rabbis listened to artillery fire and a drone buzzing overhead on a tour of the war-torn south. On the northern border, the group heard automatic gunfire, despite the truce on that front. An attorney wept while recounting to the group her struggle to have international human rights groups recognize sexual assault against Israeli women.
The experiences helped bring home the reality in Israel for the young rabbis, as part of a larger trend in the Reform movement toward a better understanding of Israeli life since the October 7, 2023, Hamas invasion. That yearning for understanding has been reciprocated among Israelis, who today better grasp the importance of strong relations with non-Orthodox Diaspora Jews, Hirsch recently told The Times of Israel.
The senior rabbi of the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, Hirsch is a prominent leader in the US Reform movement. Long before the Hamas attack and ensuing war, Hirsch prioritized fostering a connection to Israel, as younger Jews slid away from supporting the Jewish state. He views the connection as an existential imperative for the Reform movement and Diaspora Jewry.
The October 7 attack and its fallout have helped build that understanding for the Reform movement, he said.
“Most of the members of our movement, including its leadership, its lay leadership and its rabbinic leadership, have been made more sober for the challenges that Israel faces, and the opposition to Israel and to the Jewish community,” Hirsch said in a phone interview last week.
For Israelis, the war has helped foster an understanding of the need for a connection with Reform Jewry, he said. The movement is the largest denomination in the US, but has scant presence in Israel and is viewed with skepticism by many Israelis. The religious establishment in Israel is dominated by the Orthodox rabbinate, which does not recognize Reform conversions, for example. US Jews have also clashed with the rabbinate over issues such as mixed-gender access to the Western Wall. Before the war, public criticism of the Netanyahu government and its judicial overhaul exacerbated some of those tensions.
Hirsch said his delegation was “uniformly well-received.” The war has caused a “profound sense of aloneness” in Israel, a realization of how events in the Middle East affect Diaspora Jews, and the “critical need” for a connection between the two sides, Hirsch said.
“In order to have that bond, that connection, that covenant, you have to have it with non-Orthodox Jews, because non-Orthodox Jews are 90 percent of American Jewry. I think Israelis understand that better now. I think they understand it emotionally in a way they didn’t before,” he said.
“I hope it’s long-lasting, and I hope that even those who consider themselves Orthodox have a self-reflection that brings them to an understanding that what unites us, especially at this moment, this critical moment in time in Jewish history, is far greater than what divides us,” he said.
A quest to ‘amplify’ Israel
During Hirsch’s week-long trip, 23 Reform rabbis from North America toured Israel and met with civic leaders. The group is the second cohort of Stephen Wise’s Amplify Israel Rabbinic Fellowship, a year-long professional development program for early-career rabbis. The fellowship is part of the synagogue’s Amplify Israel initiative, a series of programs meant to foster Zionism and support for Israel in progressive Jewish spaces. The program selects early-career rabbis who will be active in the coming decades to maintain a long-term impact. The trip also serves to build connections between the rabbis involved.
During the program, the rabbis study the foundational principles of Zionism, pair with veteran rabbi mentors, and learn to express their Zionist positions through statements such as opinion pieces, media appearances, and on social media.
Hirsch also discussed some of Reform rabbis’ challenges on the home front since the start of the war, such as combating anti-Jewish discrimination. Reform rabbis are combating antisemitism by counseling community members, and by helping congregants better understand antisemitism and when legitimate criticism of Israel veers into opposition to the country’s existence.
“We are giving advice on how to respond to that, whether it’s in schools and universities, in workspaces, in the media. We have committees and professionals working on that in terms of where our congregants are. And also in our public messages,” Hirsch said. “One of our main messages is the reason it’s important to respond is if we don’t respond to every antisemitic action that we see, we allow antisemitism to take root and to fester.”
Different Jewish groups experience antisemitism differently, Hirsch pointed out. Reform Jews on the street are “not immediately identifiable as some of our brothers and sisters who are Orthodox,” he said.
“But at the same time, we are much more involved in much greater numbers in the institutions that you say express deep hostility to Israel, which often descends into hostility towards Jews,” he said, such as non-Jewish schools, universities, and the secular publishing industry. Congregants in all those environments have reported widespread antisemitism, he said.
He separated the Jewish community into three loose categories. The anti-Zionist left has hardened in their opposition to Israel, he said.
“At least in the short term, it is difficult for me and other members of the Jewish establishment to be able to speak meaningfully with them and convince them about anything,” he said, saying the group is a small minority, but overrepresented among younger Jews.
The largest group has become more engaged in Jewish life and community, is attending synagogues more often, and giving more support to Jewish institutions.
The third faction has become overwhelmed and withdrawn, he said.
“They’re not anti-Zionists, but they’ve walked away and are out there, but are not necessarily involved,” he said. “We have a very powerful interest and need to reach as many of them as possible and those Jews are reachable.”
Younger Reform Jews also fall into those three groups, and the Gen Z and Jewish college students who have taken a stand on antisemitism “constitute the future leadership of the American Jewish community,” he said.
He said the future of the movement is uncertain, but he hopes that some of the positive changes are here to stay.
“I don’t know whether the movement back to Jewish institutions and back to Judaism is deep enough to be long-lasting in the Jewish community. I hope so,” he said.
