Tag: World Zionist Elections

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Israel Rabbinic Reflections

Supporting Reform Rabbis, Religious Pluralism, and Democracy in Israel: Rabbi Barry Block Reflects on Participating in the 39th World Zionist Congress

In late October 2025, hundreds of Jewish leaders—including several dozen Reform rabbis—from around the world gathered in Jerusalem to participate in the 39th World Zionist Congress. Reform and progressive leaders came together in the hopes of advancing our shared vision of a just, democratic, pluralistic Israel that equitably represents all of Israeli society. Here, Rabbi Barry Block reflects on his experience.

As part of the ARZENU delegation to the World Zionist Congress, I was asked to consider my “why,” i.e., my reason for working to maximize votes from the community I serve for the Vote Reform! campaign and then to travel to Israel for the Congress. My “why” is clear: To express through action my partnership with our Reform Movement in Israel, together with a wonderful group of rabbinic colleagues and global Jewish leaders of all ages and genders.

Members of MARAM—Israeli Reform rabbis ordained by Hebrew Union College Jerusalem—are my teachers and inspiration, instilling confidence in the future of a Jewish and inclusive Israeli democracy that seeks peace and embraces shared society.

Just as I need my Israeli colleagues to teach me how best to articulate my progressive Zionism in the US, they consistently welcome and express a need for partnership and support from CCAR rabbis and the communities we serve worldwide. I was honored to be part of a diverse global delegation to progressive Zionists who came to Israel for a hard-to-explain and quixotic gathering, the World Zionist Congress.

Foreign as the process is to Israeli and Diaspora Jews alike, our leaders assured that we achieved critical goals for Israel’s future. Working with closely aligned partners such as the Conservative Movement and others with whom we share less, Shoshana Dweck and Harry Levy led the delegation to assure robust ongoing support for our Movement in Israel and the adoption of policies and declarations to chart a path toward a better future for every citizen of Israel and the Jewish people worldwide. 

Those who are concerned about the next generation ought to meet the young adults who came from around the world to be part of ARZENU’s Reform delegation and also in MERCAZ, the Conservative Movement’s analogous organization. Many of them products of URJ congregations, camps, and Israel programs, they range from the youngest of adults to new college graduates to recently ordained rabbis. Their Zionism is as progressive as it is robust, making a congregational rabbi their parents’ age very proud.

My week in Jerusalem fittingly ended with HUC’s beautiful ordination ceremony for six new Israeli Reform rabbis, three of whom I have already had the privilege to learn with. One of them, Rabbi Yael Schweid, is to serve a new community seeded by the Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism in the Eshkol Regional Council in the Western Negev, including several kibbutzim that were massacred on October 7—Be’eri, Nir Oz, and Nir Yitzchak among them. 

I left Jerusalem with my friend, Rabbi Ayala Miron, to welcome Shabbat with her and the congregation of Bavat Ayin, in Rosh HaAyin, as I do whenever I’m in Israel. Israelis are often amazed that Rosh HaAyin, known as “a Yemenite city,” has a Reform congregation. It’s packed every Friday night. The community center they use for worship works for them for now, but they need and deserve their own synagogue. Israel’s courts agree, thanks to our Israel Religious Action Center. As a rabbi who serves a geographically isolated community in Little Rock, Arkansas, I understand the unique importance of Bavat Ayin having its own synagogue, proudly announcing the presence of relevant, egalitarian Jewish spirituality and culture where it is least expected.

I left Israel on Motzei Shabbat Lech-L’cha with renewed optimism for the future of our Reform Movement’s liberal values in Israel and worldwide.

Rabbi Barry H. Block serves Congregation B’nai Israel in Little Rock, Arkansas. He is the editor of  The Mussar Torah Commentary and  The Social Justice Commentary, both published by CCAR Press.

