Josh Weinberg

Friday March 27, 2026 – ט׳ נִיסָן תשפ”ו

One of the things I love about Jewish holidays is that even though the stories to be told, the liturgy and texts to be read, and the songs to be sung may remain the same, it is we who have changed. We lived through the entire year leading up to this holiday with new experiences that shaped and molded us in different ways.  Upon reflecting on last Pesach, my strong memory of adorning our Seder tables with yellow ribbons and reading passages calling to “Bring Them Home,” it is almost unbelievable that many of those hostages who yearned for release will now sit around their Seder tables with families and friends recounting their own traumatic journey from bondage to freedom.

However, sadly, this year we are not out of harm’s way. Of all the meaningful moments of our Seder, I want to focus on an enigmatic yet extraordinary story in our Haggadah: five rabbis—Rabban Gamliel, Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Yehoshua, Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, and Rabbi Akiva—are gathered in Bnei Brak, telling the story of the Exodus all night until their students came and said, “Our teachers, the time has come to recite the morning Shema.” We often imagine this as a peaceful scene. But historically, it was anything but. These rabbis lived under Roman domination, in the shadow of destruction and repression. Tradition suggests they were in hiding—perhaps even in a cave—recounting a story of liberation while an empire stood ready to crush them. Their Seder was likely not comfortable (despite their “mesubim – reclining”), but it was courageous. They spoke of freedom precisely when their freedom was threatened.

I imagine that, sitting around their table, they were not of one voice on matters of the day. Rabbi Akiva famously saw in Bar Kochba – the military mastermind who led the rebellion against Rome in 132 CE – the possibility of redemption, so much so that Rabbi Akiva identified Bar Kochba as the long-awaited Messiah. But other sages were far more skeptical, warning that the moment was not yet ripe, that the risks of rebellion against Rome were potentially catastrophic. Even as they told the ancient story of liberation from Egypt, they may have held profoundly different views about whether, and how, that liberation should be pursued in their own time. Around that table in Bnei Brak sat both urgency and restraint, messianic hope and cautious realism. It is not hard to hear, in their debate, an echo of our own times: questions about war and survival, about when to act and when to hold back, about the costs of power and the dangers of passivity.

Today, in Israel, that same scene unfolds in a different theater. Families will gather around Seder tables, retelling the ancient story, while sirens pierce the night and the families move to bomb shelters, fearing missiles from Iran and its proxies. They sit, quite literally, under cover. And yet the story is told. The questions are asked. The wine is poured. Like the rabbis in Bnei Brak, they insist on telling a story of redemption in a moment that feels anything but redeemed. The setting has changed, but the spiritual defiance remains the same. And they sit, literally without daylight, not knowing when the sun has risen and when it is time to say the morning Shema.

A Haggadah from Kibbutz Neot Mordechai from the early 1950s captures the magnitude of what is happening in that act of telling:

“You do not have a record of historical recognition more profound than this,” it teaches, “and you do not have a confluence of the individual and the society… larger than this ancient pedagogic imperative.”

The Exodus story is not merely the story we tell, or the accepted narrative of our collective story. It is a formation. It teaches “a loathing for subjugation” and “a love for freedom,” and perhaps most strikingly, it is “so totally directed toward welcoming the future.” Even in its earliest telling, it was not only about what was, but about what could yet be. It is, in the deepest sense, a story told forward.

That is why Pesach insists on two truths at once, and two potentially competing messages that we instill in our children.

“בְּכָל־דּוֹר וָדוֹר חַיָּב אָדָם לִרְאוֹת אֶת־עַצְמוֹ כְּאִלּוּ הוּא יָצָא מִמִּצְרַיִם”

In every generation, we must see ourselves as if we personally went out from Egypt.

And also:

וְהִיא שֶׁעָמְדָה לַאֲבוֹתֵינוּ וְלָנוּ. שֶׁלֹּא אֶחָד בִּלְבָד עָמַד עָלֵינוּ לְכַלּוֹתֵנוּ, אֶלָּא שֶׁבְּכָל דּוֹר וָדוֹר עוֹמְדִים עָלֵינוּ לְכַלוֹתֵנוּ

In every generation, someone rises up to destroy us.

