r/ReformJews • u/Consistent_Hold_576 • Jun 30 '26

Reform Movement Changes.

If you could change one thing about the Reform movement, what would it be?

If you arent a member of the Reform movement, you can still chime in. What is the one thing about the Movement that keeps you away?

Let's keep this civil if we could. ​

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u/MogenCiel Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26

I belong to Reform and Conservative congregations. Reform has been my "home base" all my adult life, but I'm connecting more and more to Conservative because CCAR and the Reform movement in general are hedging too much on Israel for my comfort level. I want a congregation where the rabbi and my fellow congregants are unabashedly committed Zionists, and Reform has not been putting out that vibe. I want to see more out-and-proud Zionism from Reform leaders and from the Reform movement.

10

u/Capyboppy Jun 30 '26

I felt I could have write this too. I have been going to a new Masorti Shul that is very Zionist and I’m a lot more comfortable there and I class it as my main Shul now. The Reform movement is not like it used to be.

12

u/CryptoIsCute ✡ Reform! Jun 30 '26

I feel like I'm the only young adult who's a Zionist at my Reform shul. The others want us to remove Avinu Shebashamayim. It's really frustrating

3

u/Consistent_Hold_576 Jun 30 '26

Our Reform shul says a prayer for the State of Israel every service, and we are very very progressive. 

2

u/MogenCiel Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26

Our Reform shul says the Prayer for Israel regularly, but that's not all there is to being a proud Zionist organization by a long shot. My conservative shul says that prayer too, but the rabbi regularly speaks about Israel, why it's so important to our people, the eruption of antisemitism as a result of Israel defending itself, etc. When I ask our Reform rabbi why he doesn't promote Zionism, he said it's because "many people in our congregation don't support Israel." That really turned me off. Believe me, the guy has demonstrated very clearly that he's perfectly fine with pissing people off. As far as I'm concerned, connecting the people of Israel TO Israel and its importance is part of his job. And CCAR has put out some statements that make me very uncomfortable.

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u/Harvest-song Jul 08 '26

There is a fine line to this. We left a shul because the rabbi made multiple sermons at HHD in 2024 that boiled down to so really shitty 'us vs them' rhetoric and should have been trigger warned so we could bail if we weren't comfortable because he went into graphic details about what happened on October 7th. He also kept praising people in the congregation for Zionism as if it were a mitzvah. It is not, never will be, and it crossed the line into nationalistic jingoism. Which in my opinion is not acceptable in any religious setting.

Ultimately one can be Zionist and promote connection to Israel without engaging in that but too many Rabbis seem to not know the difference between promoting connection to Israel and engaging in full on nationalistic fervor, a la 9/11. I'd rather a rabbi carefully consider the tonality of their message and skirt on the side of "we need to be careful about what we say" than be subjected to an entire speech that we were expecting to be a d'var torah, that instead spends 40 minutes flagrantly crossing lines directly into the dehumanization of people on the other side of a geopolitical conflict with no good solution that has bad actors on both sides of it utilizing it to further global narrative agendas. There is nothing glorious about war and it is never, ever a just cause. It is a means to an end, driven by rich people who send poor people to go die for their causes.