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Israel

His Mother Wanted Him to Be a Rabbi, But He Went to Build a Kibbutz

With the World Zionist Congress 2020 elections underway, and a robust slate of Reform candidates on the Reform slate, American Jews have the ability to vote for the Jewish future of Israel and help set policies regarding key institutions that support global Jewish life and which allocate nearly $1 billion annually to support Israel and World Jewry and to invest in a Zionism that sustains an Israel that is Jewish, democratic, and a free society that upholds equality of religion, gender, race, and ethnicity.

Here, we share the thoughts of Matityahu Sperber—one of the many diverse members of the Reform Jewish community in Israel—who shares his desire for liberal Jewish Democratic values to remain at the heart of the Jewish State.

I grew up in and was an active youth member of Temple Israel of Jamaica in Queens, New York.  I was president of the youth group and president of LIFTY, but the most significant experiences of my Jewish/Zionist education were as a camper, staff, and faculty member at Kutz Camp, and the year I spent as a student at the Hebrew University. There, I was profoundly influenced by my studies with a recent new immigrant, Rabbi David Hartman.  It was during that year that I made the decision to make aliyah and to make my contribution to the development of the Jewish Democratic State. I hoped then, and still hope today, that the liberal, progressive Jewish values that were so much a part of my Jewish upbringing would find their place in the developing State of Israel and that I could make a small contribution to that process.

I was privileged to be able to be part of the original settlement group to Kibbutz Yahel: Garin Arava, and arrived there together with my wife Laura in 1977. Together we joined with the Israeli garinim in a bold attempt to create a living and all-encompassing community that would be based on those same Jewish, liberal, democratic, and socialistic values. Add to this the challenges of creating a new, agriculturally-based settlement in the distant Arava desert, and we had clearly signed on for a major challenge.  We are still struggling to grow and to attract people, who share our vision of a modern Reform Jewish Community, but much has been accomplished and we are optimistic regarding Yahel’s future.

Most of my energy has been spent within the Yahel community, developing it both socially, spiritually, and economically. But, I have also found the time and opportunity to make my contribution in the region—the Southern Arava, as well as in JAFI, the JNF, IRAC, and the Israeli Reform Movement. I believe deeply that these organizations represent the best of those same liberal Jewish Democratic values that I want so much to be at the heart of the Jewish State.

In the last year most of my energy in the Reform Movement has been spent leading the Movement’s efforts to create its first permanent summer camp facility with year round programming. I know from experience how much this can contribute to the development of the lay and rabbinic leadership that is needed to strengthen the Israel Reform Movement’s future.

The last five years have found me in the trenches fighting the good fight in the halls and board rooms of the KKL/JNF. From my position as the chair of Himanuta, the company in charge of all land purchasing, the management of $150 million dollars of rental properties, and the development of $1.8 billion dollars of real estate, I have a unique opportunity to bring our Movement’s values to these important activities.

The issues relevant to the Reform Movement that have kept me busy include:

  • Use of properties owned by Himanuta in East Jerusalem and the old city.
  • Properties occupied by Bedouin in the Negev and Galilee.
  • Limiting the purchasing of land to areas that are part of the widest consensus of the Jewish People.
  • Use of Himanuta’s and the KKL’s properties for the benefit of all of Israel’s citizens.

As Israel has continued its movement to the right in the last five years, the battles in the KKL between our center/left coalition, (which has a small majority), and the right wing have become much more intense. Unfortunately, in the last year, rare are the moments when all the representatives function together in the name of all of the Jewish people. I hope and believe that the results of the current election to the World Zionist Congress will leave the Reform Movement in a position to join with the other liberal and progressive political forces to maintain and strengthen Israel as a Jewish and Democratic State that we can all be proud of. 

Matityahu Sperber grew up in the United States and made aliyah more than 40 years ago. He is a founding member of Yahel, the first Reform Kibbutz, in the Arava desert. Learn more about the World Zionist Congress elections, and vote through March 11, 2020.

