Dear Friends
Last year at this time, together with my colleague Anna Kislanski the CEO of the Israel Reform Movement, I attended the inaugural conference of Recharging Reform. I found last year’s conference to be profoundly meaningful and was excited by the commitment of so many leaders to work hard to maintain the core values of Reform Judaism as a Zionist movement, as a matter of fact the largest Zionist movement in North America.

So, I couldn’t bring myself not to attend this second conference and I bring you greetings, support, and gratitude from the Israel Reform Movement. So I landed in New York on Tuesday and fly back to Israel later today. And I’m so glad that I decided to come- I’ve learned so much about the challenges you are facing since October 7th in being both Zionists and Progressives and how incredibly brave so many of you are especially the young generation.

It’s a personal honor for me to be here as a proud Israeli Reform Jew who is a product of the American Reform Movement. My Zionism came from the Rabbi of my Reform congregation, Rabbi Marty Weiner of blessed memory who arrived at Congregation Sherith Israel in San Francisco when I was 16, and from giants of our movement such as Rabbi Alexander Schindler and Rabbi Joe Glaser, and later Ammi’s father Rabbi Richard Hirsch. My Zionism came from my many summers as a camper, counselor, and unit head at UAHC
Camp Swig- the predecessor of URJ Camp Newman. I am a Reform Zionist, who made Aliyah initially as part of the Reform Gar’in who created Kibbutz Yahel.

However, it is important to note that there was always a minority in our movement who were either antiZionist or neutral about Zionism. I was at the UAHC Biennial in 1977 in San Francisco when the decision to create ARZA took place. (Were any of you there with me?) At that event there were speakers opposed ideologically to Zionism even though the vote to create ARZA was overwhelmingly in favor Since the breakout of the war after the terrible events of October 7th, our movement, congregations and institutions
has been completely and intensively engaged in providing spiritual and material relief and resilience to the people most impacted by the situation. The residents of the Western Negev, the evacuees from the North.
Our Rabbis in particular have been heroic in their tireless work. Rabbi Meir Azari who is here with us is one tremendous example in making the Daniel Centers a place that provided so much relief to the evacuees from Sederot and other locations in Tel Aviv. We are working
closely with the Hostage Forum and every Motzei Shabbat hundreds of Israelis are coming to our havdallot ceremonies in Hostage square. We are punching as a movement so far above our weight. We are grateful for the massive financial support we have received from many of you in order to carry out these interventions- and of course hope this continues and makes up for the loss of promised government support because sadly we’re not liked so much by the present government of Israel.

The Israel Reform Movement mission and vision statement states specifically that we are a Zionist movement and committed to building Israel Diaspora relations as a major strategic pillar of our movement. We do this through the Domim project which partners Israeli congregations and institutions with congregations and Reform institutions in North America and throughout the world. We are planning to initiate projects to connect our thriving young adult movement, Telemim with reform young adults in North America and are excited to be a partner with the Taglit project that Tracy described yesterday. Our young adults many of whom have spent months in reserve duty are not monolithic in their opinions but are passionate in their belief in Israel as a liberal pluralistic democracy. They are willing to engage in hard and complicated discussions with counterparts and want their tent to be open to everyone who is willing to enter into dialogue with them.

We in the IMPJ believe that we can contribute to the solution of many of the challenges we are facing together with all of you and we see this as our holy responsibility. I also want to call on everyone in this room to join with our North American movement, with the URJ, ARZA, ARZENU, and the World Union in working together on these challenges. One of the most important efforts that need all of your support and hard work is the upcoming WZO elections. There is a major threat from Eretz Hakodesh the Haredi so called Zionist movement that has made clear that their goal in getting involved in the World Zionist Organization is to end our influence there and through that on Israel as a whole. In a flier they put out just before Pesach they wrote- “B’kol dor ve dor Omedim aleinu lchaloteinu” -they compare us to Amelek and to the Hamas.
So as Reform Zionists I call on all of you to work with ARZA and ARZENU to ensure that we become stronger in the Zionist institutions. Your efforts here are crucial to the future of Reform Judaism in Israel and Israel itself as a Jewish and democratic nation, and in my view for the future of Reform Zionism and our movement here.

I made a special less than 72 hour trip to New York to be with all of you at this conference. In a few hours I am getting on a plane for my return trip to Israel and immediately from the airport proceeding to the Israel Reform Movement Gathering in Jerusalem which is entitled esa einai- we lift our eyes. We’re not calling it a celebration but our leadership felt that a gathering was in order. We were surprised that over 700 people registered and we had to actually close the registration. For services and dinner we will have close to 1000
participants- we will for sure be the largest gathering of Reform Jews in the world over the last five years. I am so proud to be an Israeli Reform Jew. I want to end by personally thanking Rabbi Ammi Hirsch for his leadership in making this incredible conference happen, to all leaders involved and to Tracy Kaplowitz for her work on this.

We in the IMPJ, our congregations, Rabbis, lay leaders and institutions are your natural allies in Israel, and we will work with you to ensure the future of North American Reform Jewry as a proud social justice movement with Zionism and Jewish peoplehood at its core. We will do this and at the same time continue our growth and impact on Israeli society.

Thank you
Todah