Students Withdraw From Reconstructionist Rabbinical College Over Its Anti-Zionism
“we came to find that RRC is, de facto, a training ground for anti-Zionist rabbis”
This is just another reminder that progressive ideology has embedded itself in everything.
From Forward:
Anti-Zionism forced us to withdraw from Reconstructionist Rabbinical College
The Reconstructionist Rabbinical College will graduate 11 new rabbis this Sunday. Of them, at least half identify as anti-Zionists or have been participating in anti-Israel protests and actions.
By contrast, when we and other students formed the RRC Students Supporting Israel chapter after Oct. 7, only eight students joined out of the 60 at RRC. Over a grueling year of isolation, three members withdrew from the school (including us), and another three left the group.
Our time at RRC was marked with sorrow and shock, as we experienced an increasingly vociferous anti-Zionism among the student body, the steady erosion of civil discourse and the seminary’s inability to transmit the Jewish narrative to those it will ordain as future spiritual leaders of the Jewish people.
RRC is the rabbinical school of Reconstructing Judaism, founded on the scholarship of Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, who famously articulated that Judaism is a civilization and at its center is the Jewish people. Kaplan was devoted to establishing the state of Israel as a primary hub of creative and meaningful renaissance of the Jewish civilization, in relationship with other hubs in the diaspora.
We believed upon entering RRC that our rabbinical school would teach us to serve the Jewish people, emphasizing the centrality of Jewish peoplehood and support for our survival and self-determination.
Instead, we came to find that RRC is, de facto, a training ground for anti-Zionist rabbis. Because of RRC’s rabbinical program, protests led by Jewish Voice for Peace and other anti-Israel organizations will count increasing numbers of rabbis among their ranks, training the next generations to oppose Israel and the safety of Israelis — our own people.
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Comments
Question for Jews (or anyone) who has kept up with such matters: has the Reconstructionist movement gained any footing?
Not in any major way.
Reconstructionism, as I understand it, is observant Judaism for atheists; it believes in the commandments but not in a Commander. It views “God” as an anthropomorphism for ones own conscience, and Judaism as a culture rather than a religion, with the commandments as the traditions and customs that define that culture. So a Jew should eat kosher for the same reason that an Italian eats pasta; not because there’s a Creator Who has commanded it, but because that’s what a Jew eats.
You can easily see how this made it a fertile breeding ground for the “social justice” movement, and what amounts to a Jewish version of liberation theology.
It’s also tied up with the Jewish Renewal movement, which likewise is more into “commandments” as ways to feel Jewish, rather than as literally orders from an actual Creator. Renewal’s roots are in the ’60s hippie and drug and “spirituality” movement, so it likewise was a fertile ground for “social justice” and leftist politics in general.
So this is where you get the “If Not Now” freaks who say kaddish for dead terrorists. Frankly I was surprised that, as of last October, eight out of sixty students actually still identified as zionists.
Here’s a point: Twenty-five years ago I learned from an inside source at a similar and more prominent “rabbinical school” that no more than half the students were actually Jews, and also that no more than half were heterosexual. Make of that what you will.
Thanks, Milhouse.
Now, let’s see how many downticks you “earn” for your post.
Mordechai Kaplan, founder of the movement, laid out his theory in a book called Judaism as Civilized.
And our friend Milhouse, as usual, nails it!
68 years ago I was confirmed at a Conservative synagogue that was part of the Reconstructionist movement. Reconstructionists had not yet started their own school or separated from the United Synagogue of America.
The confirmation classes, plus 4 years as an active member of their USY chapter, convinced me that Reconstructionists are people of great faith — they believe that somewhere in the universe there exists someone or something who understands what the heck they believe.