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Israel Reform Judaism

Israel at 67- Thoughts

Israel at 67: Two Challenges

Approaching Yom HaZikaron and Yom Haatzmaut, I now mark the second cycle of these Iyyar holidays living in New York.  Last year went by with the curiosity of what happens in the Diaspora – events, celebrations, cocktail parties and lectures.  All nice and impressive, but still lacking. There is no comparison to being in Israel on these days as the entire country kneels down in mourning only to then rise up out of the depths in celebration of what many still do not take for granted – that the dream of an independent sovereign Jewish state is indeed a reality.   During this varying 48-hour experience it is impossible to avoid the mood that sets in throughout the country.  It is impossible to not be enveloped into the national discussion of what it is that those many thousands gave their lives and what we wish for Israel’s future on her birthday.

Peering from abroad as we commemorate and celebrate, we are engaged in two existential debates on the future of the Jewish state both testing the strength of Israel as both Jewish and Democratic.  67 years later there are too many in Israel for whom democracy is increasingly interpreted as being antithetical to Judaism.  Let me be clear, this is both wrong and potentially disastrous for the future of Israel.  It is Israel’s democratic nature that allows it to continue as Jewish.  And this will require a certain sense of maturity and willingness to compromise in order to maintain.  The Jewish state can only remain as such if it remains committed to the principles of democracy (those clearly outlined in the Declaration of Independence.)

On December 21, 1947, Rabbi Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog then Chief Rabbi of the Yishuv (Jewish community living in mandated Palestine, and grandfather of contemporary Zionist Union leader Isaac Herzog) wrote to the Zionist leader Shlomo Zalman Shragai “Blessed be He that we have reached this stage, even though it is still only the beginning of the beginning.”  If we perceive the establishment of the State of Israel to be “Reishit Tzmihat Geulateinu – the first flowering of our redemption” it is upon us to be the pruners and harvesters of the early blossoms that were opened on that fateful day in the month of Iyyar 67 years ago.

Often times nurturing a blossom requires food, water and sunlight and other times pruning requires the necessary awareness to remove a side-ward growing branch – doing so in full knowledge that amputation will foster the survival and thriving of the body.  It was this notion of compromise that led one of our greatest sages Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai to plead “Grant me Yavne and its sages,” as he recognized that the only way that both Am Yisrael and Judaism could survive would be to compromise and to focus on the future.

Today our situation is not dissimilar in which we must make a fateful decision to compromise.  The fact is that most of Israeli society has done this already and has chosen the path of a Jewish and Democratic state over that of holding on to land that like the side-ward growing branch of a plant needs to be cut in order for us to survive.

The second challenge facing our Jewish democracy today that of working to determine which Jewish values we want our state to exemplify and which we don’t.  This must be the imperative for the next seven decades and we have a lot to offer.  Many Israelis are waking up to the reality that having a Jewish State does not necessarily mean that they automatically have a Jewish community.  When I came on Aliyah to Israel, I thought that I had fulfilled my own personal Zionist quest.  Shortly thereafter I realized that there was still a tremendous amount of work to be done.  I realized that for so many the values that I learned growing up in the Reform movement, of welcoming the stranger, tolerance and accepting a multiplicity of observance and Jewish practice, ecology and egalitarianism could be perceived as a threat to the Jewishness of the State.  These values are what makes the largest and most diverse Jewish society on the planet Jewish and we must not accept any dissention from that notion.

What I love about Israel is how intrinsically Jewish it is.  How much thought and creativity come out of Israeli society.  What I also love is that it is malleable, impressionable and very much growing.  I love that Israeli Jews are constantly flocking to create new kehilot and that our movement is at the forefront of creating an Israeli nusah, an Israeli style of Judaism that is authentic, inclusive and is evolving what Judaism is when it comes to social justice, how we relate to the other, and what prayer should be just to name a few.

The story of Israel’s first 67 years is one for the movies. It is full of drama, successes, mishaps and experimentation.  What we need now is to foster that flowering, to recognize and be fully aware that we as passionate and involved American Jews can be involved in this process.  We can have a voice that will resonate.  This year on Yom Haatzmaut I urge you to think about Israel not as a far off place, known often for its conflicts, but as an opportunity.    An opportunity to join together in writing history and helping to set the direction for Judaism for the foreseeable future.  As we the blossoms of that first flowering you can join too simply voting in the elections for the World Zionist Congress and ensuring that your voice is heard.  (www.reformjews4Israel.org/vote)

חג עצמאות שמח!