To be a Jew is to live inside that tension, unresolved, and to carry it. To see ourselves as slaves is not only to remember our own past, but to cultivate a moral imagination wide enough to recognize the suffering of all those who remain trapped, oppressed, or dehumanized in our world today. It asks us to feel their vulnerability as if it were our own, and to be moved to action. At the same time, we cannot ignore the reality that hatred persists—that antisemitism is not a relic of history but a present danger, as seen in the violent attacks against Jews in recent weeks in Jackson, MS, Detroit, MI, Toronto, London, and of course throughout Israel. These twin obligations—to empathize outward and to remain vigilant inward—do not cancel each other out. They define the complexity of Jewish existence: a people shaped by oppression, committed to justice, and clear-eyed about the threats that still confront us.

As Michael Walzer writes in his 1986 book, Exodus and Revolution, “Wherever you live, it is probably Egypt.” The condition of constraint, of injustice, of yet-to-be-actualized freedom is never entirely past. But Walzer does not leave us there: “There is a better place… a promised land.” The story could be seen as a diagnosis, but it is essentially a direction. And crucially, “The way to the Land is through the wilderness… There is no way to get from here to there except by joining together and marching.” Redemption is not given. It is made—collectively, imperfectly, and often amid deep disagreement about the path forward.

So, what do we teach our children, sitting at our Seders—whether in comfort or under cover?

We teach them to inherit not only the story, but the argument. To understand that Jewish history is not a straight line, but a conversation, often even a dispute, about how to move from Egypt to freedom. We teach them to reject both despair and illusion: not to believe that the world is already redeemed, but also not to believe that it can never be redeemed. We teach them that Jewish Peoplehood means we struggle together, argue together, and ultimately walk forward together.

We teach them that to remember Egypt is to develop a moral instinct: a hatred of oppression, a sensitivity to vulnerability, and a commitment to building a different kind of society. We teach them that even when we disagree about הדרך—the path—we remain bound to one another and to a shared future.

And perhaps most importantly, we teach them what those rabbis in Bnei Brak already knew—and what those families in shelters already know: that telling the story is itself an act of faith and resistance. To speak of freedom in a moment of fear is to refuse to let fear define us in the future. To retell the Exodus is to insist that history is not closed, that redemption is not finished, and that we are still on the way.

Pesach under cover is not a contradiction. It is the most authentic expression of the holiday that nobody wanted and for which we all pray and work to avoid. It reminds us that the Jewish story has never been told in perfect safety—and never in perfect agreement. And yet it has always been told—with courage, with argument, and with an unyielding commitment to the possibility of freedom ahead.

Shabbat Shalom and Hag Pesach Sameach!

March 20, 2026 – ב׳ נִיסָן תשפ”ו

There are moments in Jewish history when the question is not only what is being done to us, but what we are doing to others, and who we are becoming as a result.

This is one of those moments. While Israel is at war with Iran and Israeli citizens are running back and forth to their shelters and safe rooms, groups of extremist settlers are running wild through West Bank Palestinian villages, beating up people, wreaking havoc, and even killing.

The Israeli Reform Movement shared in a recent statement:

“In the two weeks since the war with Iran began, seven Palestinians have been killed as a result of actions by extremist settlers: Thaer Farouq Hamayel, 24; Fare Jawdat Hamayel, 57; Muhammad Hassan Murrah, 55; Amir Muhammad Shanaran, 28; Muhammad ‘Azem Muammar, 51, and his brother Fahim ‘Azem Muammar, 47; and Amir Odeh, 28. Four members of the Bani Odeh family, Ali, 37, Waad, 35, and two of their children, Mohammad, 5, and Othman, 7, were shot point-blank in their car by fire from an undercover Israeli unit, who then dragged out

Dozens of other Palestinians and activists have been injured in violent attacks by extremist settlers. For example, a few days ago, extremist settlers broke into the residential compound of a Palestinian family in Khirbet Humsa in the northern Jordan Valley. They gathered a group of ten adults and seven children, members of the family and volunteers from abroad, and abused them for a prolonged period. The abuse included being bound, beatings, the pouring of cold water, humiliation, threats, and the sexual assault of one of the residents. Four Palestinians and two activists required medical treatment following the attack and were taken to the hospital. In another incident, a human rights activist, Aviv Tatarsky of the organization Ir Amim, was attacked in Deir Istiya and beaten until he bled, with fists, kicks, and blows from a rubber hose, after he tried to defend Palestinian farmers.”

