Another Milestone Birthday
April 18, 2008
Last month, I reflected with you on the personal significance of reaching my fiftieth birthday milestone, and once again this month, I would like to note with special joy another significant birthday, as we prepare to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of the establishment of the modern State of Israel. As Reform Jews living in North America, the centrality of our relationship to Israel goes back even further than her modern independence. Although 19th-Century Reformers did not embrace the possibility of the re-establishment of Israel as a homeland for our people, by the early 20th-Century, we had become the first of the contemporary streams of Judaism to declare our support for the modern, Zionist aspirations.
In 1937, a little more than a decade before Israeli independence, and on the eve of the unthinkable destruction of the Holocaust, Reform rabbis meeting in Columbus adopted a Platform which included this declaration:
“In the rehabilitation of Palestine, the land hallowed by memories and hopes, we behold the promise of renewed life for many of our brethren. We affirm the obligation of all Jewry to aid in its upbuilding as a Jewish homeland by endeavoring to make it not only a haven of refuge for the oppressed but also a center of Jewish culture and spiritual life.”
Since that time, two successive statements of the principles of Reform Judaism have been articulated. In recognition of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, a new platform (of sorts) was promulgated, making a yet stronger and more explicit avowal:
“We are privileged to live in an extraordinary time, one in which a third Jewish commonwealth has been established in our people’s ancient homeland. We are bound to that land and to the newly reborn State of Israel by innumerable religious and ethnic ties. We have been enriched by its culture and ennobled by its indomitable spirit. We see it providing unique opportunities for Jewish self-expression. We have both a stake and a responsibility in building the State of Israel, assuring its security, and defining its Jewish character. We encourage aliyah for those who wish to find maximum personal fulfillment in the cause of Zion…”
More recently, the subject of Reform Jewish Zionism was addressed specifically in the document that has come to be known as “The Miami Platform.” Adopted in 1997, the Resolution coincided with the one-hundredth anniversary of the First World Zionist Congress (August 29, 1897). The Platform was dedicated exclusively to the relationship between Reform Judaism and Zionism, and it includes the statement:
“The restoration of Am Yisrael to its ancestral homeland after nearly two thousand years of statelessness and powerlessness represents an historic triumph of the Jewish people, providing a physical refuge, the possibility of religious and cultural renewal on its own soil, and the realization of God’s promise to Abraham: ‘to your offspring I assign this land’. From that distant moment until today, the intense love between Am Yisrael and Eretz Yisrael has not subsided.”
(The complete text is available on-line at www.ccarnet.org/documentsandpositions/platforms)
Finally, once again in 1999, as the Conference looked forward to the 21st-Century, the commitment to and celebration of Israel came to the fore in the last Platform to be adopted by our movement:
“We are committed to Medinat Yisrael, the State of Israel, and rejoice in its accomplishments. We affirm the unique qualities of living in Eretz Yisrael, the land of Israel, and encourage aliyah, immigration to Israel…
“We are committed to a vision of the State of Israel that promotes full civil, human and religious rights for all its inhabitants and that strives for a lasting peace between Israel and its neighbors.
“We are committed to promoting and strengthening Progressive Judaism in Israel, which will enrich the spiritual life of the Jewish state and its people.
“We…urge Jews who reside outside Israel to learn Hebrew as a living language and to make periodic visits to Israel in order to study and to deepen their relationship to the Land and its people…”
Thus, we see that just as our people have, since the days of our Biblical ancestors, always experienced a sacred connection with our historic homeland, so, too, as contemporary Reform Jews, we recognize the centrality of that bond. We unite with Jews both in Israel and abroad in celebrating this joyful milestone, 60th birthday, and see the fulfillment of the two-thousand year hope and dream, as expressed in “Hatikva”, Israel’s national anthem: “To be a free people in our land, in the land of Zion and Jerusalem.”
(Note: Yom Ha-atz-ma-ut – Independence Day – is observed this year on May 8th. Our community celebration here on the North Shore will take place on the afternoon of May 4th.)