Please see this “Al HaNissim” prayer for Yom Haatzmaut and feel free to share with your congregations.

עַל הַנִּסִּים וְעַל הַפֻּרְקָן וְעַל הַגְּבוּרוֹת וְעַל הַתְּשוּעוֹת וְעַל הַנֶּחָמוֹת וְעַל הַמִּלְחָמוֹת שֶׁעָשִׂיתָ לָנוּ בַּזְּמַן הַזֶּה.
ביום ה’ באייר חמשת אלפים תש”ח למניין שאנו מונים לבריאת העולם, בעת ההכרזה על הקמת מדינת ישראל, זכה עם ישראל לריבונות על אדמתם ולשליטה על גורלם. על נס הקמת מדינה יהודית באשר היא ראשית צמיחת גאולתינו. מדינה זו באה מתוך קשר היסטורי ומסורתי זה חתרו היהודים בכל דור לשוב ולהאחז במולדתם העתיקה. ובדורות האחרונים שבו לארצם בהמונים, וחלוצים, מעפילים ומגינים הפריחו נשמות, החיו שפתם העברית, בנו כפרים וערים, והקימו ישוב גדל והולך השליט על משקו ותרבותו, שוחר שלום ומגן על עצמו, מביא ברכת הקידמה לכל תושבי הארץ ונושא נפשו לעצמאות ממלכתית. זה יום עשה יהוה נגילה ונשמחה בו כשנאמר: “וְלָקַחְתִּי אֶתְכֶם מִן הַגּוֹיִם וְקִבַּצְתִּי אֶתְכֶם מִכָּל הָאֲרָצוֹת וְהֵבֵאתִי אֶתְכֶם אֶל אַדְמַתְכֶם” (יחזקאל לו, כד( וּלְעַמְּךָ יִשְׂרָאֵל עָשִׂיתָ תְּשוּעָה גְּדוֹלָה וּפֻרְקָן כְּהַיּוֹם הַזֶּה, הִדְבַּרְתָּ עַמִּים תַּחְתֵּנוּ וּלְאֻמִּים תַּחַת רַגְלֵנוּ, וְנָתַתָּ לָנוּ אֶת נַחֲלָתֵנוּ אשר תיקרא “מדינת ישראל”. ולפי כך מדינה זו תהא פתוחה לעליה יהודית ולקיבוץ גלויות; תשקוד על פיתוח הארץ לטובת כל תושביה; תהא מושתתה על יסודות החירות, הצדק והשלום לאור חזונם של נביאי ישראל; תקיים שויון זכויות חברתי ומדיני גמור לכל אזרחיה בלי הבדל דת, גזע ומין;  תבטיח חופש דת, מצפון, לשון, חינוך ותרבות; תשמור על המקומות הקדושים של כל הדתות. יְהִי-שָׁלוֹם בְּחֵילֵךְ שַׁלְוָה בְּאַרְמְנוֹתָיִךְ.

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CCAR Convention General CCAR Israel Rabbis Reform Judaism

Celebrating the Class of 1965: Shaping What Tomorrow Will Bring

Stanley Davids
Rabbi Stanley Davids, celebrates 50 years in the Rabbinate.

At the upcoming CCAR Convention, we will honor the class of 1965, those who have been CCAR members and served our movement for 50 years. In the weeks leading up to convention, we will share and celebrate the rabbinic visions and wisdom of these members of the class of 1965 and their 50 years in the rabbinate. 

As with all of my jubilee classmates, life has brought me much undeserved joy: Resa, my life partner who shares with me a nurturing, forgiving, healing, joyous love; children for whom I am still a desired part of their world; grandchildren who regularly turn to me with challenging questions and unsolicited hugs; and a career of meaningful, often satisfying sacred service, rich with human interactions.