After centuries of vulnerability, Jews have sovereignty, strength, and the capacity to shape our reality. This is a blessing beyond what most of our ancestors could have imagined.

But it is also a test.

The prophets of Israel warned us about the abuse of power long before we attained power and sovereignty in the modern era. Isaiah cried out: “Your hands are full of blood… Learn to do good. Seek justice. Relieve the oppressed.” The prophets did not speak to enemies. They spoke to the ancient Israelites, and to us.

The rabbis deepened this revulsion in the abuse of power this way: “Whoever destroys a single life, it is as if they have destroyed an entire world.”

We have to ask ourselves – what happens when we Jews, in the name of Judaism, harm others—especially the vulnerable?

The tradition gives us a name for that: Hillul Hashem—a desecration of God’s Name.

And, quoting from Leviticus, they say:  “Do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor.”

It was precisely this kind of moment that two great sages of modern times, Dr. Yeshayahu Leibowitz and Rabbi Irving “Yitz” Greenberg, warned about.

Leibowitz (1903-1994), an Orthodox public intellectual and polymath, feared that Jewish sovereignty without moral restraint would corrode Judaism from within. He warned that when we elevate the state, the army, or even the Land above our ethical obligations, we risk worshiping idols – avodah zarah.

Judaism affirms that the Land of Israel is holy. The Torah states that it is the Promised Land. It is beloved. But it is not an absolute.

To claim that land overrides all other values—that it justifies harm, humiliation, and the abandonment of restraint—is, in this framework, to transform a sacred gift into an idol.

Here, Rabbi Yitz Greenberg (b. 1933) offers a framing that is sobering and hopeful:

“The test of power is how [a nation] treats the powerless.”

Jewish power, he teaches, is not a betrayal of our past—it is, in many ways, its fulfillment. But it comes with a covenantal demand: that we wield that power differently. That we hold ourselves to a higher standard, not a lower one.

The opening of Sefer Vayikra (the Book of Leviticus), a text many dismiss as technical or unappealing because it deals mainly with sacrifices, begins with a striking premise: that when human beings do wrong, even unintentionally, there is a path of acknowledgment, responsibility, and repair.

“אָדָם כִּי יַקְרִיב מִכֶּם…” — “When a person brings an offering from among you…” (Leviticus 1:2)

The rabbis linger on that one key word: mikem—“from among you.” The offering is not just something you bring. It comes from within you. Real atonement begins not with deflection, but with פנימיות—with the willingness to look inward and say: this, too, is ours.

A few chapters later, the Torah speaks of חטא—sin—not only as a matter of intentional wrongdoing, but also of failure, negligence, and moral blind spots:

“If a person sins…” (Leviticus 4)

The Torah assumes something essential about human nature: that we will get things wrong, that even good people—even a holy community—can cause harm, sometimes without fully seeing it in the moment.

From its beginning, the Torah insists on another foundational truth: that every human being is created בצלם אלוהים, in the image of God. “Whoever sheds human blood,” we are taught in Genesis, diminishes the Divine presence in the world.

More than almost any other command, the Torah repeats:

“You shall not oppress the stranger, for you know the soul of the stranger, having been strangers in the land of Egypt.”

This is not only about being kind or doing the opposite of the wrong done to us. It is fundamentally about the dark side of power.

Because the Torah understands something profound: the greatest moral test is not what we do when we are powerless, but what we do when we are not.

This is where Vayikra returns, quietly but insistently.

