Claiming Judaism: A Response to Rabbi Buchdahl

Without a doubt, Central Synagogue has become the flagship Reform community in the country. People all over the world consider it their Jewish home, from those who attend in person in Manhattan, to those connecting online for whom it is their lifeline to Jewish communal practice. I served at Central as an educator for two years prior to enrolling at HUC-JIR to become a rabbi, and, in a beshert turn of events, the current senior rabbi, Angela Warnick Buchdahl, grew up in the same congregation as I did in Tacoma, Washington. I have fond memories of my early childhood at our synagogue day camp where she, as a teen, helped lead the younger generation in song as we visited the local Jewish elder care home–I even still remember the words to the camp theme song she wrote!

It is with this sense of connection and care I want to respond to her recent sermon on Yom Kippur, “Claiming Zionism.” She compares our moment to a debate between two 19th century New York based rabbis: Alexander Kohut, one of her predecessors at a synagogue that became part of Central Synagogue down the line, and Kaufmann Kohler, one of the chief architects of Reform Judaism in America, who served at a predecessor synagogue to Temple Emanu-El in Manhattan. Referring to a New York Times article about their public debate from 1885, she relates that these two rabbis were contesting the nature of what it meant to be Jewish. In the article itself, the debate is clear: Kohut was defending his position that “anyone who on principle discards and disregards any ordinance of Mosaic rabbinical Judaism has ceased to be a Jew,” while Kohler was suggesting that “all these laws of Moses, as far as they are of a mere ceremonial character and not moral and perpetual statutes, are subject to change.” 

She sees echoes of this debate in our moment today, arguing that her belief that all Jews are connected via a national character, which the Reform Movement under Kohler rejected, is in line with her predecessor Kohut. But the debate between these two rabbis was entirely different in nature. They were deliberating the question of religious orthodoxy versus reform. These are lower-case on purpose. At the time, Reform and Orthodox Judaism didn’t exist as movements. They existed as approaches to how people understood the nature of Judaism and who is included and excluded.

Central Synagogue is a great example of the power of reform. Over the past 30 years, Central has changed from a Classical Reform synagogue with robes and liturgical organ and choir music, to the model for creative contemporary services we see today. Its congregants are, by and large, not adherents to the laws of kashrut in the way that Kohut suggested was necessary to remain a Jew. And, Central’s great work towards social justice and tikkun olam is grounded in the very ethos of the Reform Judaism of Kohler. All of these elements of Central Synagogue’s great success are, in fact, because they moved beyond the insularity of leaders like Kohut, towards leaders like Kohler. So why did she frame the debate this way? I would guess the answer is in the part of the Pittsburgh Platform quote that was excised from her sermon: “We consider ourselves no longer a nation, but a religious community, and therefore expect neither a return to Palestine, nor a sacrificial worship under the sons of Aaron, nor the restoration of any of the laws concerning the Jewish state.” 

This explicitly anti-Zionist statement well predated the Soviet Union, or any kind of antisemitic modes of anti-Zionism that Rabbi Buchdahl referred to in her sermon. It was core to Reform Judaism at its birth, which the organization I currently helm, the American Council for Judaism, has maintained as a primary tenet. Jews cannot be reduced down to something as material and tangible as a nation. We are much more, and our connection is via Torah, not via an imposed blood-and-soil identity. This is our anti-Zionism, one approach to Judaism among many. What holds Jews together, if not nationhood, is the subject of a longer essay of mine, forthcoming soon. There I apply Kohler's own method to Kohler's conclusions and argue that Jews are a collective of many peoples, bound together by a shared and evolving engagement with Torah: its texts, its local practices, and its calendar.

And there is the rub. Her argument is one of orthodoxy versus reform. Over the past 60 years, Zionism has slowly encroached from its position as one of the many possible collective sources of inspiration for Reform Jews to its primary orthodoxy. When there are no requirements for religious belief or practice within the walls of a synagogue like Central (an approach Kohut would have rejected), the one orthodox requirement for belonging is now an affirmation that you “believe Israel should exist as a Jewish state.” Setting aside that a state’s existence does not require belief, this tenet of orthodoxy is not reflective of American Jewry. As Rabbi Buchdahl said herself, only a third of American Jews identify as Zionists. The same poll may suggest that 88% believe Israel has “a right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state,” but the reality is that “Jewish and democratic” is an ill defined myth. Those who otherwise accept the terminology reject it once material implications are examined. The contemporary material reality of Israel also contests this formulation. A majority of the population under Israel’s control from the river to the sea is not Jewish, and an enormous percentage of the non-Jewish Palestinian people living under its legal system aren’t given basic rights, but are instead living under military occupation and apartheid. 

Zionism is Jewish nationalism. It is the belief that Jews exist singularly as a nation, akin to the Spanish nation, the Italian nation, or the German nation, and that due to this, Jews should have a nation state that is majority Jewish. The attendant belief is that all Jews, whether they live in this nation state or not, see it as their “homeland.” The state, then, is the central piece of being Jewish, and Jews worldwide are responsible for it for good or for ill. This is the prevailing form of Zionist orthodoxy, supported both by the WZO’s definition of Zionism, and the definition inherent to the state of Israel’s 2018 Nation-State Law. These two institutions which have the power and authority to act on behalf of Zionism are the ones capable of truly defining it; no amount of nuance or pointing to past eras or future possibilities changes these material expressions of Zionism. Most importantly, the material expressions are why people are increasingly uncomfortable with the term.

As we look at the world around us spinning out of control, with antisemitic attacks on the rise, I would suggest Rabbi Buchdahl reconsider the parable she quoted from Kohut’s speech. His suggestion was that the individual drilling a hole in the boat was the Reformers who were allowing for greater flexibility and creativity within Judaism, the very flexibility and creativity that has given rise to the powerful pulpit Rabbi Buchdahl occupies. I would turn it around: Those who proclaim that Zionism is intrinsic to Judaism, while the state of Israel as the primary expression of Zionism in the world continues a genocidal campaign against the Palestinians, are drilling a hole in the boat of Judaism. They are creating a narrative in which she, and I, and every Jew in America are responsible for the worst excesses of the Israeli government because of this connection of peoplehood. The logic suggests that the government of our so-called “homeland” does, in fact, represent a core aspect of what it means to be Jewish worldwide, and we are culpable for its actions. I cannot imagine a more destructive approach to take in this moment of global crisis, with Israel’s fascist regime partnering with our own in America to commit mass-murder and destabilize the entire region.

I pray that as we begin 5787, you, Rabbi Buchdahl, and those who share your view, can spend time reflecting on the overall impact of your words, and please do the work to hear from us Jews who defy your orthodoxy. You are free, of course, to commit your Jewish lives to Zionism, but please: if you choose to do so, make it clear that your boat is Zionism, not Judaism.