As with most us, life has also brought me much undeserved pain: sitting by my young mother’s bedside, helpless before the malignancy that was consuming her brain; confronting a professional failure that challenged my too fragile self-worth; bearing the agonizing burden of deciding whether my sister should be administered sufficient morphine to quiet her pain, morphine that would also stop her heart; trying to internalize what it meant, what it really meant, when for over ten years – every six months — my physicians would tell me that I had only three more months to live.

In the pursuit of meaning in the presence of such a mixed bag of life experiences, I have dedicated my rabbinate to the Jewish People. It wasn’t a conscious choice. It just happened. I came alive to our world in the ’60’s; I embraced the anti-war movement while still in uniform; I entered into the struggle by African Americans for human and civil rights; feminism; choice – yet through all of that I found myself inexorably drawn to my people’s right and obligation to secure its own future. The Six Day War. The Soviet Jewry Movement. The birth and flowering of Reform Zionism. High school kids at Kutz. College kids. Israel. The Aliyah that Resa and I embraced as full partners.

For four decades as a congregational rabbi and now for one decade as a retiree – the meaningful survival and evolution of the Jewish people have been at the center of my day-to-day concerns. Over the years that struggle became a unifying theme around which I could organize my thoughts and actions. Even today, even now, it ignites within me hope and purpose. To put it simply, that struggle keeps me alive. Perhaps it is not the most worthy of causes, but it infuses my being with a shot of metaphorical adrenaline.

Maybe that is why I find myself today still trying to shape our people’s tomorrows. Maybe that is why so many of my classmates have made similar choices in their own ways, in their own lives: refusing to give up on trying to have an impact on the future.

It’s not that I see better or know more than anybody else. I know that I don’t. But I believe based upon what I have seen and learned and experienced that the survival of Israel as a Jewish democratic state is a sine qua non for the survival of North American Jewry, even as the reverse is equally true. And that belief for me is a mandate for meaningful action.

So when I received a call from a close colleague and friend in early January, asking me to help him raise some funds quickly so that he could effectively compete for a position on the Labor slate in the forthcoming Knesset elections, I could not refuse. That election has a real possibility of overturning what I consider to be an intransigent government incapable of launching positive initiatives which might, just might, move us closer to a two state solution. If a new government is formed this Spring linking parties of the political right with the ultra-orthodox parties, many of the recent ground-breaking achievements in easing the stranglehold of the Rabbinate over matters of personal status and life cycle events will be reversed. To shape the future, outspoken advocates for religious pluralism like my friend are needed by the Knesset. There is a job demanding to be done. I tried to help.

Elections for the World Zionist Congress are currently on-going. A victory for ARZA in these elections will pour more than $20 million into the activities of the IMPJ and the Hebrew Union College over the next five years. Israeli Reform Judaism now tracks support from more than 7% of the population. We are growing, evolving, changing. We offer new definitions as to what a synagogue could be; we demonstrate how the manner in which we treat the stranger in our midst helps determine our relationships with an increasingly hostile world. With a western understanding of democracy and with a liberal and embracing vision of Jewish identity both embedded in our Reform DNA – Israel needs us to win and to win big in the Congress elections. Another job yet to be done. By us. We can still help. We are very much alive. We are relevant. We are needed.

I don’t know how many quality months or years that I have left. The door to that mystery is firmly shut. And I am painfully aware of my own personal limitations and weaknesses. But like many of my classmates, I am not yet willing to turn my back on how the future will emerge. Being in a struggle the outcome of which will not be known for many years after I am gone doesn’t diminish the vitality that I feel today because I am still engaged.

So whatever the worthy issues that command each of us: Israel or environmentalism or racism or economic justice or the strengthening of our families or writing that book that really needs to be written — we who are growing old can continue to find what Frank Bruni recently called in The New York Times, “slices of opportunity” awaiting us. So long as our hands can reach, so long as our souls can yearn and our minds can comprehend – so long can we yet have a vital role in shaping what tomorrow will bring. We who were once the future and then were the present are not ready to lay down our burdens. Not yet. Not now. We have too much to do. We are needed. You see, there is life to be lived. And we are still choosing to live it.