When we have done wrong—whether intentionally or not—the Torah does not ask us to justify, deny, or deflect. It asks us to bring something from within ourselves. To acknowledge the harm we do. To take responsibility. And only then, to begin again.

Not because we are uniquely guilty, but because we are uniquely called.

To speak these truths is not to deny complexity. It is not to ignore fear or the very real need for security and self-defense. But it is equally clear: Security and self-defense do not sanctify or justify cruelty or lawlessness.

I often find myself in conversations about this. Some, on the far left, say, “See, this is the result of Zionism.” And some on the far Right easily dismiss this as a few errant weeds or bad apples that do not represent the mainstream, and nothing is as bad as Palestinian terror and rejectionism.

Sadly, I find myself unable to accept either of their claims. This is an aberration of Zionism, and this is not just a few bad apples; it is a growing sore that is green-lighted by the government, unbridled by law enforcement, and is further tarnishing Israel’s image abroad.

How should we understand the motivation of these Jewish terrorists running rampant throughout the West Bank, terrorizing Palestinians?

Many perpetrators, of course, do not regard themselves as aggressors but as defenders. They may believe the state and army are not doing enough to protect Jews. Their violence is framed as preemptive deterrence or retaliation, and for them, the lines between defense and revenge become blurred. In some circles, this draws (often loosely or incorrectly) on the concept of the rodef (a Talmudic permission slip to kill anyone who  is regarded as a malignant pursuer)—but without the strict limits that halakhah (Jewish law) actually imposes (despite them wearing kippot and peyot).

What is often referred to as “price tag” (tag machir) logic reflects a pattern in which attacks on Palestinians—and at times even on Israeli security forces—are carried out as acts of retaliation, whether for Palestinian violence or for Israeli government actions such as dismantling outposts. Their underlying goal is not only revenge but to raise the perceived cost of any move seen as threatening the settlement enterprise; in that sense, wanton violence functions less as a spontaneous emotional response and more as a strategy of intimidation and signaling. This dynamic is compounded by a broader breakdown in law enforcement and a sense of impunity. When perpetrators believe there will be few consequences to their violence—due to weak or inconsistent enforcement, sympathetic or conflicted local environments, or slow legal processes—that violence is more likely to proliferate. In rabbinic terms, this mayhem reflects the collapse of a governing structure –  שֶׁאִלְמָלֵא מוֹרָאָהּ, אִישׁ אֶת רֵעֵהוּ חַיִּים בְּלָעוֹ (Pirkei Avot 3:2), the essential fear of the law that prevents society from descending into chaos, “people will swallow each other alive.”

At the same time, a subset of younger activists, often described as “hilltop youth,” has become particularly associated with even more extreme forms of violence. Many of these individuals are deeply alienated from mainstream Israeli society, distrustful of state institutions, and at times influenced by messianic and apocalyptic ideas. Their group dynamics reward escalation and defiance. What emerges is less a coherent ideology than a volatile mix of identity, rebellion, and absolutism.

Overlaying all of this is a process of dehumanization, in which Palestinians are no longer regarded as human beings but as a monolithic threat. Their moral concern for the sacred character of life becomes conditional, eventually disappearing, and violence becomes easier to justify. The corruption of their values stands in stark tension with the Torah’s foundational insistence that every human being is created B’tzelem Elohim, in the image of God. Even former Prime Minister and past head of the Yesha Council Naftali Bennett condemned this violence on X, saying, “We did not establish a Jewish state so that violent gangs would operate within it. I strongly condemn any display of nationalist violence by extremist Jews in Judea and Samaria.

So what are we called to do?

To look inward—mikem.
To refuse the comfort of denial.
To remember who we Jews are meant to be.

Because the question before us is not only political. It is spiritual, theological, and moral.

What kind of people will we be in an age of Jewish power?

Will we respond to “Jews behaving badly” by circling the wagons, or by doing what the Torah, the ancient prophets of Israel, and rabbinic tradition demand: acknowledging, repairing, and returning?

The time has come to act. Condemnation is not enough.

