Progressive Judaism and a reimagining of religious Zionism

This week The Movement for Progressive Judaism (MPJ) released its first publication, titled Progressive Judaism, Zionism and the State of Israel.

As we were editing the volume, alongside MPJ Chair Ed Kessler, one question was at the forefront of our minds – why this book, and why now?

The idea that Zionism and Israel would be the topic didn’t start with an idea for a book, it grew out of a conversation that kept returning over many years in different places and in different ways. A conversation about Israel and Gaza, about the word Zionism, about what we mean when we use it and what others hear, about the weight of history, theology and identity carried in that language.

After 7 October 2023 that conversation became sharper, more loaded, and in many cases harder to hold. As we then toured the country, working on the merger of Liberal and Reform Judaism into our new unified Progressive Judaism, it quickly became clear this issue was shaping how people showed up in communities, what could be said and what could not, and how people were hearing one another.

In some places the pressure led to division, while in others there was a deliberate effort to stay in conversation, with clergy holding space even when it was uncomfortable and people choosing to remain in the room when it would have been easier to step away.

At times it felt counterintuitive that the first thing we would put into the world as a new Movement was a book on Israel and Zionism, at this moment when the conversation felt so unsettled.

Pushing the topic aside would not make it disappear. It would remain, and over time it would do harm. Naming it, and creating space for it, began to feel necessary.

That is where this book comes from. It grows out of an ongoing conversation that is already taking place across many different starting points, rather than any attempt to set out a single position on Israel or Zionism.

It brings together 40 different voices that do not all agree, including personal reflections on changing relationships with Israel, theological explorations of land and covenant, engagement with biblical texts, questions about language, and writing shaped by trauma and grief.
It is not neat, because the reality is not neat. Part of what has made this moment so difficult is the sense that the conversation has been narrowed before it begins, as though only certain ways of speaking are acceptable and others fall outside. That does not reflect how people are actually thinking, and it does not reflect the kind of Judaism we are trying to build.

We can be religious Zionists and still insist on the right, and the responsibility, to define what that means with intellectual honesty, theological depth and moral credibility. As a Movement with a commitment to intellectual openness, that is something we can hold.

Across the book, certain themes keep returning, including questions about language, reflections on trauma, and a renewed engagement with our texts in light of the present moment. Alongside these are voices from Israel grappling with how to hold moral seriousness and compassion together.

We are not pretending this resolves anything. Indeed, it shows how much is still unresolved. It feels more honest to open the conversation than to close it down, and more faithful to a Progressive Judaism that has always made space for complexity, for holding more than one thing at once even when that is uncomfortable.

In the end this book is trying to make space for a conversation that is already happening not just in our communities but across the Jewish world. Stepping into that conversation, rather than stepping back from it, is part of what leadership looks like. The task is to keep it open, and to keep it going.

Progressive Judaism, Zionism and the State of Israel is out now and can be purchased here.