On October 24, 2021 Arutz 7reported "During Sunday morning’s government discussions regarding the state budget — which must pass within the next few weeks, if the government is to survive — the question of funding for Reform and Conservative groups was raised and apparently settled, Behadrey Haredim reports.
When the current government was formed this past summer, among the new ministerial departments created was one named “Hayahadut Hamit-hadeshet” (which loosely translates as “renewable Judaism"), within the framework of the Diaspora Affairs Ministry, and this new department is now being used to funnel a massive budget of no less than NIS 40 million to Reform and Conservative groups, to fund their various projects..."
But Israel should not fund the Reform Movement. Here is why:
1. Reform rabbinical and cantorial students signed a letter accusing Israelis of being racists, providing fuel for BDS.On November 3, 2021 bloger Elder of Zion reported "Anti-Zionist Jews are loving an article by Marc Tracy that will be published in this coming Sunday's New York Times magazine, Inside the Unraveling of American Zionism. Tracy interviews some of the Jewish rabbinical and cantorial students who signed a letter in May that attacked Israel. The letter compared Israel's treatment of Palestinians to American racism..." (For the truth click here.)
2.The Reform Movement enthusiastically embraces Black Lives Matter. BLM calls for "dismantling of the Zionist project, dismantling of the settler-colonialist project". This video shows Black Lives Matter co-founder calling for Israel's destruction.
On February 17, 2021 Samanta Mandeles reported in Legal Insurrection "Professor Marc Lamont Hill is an influential and high-profile leader of two movements: The Black Lives Matter movement and the anti-Israel movement. The “intersectional” hijacking and crossover of domestic movements in the anti-Israel cause is something we have covered for years.
Lamont Hill just admitted what we all knew, but some people deny: one of the goals of the Black Lives Matter movement is the destruction of Israel. In a Zoom panel event on February 6, 2021, organized by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)’s “BDS and Palestine Solidarity National Working Group, National Political Education Committee, DSA Muslim Caucus, and the Afrosocialists and Socialists of Color Caucus,” the panel featured Temple University professor Marc Lamont Hill alongside fellow Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) supporters Omar Barghouti, Sumaya Awad, and Ajamu Amiri Dillahunt.
"Panel frontrunner Marc Lamont Hill is just as virulent an anti-Israel polemicist as his co-speakers. He is perhaps best known in pro-Israel circles for his repetition of the popular Hamas slogan (“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!”) during a speech at the United Nations in 2018.
"...So it’s no surprise that Hill wasted little time during the DSA Zoom panel in repeating these themes; on a “conceptual level”, he insisted,
"We understand that we can’t dismantle white supremacy or imperialism section by section…There’s no way to stop a settler-colonial movement in Palestine and not be mindful of its relationship to, you know, a settler colonial project in New Zealand or Australia or the United States…[it’s] a global system that we have to dismantle…[Black Lives Matter has] imagined…a world [that is] anti-imperialist. They don’t want to just nation-build, but they want to world-make, and so Black Lives Matter, very explicitly is talking about the dismantling of the Zionist project, dismantling of the settler-colonialist project, and very explicitly embracing BDS on those grounds.
"Naturally, Hill presented no evidence of the supposed interconnectedness of centuries-old European colonization of the New World with Zionism—the modern Jewish liberation movement centered around the ancient Jewish connection to Jerusalem (or, as it was called as early as the biblical book of Samuel, Zion)—because no such evidence exists."
However, Zionism is not a "settler-colonialist project". Until 1948 Jews were a majority of the population in Jerusalem. On December 11, 2017 Amb. Dore Gold wrote in the Jerusalem Center of Public Affairs "By the mid-19th century, the British Consulate in Jerusalem made the following determination, according to this report, which I found in the Public Record Office in Kew, it states that Jews were a majority in Jerusalem, when? already in 1863 – that’s long before Theodor Herzl, before the Britt’s arrived, or Lord Balfour."
