Progressive Jews launch groundbreaking book on Israel

Forty leading voices in the Progressive Judaism world have expressed their views on Zionism and the state of Israel in a new, groundbreaking book, launched at the Sternberg Centre on Monday evening.

The book’s primary editor, Dr Ed Kessler, described the contents as “a distillation of Progressive voices”, with views across the political and  theological spectrum.

Dr Kessler, together with the leaders of the Movement for Progressive Judaism, Rabbi Charley Baginsky and Rabbi Josh Levy, had written to every member of the clergy within the movement since the merger of Reform and Liberal denominations in the UK in May 2025..

Thirty rabbis have expressed their views in the book, together with 10 lay leaders. The book, the first publication from the Movement for Progressive Judaism, is dedicated in the name of the late Lady Chinn, whose widower, Sir Trevor Chinn, wrote the foreword to the essays.

Among contributors taking part in the book launch were young rabbis, such as Kingston’s Rabbi Lev Saul — ordained in 2022 — and veteran clergy such as Rabbi Colin Eimer, whose essay on his complicated personal relationship with Israel opens the book.

Each essay, divided in the book in sections such as “theological reflections” or “prayer and liturgy”, together with “nuance or argument”, tackles different problems faced by Progressive Jews in Britain today. Dr Kessler told JN that a number of rabbis had felt unable to participate because their own congregations were so conflicted about Israel: but those that did have provided thoughtful concerns about the present and future relations with the Jewish state.

One of the most dramatic openings in the book is the essay by Rebecca Singerman-Knight, immediate past co-chair of Kingston Liberal Synagogue. She writes: “To mark the one-year anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 2024, I had Am Yisroel Chai tattooed on my arm — my first tattoo, at the age of 53. Eight months later, I was suspended from the Board of Deputies, having been one of the 36 signatories to a letter published in the Financial Times in April 2025.”

Her essay is entitled “The Collapse of Nuance”, and as she explained at the launch, her criticism of Israeli actions did not make her any less of a Zionist. In fact, she told the audience, she believed it was vital to reclaim the word, which could carry critique as well as support.

Rabbi Shulamit Ambalu, chair of the Assembly of Reform Rabbis  and Cantors, devotes her essay to the religious language used in Progressive Judaism, and she, too, speaks of “distortion” in the meaning of the word “Zionist”, calling for a need to find a language for Progressive Jews to talk about peoplehood.

Rabbi Josh Levy described the book’s publication as a “shehechyanu moment” — referring to the blessing recited when something happens for the first time. But, noting that Progressive Judaism’s “intellectual mission” was “to be complicated”, he announced that there would be another book next year focusing on Judaism, ethics and technology.

Dr Kessler, who is chair of the Movement for Progressive Judaism, said there were a number of audiences for the book: “for the Jewish community, recognising that it is ok to hold different views, and to welcome the plurality of these; for Zionists and non-Zionists, and non-Jews, to offer a variety of Jewish voices”.