To echo the call of our Israeli Reform Movement:

“We call on the government to treat these horrifying acts with the utmost severity.

We call on the IDF and the police to take immediate steps to identify the Jewish terrorists and bring them to justice.

We call on the leaders of the settler public and the rabbinic leadership of the communities in which the perpetrators reside to not remain silent! Do not keep the criminals within your midst.

We call on the media to report every case of violence and assault and to demand a response from law enforcement authorities.

We call on the public to demand that the perpetrators be brought to justice, individuals whose actions are as far from the values of Judaism as light is from darkness.”

Vayikra begins with a call for responsibility and accountability.

And that call still echoes—for us.

Shabbat Shalom.

Friday March 13, 2026 – כ״ד אֲדָר תשפ”ו

Dear World,

Please stop shooting at synagogues and taking your anger out on the Jews. Thank you.

In the past week alone, five synagogues have been targeted in attacks, including yesterday’s assault on Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, outside Detroit. Jewish communities across the country are shaken, frightened, and exhausted. Once again, we find ourselves repeating a basic plea that should not have to be said in the twenty-first century: Jewish houses of worship are not legitimate targets for anyone’s anger, grievance, or political protest.

If you have an issue with the Israeli government, that is legitimate—depending on what your issue is (as in critiquing Israel’s policies or its existence). Democracies invite debate, criticism, and disagreement. But ramming your car into a synagogue preschool or opening fire near a Jewish community will not bring back relatives lost in Lebanon. It will not change Israeli policy. And it will not be seen as meaningful protest or legitimate policy critique. It is antisemitism, plain and simple.

Temple Israel in West Bloomfield has no sway over what Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli government decide to do in prosecuting a war. Nor does it control the decisions of the United States government in the Middle East. The families who pray there, send their children to preschool there, and gather there for holidays and life-cycle moments are simply American Jews living their lives.

When anger at the Israeli government becomes violence directed at Jews in suburban Detroit, the world is not witnessing political protest—it is witnessing antisemitism.

And the Jewish community is tired of having to explain this over and over again.

I recently asked my daughter’s high school principal—an intelligent, thoughtful, and caring educator—how he would react if students of Chinese descent were blamed and ridiculed for the policies of the Chinese government, or if students with Russian-sounding names were harassed because of Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine. He was appalled by the thought. Then he paused and said quietly, “Oh, I see.”

Thankfully, he affirmed that no student should ever be singled out because of their religion, ethnicity, or heritage. No one should have to hide who they are because of geopolitical events thousands of miles away.

That principle should apply to Jews as well.

Yet the reality of Jewish life today tells a different story. As an Israeli, I am conditioned to sit in restaurants and cafés, quietly keeping an eye on the door and noticing who enters. As a Jew in America, I sit pray in synagogue on Shabbat aware that we have undergone active shooter training. I know where the exits are. I look around the room, notice the elderly woman with a walker, and wonder how I would help her if something terrible were to happen. I glance at the children and imagine how we would protect them if—God forbid—the unthinkable occurred.

As a parent, I worry that the next shooting could take place at my children’s school. As a member of a Jewish day school board, we spend countless hours each year fundraising not for scholarships, programs, or teachers, but for security. There’s no question that preparation is key to preventing tragedies. Rabbi Marla Hornsten of Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, MI, commented to me, “This is the thing that we had all prepared for and prayed that it would never happen, and then it did, and thank God that security was well prepared and that no one was hurt.”

My own synagogue recently installed a sophisticated metal detection system at the entrance. It is technology that the many churches in our neighborhood simply do not need. I do not resent them for that—in fact, I pray they never will need it. But the reality is that Jewish institutions must now spend enormous resources simply to protect themselves.

Just imagine what Jewish communities—and society as a whole—could accomplish and contribute if those resources, personnel, and hours of vigilance were devoted instead to education, service, and community building.

