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May 07, 1993 - Image 56

Resource type:
Text
Publication:
The Detroit Jewish News, 1993-05-07

Disclaimer: Computer generated plain text may have errors. Read more about this.

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Boca Raton (JTA) — When
Jews think about religious
Zionism, the Reform move-
ment is not usually the first
group that comes to mind.
But at the seventh nation-
al convention of the Associ-
ation of Reform Zionists of
America held here this past
weekend, a new kind of re-
ligious Zionism was unveil-
ed.
Reform Zionists should
give "a far greater religious
significance to the Land of
Israel, its sanctity, its
holiness," said Rabbi Alex-
ander Schindler, president of
the Union of American Heb-
rew Congregations.
In a speech to the conven-
tion, Rabbi Schindler . called
for "pilgrimages to Israel as
a religious obligation," and
affirmed the Reform
movement's support for
aliyah, without embracing
"the classical Zionist idea of
the negation of the
Diaspora."
Visits to Israel, Rabbi
Schindler said, should be
seen "not as mere trips to an
exciting land, or to a place
endeared by memory and af-
fection, nor even to bolster
the confidence of our fellow
Jews in Israel.
"Rather, visiting Israel
should be seen as a sacred
journey, a quest to be spiri-
tually invigorated," Rabbi
Schindler said.
The convention also nam-
ed Marcia Cayne as ARZA
national president, and an-
nounced the opening of two
new chapters, one in Nor-
thern California and the
other in South Florida.
The emergence of Reform
religious Zionism — assum-
ing it percolates dawn to the
.rank-and-file of more than
. 1.1 million Reform Jews in
America (as well as smaller
counterparts in England,
Canada, Latin America and
Israel) — can be traced to
two phenomena, according
to ARZA Executive Director
Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch.
The first, he admitted, was
a recognition that Zionist
involvement had ebbed in
the Reform movement over
the last decade or so. A
survey in the mid-1980s
showed less than 10 percent
of American Reform Jews
had ever visited Israel.
Partly in response, ARZA
convened an international
symposium on Reform
Judaism and Zionism last
November. That meeting —

the second phenomenon —
helped es t ablish some basic
principles and vocabulary
for the Reform approach to
religion and Israel.
Now ARZA is launching a
quarterly Journal of Reform
Zionism, Rabbi Hirsch said.
The first issue will include
the symposium papers.
Rabbi Hirsch, whose
father Richard heads the
World Union for Progressive
Judaism in Jerusalem, is a
lawyer, a Reform rabbi and a
veteran of the Israeli army.
ARZA, only 16 years old,
claims a membership of
some 70,000. "We're now the
second largest Zionist entity
in North America," after
Hadassah, said Rabbi
Hirsch.
Rabbi Hirsch emphasized
ARZA's commitment to
normative American Zionist
goals, such as sending as
many- Jewish youth to Israel
as possible, and working
within the umbrella of the

Zionist
involvement had
ebbed in
the Reform
movement.

6- I

4

newly formed American
Zionist movement.
"Our primary mandate is
to educate and Zionize
American Reform Jews," he
said.
On the Israeli side, ARZA
is busy pursuing a social-
action agenda parallel to the
one embraced by the Reform
movement in the United
States.
Rabbi Uri Regev was
/ gleeful, if modest, about
'ARZA's success in recent
years. As director of ARZA's
Israel Religious Action
Center in Jerusalem, Rabbi
Regev has been the point
man in a series of victories
in Israel's secular courts.
One of these, in 1986,
upheld the right of Reform
convert Shoshana Miller to
make aliyah under Israel's
Right of Return law.
More recently, Rabbi
Regev argued and won a
decision allowing non- Or-
thodox Jewish burial
societies.
"We are engaged in a
struggle for religious
pluralism," Rabbi Regev

A

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