Despite the fact that one of the goals of the Black Lives Matter movement is the destruction of Israel, BLM signs are displayed in Reform Temples. Beth Emeth Reform Synagogue in Evanston, Illinois for example posted a BLM sign on its walls. It says "Above the words “Black Lives Matter,” our sign reads, “B’tzelem Elohim—In the image of God.”
In every single Black Lives Matter rally Black Lives Matter supporters parrot Palestinian lies, they call for "dismantling of the Zionist project, dismantling of the settler-colonialist project", they call for BDS against Israel. BUT on June 12, 2020 The Union for Reform Judaism wrote in their official webpage "Reform Jewish Leadership Statement: Black Lives Matter is a Jewish Value"
Black Lives Matter speakers are currently invited to speak in Reform Temples. For example On May 24, 2021 Temple Beth El in Providence Rhode Island announced "Join us for a three-part series on Black Lives Matter and Jewish Community Obligations: Allyship with Not Free to Desist" (one of the speakers is YOLANDA SAVAGE-NARVA)
3.While the Reform Movement rejects Jewish Law (as described in the Oral Torah and the Shulchan Aruch), they embrace Critical Race Theory (CRT) which makes being white and Jewish automatically racist.
On April 6, 2021 RABBI JONAH DOV PESNER AND YOLANDA SAVAGE-NARVA wrote in Religious Action Center (part of reformjudaism.org)
"The Reform Movement’s 2021 Racial Justice Campaign is a continuation of our 2020 Civic Engagement Campaign, during which we trained and engaged 15,000 Reform leaders and brought in 865,000 voters, largely in the very communities that were targeted for voter suppression. However, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, 360 bills are still moving their way through state houses to suppress voters. We cannot lose sight of what is needed of the Reform Movement to create a society firmly rooted in racial equity, diversity, and inclusion (REDI).
"Further, we have an obligation to address the racism that is still prevalent within our own congregations and communities, not only because of the growing numbers of Jews of Color but for the integrity of all our communal institutions. This campaign aims to help dismantle systemic racism in and out of the Jewish community by educating, inspiring, and empowering individuals and communities to look inwardly to make communal change and outwardly to win legislative change...
"Additionally, after the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) voted at our 2019 Biennial Convention to call our nation to consider reparations, we will campaign for H.R. 40, the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act..."
4. The Reform Movement is not Judaism. The letter below by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, in the book The Letter and the Spirit, volume II page 57, says it clearly:
"By the Grace of God, 27th of Sivan, Brooklyn, NY., Greetings and blessing:
"...an Orthodox Rabbi cannot in all conscience recognize the Conservative and Reform points of view, inasmuch as both of the latter do not accept the Written and Oral Law. Hence these movements and their representatives cannot be recognized as legitimately representing the Jewish religion, inasmuch as they reject it. This has been unequivocally ruled by the Rambam and other authorities that followed him, who have established the laws and attitudes of the Shulchan Aruch, leaving no room for doubt or discussion on this basic issue.
"From the above it follows immediately that the activities of such dissident groups cannot be recognized as Jewish religious activities within the definition of Jewish religion. Therefore, Orthodox Rabbis cannot, in all conscience, be members of a body or organization together with representatives of the non-Orthodox points of view, namely, of the Conservative and Reform movements, inasmuch as participation and affiliation in such a body or organization would ipso facto constitute a recognition of the Conservative and Reform interpretation of Judaismas being legitimate parts of the framework of the Jewish Religion, in direct conflict with the unequivocal Psak Din of the Rambam and other autyhorities, as mentioned above..." (End of the letter)
5. The Reform Movement has not come out against Biden's policies on Israel. Currently the Biden administration is not only trying to reopen the Consulate for Palestinians in Jerusalem that Trump closed, they also trying to pass a resolution in Congress that rules that even Jerusalem's Jewish Quarter and the Western Wall are in "occupied Palestinian territories".The US abstained from a vote on a United Nations General Assembly Resolution entitled, “Assistance to Palestinian Refugees” which raised the canard of the “Right of Return”.
The Israeli taxpayer should not be funding the Reform Movement.
Ezequiel Doiny is author of "Obama's assault on Jerusalem's Western Wall"