Israel today spends an enormous share of its national resources on defense—well over five percent of its entire economy, one of the highest defense burdens of any developed country in the world. Much of that spending is necessary to defend its citizens from real threats posed by Iran and the network of armed groups it supports across the region. But every shekel devoted to missiles, interceptors, and fortifications is a shekel that cannot be invested in schools, housing, healthcare, or the social fabric of Israeli society. Imagine what Israel—and the entire region—could build if those resources were not consumed by the constant need for defense.

The truth is that antisemitism is not new. The modern Zionist movement emerged in part as a response to what was once called the “Jewish Question.” Theodor Herzl believed that the creation of a Jewish state would normalize Jewish existence. If Jews had a nation like every other nation, he believed, we would finally be accepted among the family of nations.

Others were less optimistic. Ze’ev Jabotinsky believed that hatred of Jews would not simply disappear. In his view, Jewish sovereignty was not only about national revival—it was about survival, about ensuring that the Jewish people would have the strength to defend themselves in the face of recurring hostility.

American Jews once believed that the promise of the American dream might offer another answer. In the great melting pot, Jews would assimilate, become fully American, and leave behind the old hatreds of Europe. Jews rose to remarkable levels of success and influence in American life—far beyond what our small numbers might predict.

And yet, here we are.

Today antisemitism is again rising from multiple directions. It appears on the far right and on the far left. It manifests as conspiracy theories about Jewish power, and as ideological rejection of Jewish nationalism. It appears in vandalism, harassment, and increasingly, in violence.

Part of the tragedy is that hatred of Jews has always been fueled by the same dangerous myths—that Jews are uniquely powerful, disloyal, or responsible for the world’s problems—and today those ancient conspiracies often merge with modern political anger at Israel. The Iranian regime has elevated this hatred into state ideology, openly denying Israel’s right to exist and repeatedly declaring that the “Zionist regime” must be eliminated, a position rooted in the revolutionary ideology that emerged after Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution and continues to shape its regional strategy today.

None of this is new to Jewish history.

On Purim we read how Haman described the Jewish people to the Persian king:

יֶשְׁנוֹ עַם־אֶחָד מְפֻזָּר וּמְפֹרָד בֵּין הָעַמִּים… וְדָתֵיהֶם שֹׁנוֹת מִכָּל עָם
“There is a certain people scattered and dispersed among the nations… whose laws are different from those of every other people.” (Esther 3:8)

Difference itself became the accusation.

And on Passover we sing the haunting words of the Haggadah:

שֶׁלֹּא אֶחָד בִּלְבָד עָמַד עָלֵינוּ לְכַלּוֹתֵנוּ, אֶלָּא שֶׁבְּכָל דּוֹר וָדוֹר עוֹמְדִים עָלֵינוּ לְכַלּוֹתֵנוּ
“Not only one has risen against us to destroy us, but in every generation there are those who rise against us.”

These words are not meant to instill despair. They are meant to remind us that hatred of Jews has appeared in many forms throughout history—and that Jewish survival has required resilience, solidarity, and moral clarity.

But when anger at the Israeli government turns into violence against Jews in Detroit, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, or anywhere else, it ceases to be a political protest. It becomes antisemitism.

Criticize Israel where warranted. I do, all the time. Debate its policies. Protest its government.

Democracies invite that.   But know that your words and slogans are not just words or catchy chants. They are being taken to heart and translated into action. So choose them carefully.

Targeting Jews—our synagogues, our schools, our children—is not activism. It is hatred.

And it must stop.

Because a synagogue is not a battlefield. A preschool is not a proxy for geopolitics. And Jews—wherever we live—are not responsible for the decisions of a government thousands of miles away. In fact, targeting Jews only diverts attention away from the actual issues, unifies us, and prevents further empathy for the cause you claim to promote.

The world must finally learn this basic truth: attacking Jews will not bring justice to anyone. It will only repeat one of humanity’s oldest and most shameful patterns.

Enough.

