A forum of 1,800 Reform rabbis in the United States called on Israel yesterday to continue its policy of restraint and to freeze construction in Judea and Samaria. Earlier this month, the Reform movement decided to cancel its youth summer trips to Israel due to perceived security dangers. Transportation Minister Ephraim Sneh said at the time, \"The behavior of these Jews, who have talked to us for all these years over piles of bagels and lox about unity and solidarity of the Jewish people, is disgraceful…\" A Shas party statement noted that the bonds between the Reform movement and the Land of Israel are weak, and \"Israel must remember the Reform\'s desertion of the Jewish front during these times of trouble.\"



Yesterday\'s resolution comes only a few weeks after Reform leader Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie said that the Reform movement had been \"wrong about some very important things\" regarding the Oslo process, specifying, et al, \"We were inclined to focus overly much on the hard choices we had to make, and not enough on the hard choices that our Palestinian neighbors had to make.\"