Hundreds of demonstrators calling for a cease-fire in Gaza gather in the U.S. Capitol’s Cannon House Office Building rotunda on Oct. 18, 2023. The group was primarily organized by Jewish Voice for Peace. (RNS photo/Jack Jenkins)(RNS) — Late last year, hundreds of protesters crowded the U.S. Capitol to protest Israel’s brutal invasion of Gaza, shouting “cease-fire now,” and “not in our name.”
Among them were two-dozen rabbis and three self-declared anti-Zionist rabbinical students from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Wyncote, Pennsylvania.
Last week, their peers wrapped them in a tallit, or prayer shawl, and their elders handed them an ordination diploma at a graduation ceremony in the sanctuary of a nearby synagogue.
The three — Noah Rubin-Blose, Eli Carson Dewitt and Rachel Kipnes — are long-time activists in Jewish Voice for Peace, an anti-Zionist organization. They are proud of their commitment both to equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians as well as to Jewish study and ritual.
They are among a small but growing group of rabbinical students who are challenging American Jews to rethink their long standing allegiance to Israel and to the Zionist project of building and maintaining a Jewish-dominated state.
The Reconstructionist Rabbinical College graduated and ordained 11 new rabbis on May 19, 2024, at the Old York Road Temple – Beth Am in Abington, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Jordan Cassqay)
This year, following Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza, which has resulted in the deaths of more than 35,000 Palestinians, the passion and organization of the anti-Zionist movement has become a force to be reckoned with. Mounting their largest demonstrations ever, they have grabbed national headlines, most recently helping to support a wave of campus encampments.
In the process, they have confounded mainstream Jewish institutions, some of which have labeled them antisemitic. After the shock of the Hamas attack on Israel that killed some 1,200 people, most of them Israeli, many American Jews found themselves fractured and divided.
“We have had our hearts broken repeatedly,” acknowledged Rabbi Deborah Waxman, president of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College during the May 19 graduation, alluding to the difficult seven months since Oct. 7. “We have been forced to, like it or not, discover new resilience.”
Rabbi Deborah Waxman. (Photo courtesy Creative Commons)
But Waxman also made clear during the ordination ceremony that the Reconstructionist movement is willing to embrace critics of Israel, including anti-Zionists, as it forges a new post-Oct. 7 path.
The rabbinical school, she said, does not have a litmus test on Israel or Zionism.
“There is a lit …
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Among them were two-dozen rabbis and three self-declared anti-Zionist rabbinical students from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Wyncote, Pennsylvania.
Last week, their peers wrapped them in a tallit, or prayer shawl, and their elders handed them an ordination diploma at a graduation ceremony in the sanctuary of a nearby synagogue.
The three — Noah Rubin-Blose, Eli Carson Dewitt and Rachel Kipnes — are long-time activists in Jewish Voice for Peace, an anti-Zionist organization. They are proud of their commitment both to equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians as well as to Jewish study and ritual.
They are among a small but growing group of rabbinical students who are challenging American Jews to rethink their long standing allegiance to Israel and to the Zionist project of building and maintaining a Jewish-dominated state.
The Reconstructionist Rabbinical College graduated and ordained 11 new rabbis on May 19, 2024, at the Old York Road Temple – Beth Am in Abington, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Jordan Cassqay)
This year, following Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza, which has resulted in the deaths of more than 35,000 Palestinians, the passion and organization of the anti-Zionist movement has become a force to be reckoned with. Mounting their largest demonstrations ever, they have grabbed national headlines, most recently helping to support a wave of campus encampments.
In the process, they have confounded mainstream Jewish institutions, some of which have labeled them antisemitic. After the shock of the Hamas attack on Israel that killed some 1,200 people, most of them Israeli, many American Jews found themselves fractured and divided.
“We have had our hearts broken repeatedly,” acknowledged Rabbi Deborah Waxman, president of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College during the May 19 graduation, alluding to the difficult seven months since Oct. 7. “We have been forced to, like it or not, discover new resilience.”
Rabbi Deborah Waxman. (Photo courtesy Creative Commons)
But Waxman also made clear during the ordination ceremony that the Reconstructionist movement is willing to embrace critics of Israel, including anti-Zionists, as it forges a new post-Oct. 7 path.
The rabbinical school, she said, does not have a litmus test on Israel or Zionism.
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