Friday March 13, 2026 –  כ״ד אֲדָר תשפ”ו

When the sirens sound in Israel, everything stops. Parents grab their children and run for shelter. Schools close. Streets empty. In these days of war with Iran, Israelis are living with the daily reality of danger and uncertainty. For Jews in the Diaspora, the experience can feel far away and filtered through headlines, politics, and social media debates. But Reform Zionism insists on something different. It calls us into relationship with Israel in its most vulnerable moments. It asks us not to watch from a distance, but to share in the responsibility of building and protecting the Jewish state.

The Torah offers a powerful metaphor for this work in Parashat Vayakhel-Pekudei. After the trauma of the Golden Calf, Moses gathers the people—וַיַּקְהֵל מֹשֶׁה אֶת כָּל עֲדַת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל (Exodus 35:1). The entire community comes together with a shared purpose: to build the Mishkan, a sacred dwelling place. But the Mishkan is not imposed from above. It is built through the contributions of the people themselves—those whose hearts move them (כָּל נְדִיב לֵב Exodus 35:5). Some bring precious metals, others textiles, others craftsmanship and skill. Together, they create something holy.

In many ways, the Zionist project echoes this biblical moment. The rebirth of Jewish sovereignty was not a single political act but a collective endeavor. Pioneers drained swamps and planted fields. Teachers built schools. Soldiers defended a fragile new state. Jews around the world contributed resources, advocacy, and political support. Israel, like the Mishkan, has always been a collective act of Jewish creativity and responsibility.

Reform Zionism grows directly out of this tradition. It is not about slogans or symbolic gestures – and not about platforms or statements. It is about participating in the building of Israel in ways that reflect our deepest Jewish values—security alongside justice, sovereignty alongside moral responsibility, and a society that reflects the ethical vision of the prophets of Israel.

That commitment requires honesty about the challenges Israel faces. In recent days – while missiles are falling from Iran, Settler attacks in the West Bank have killed Palestinians and displaced families. Such violence threatens the rule of law and undermines the moral and democratic foundations of the Jewish State, not to mention tarnishing Israel’s image abroad. Reform Zionism demands that we confront these realities clearly. A commitment to Israel’s security cannot be used to justify civilian violence or lawlessness. Upholding Israel as both Jewish and democratic means rejecting settler violence, insisting on accountability, and affirming the dignity and humanity of Palestinians.

But Reform Zionism is not defined only by critique. It is defined by active engagement and contribution.

Reform Zionism at its best means advocating for the protection of Bedouin and Arab-Israeli communities facing the indiscriminate threat of Iranian rockets. It means fighting for equality for women in Israeli society at a time when gender segregation and disparities are increasing. It means resisting attempts by ultra-Orthodox political factions to pillage public resources while avoiding the shared civic responsibilities of Israeli society. And it means continuing to build broad coalitions with partners across liberal and progressive communities—both in Israel and around the world—who share a vision of Zionism that is democratic, pluralistic, and rooted in justice.

The current war with Iran highlights the complexity of the relationship between Israel and Diaspora Jewry. Israelis often experience Iran’s threat as existential, while Jews in the Diaspora encounter it through the lens of politics, media narratives, and rising antisemitism. These different perspectives can create tension. But Reform Zionism insists that partnership matters. Our solidarity, our engagement, and our commitment to shared values are essential to Israel’s future.

Like the Mishkan, the building of Israel is not a completed project. It is an ongoing endeavor that requires participation from Jews everywhere. For the Reform Movement, that means bringing young Jews to Israel so they can build real relationships with the land and its people. It means encouraging honest conversations about Israel’s achievements and its struggles. It means investing in Israeli Reform communities and supporting those who are working every day to make Israel more pluralistic, democratic, and inclusive.

When Moses inspected the completed Mishkan, he blessed the people—not only for the structure they had built, but for the spirit of collective purpose that made it possible. The blessing recognized that something sacred had emerged because a community chose to build it together.

Israel today is still under construction—politically, morally, spiritually, and physically. Reform Zionism answers the question of our role with a clear and unwavering commitment: we will be part of the building. Not from afar, and not only in words, but through deep relationship, shared responsibility, and active contribution to the ongoing project of Jewish sovereignty.

That is what it means to be a Reform Zionist today.