Israel gets a bad rap among Reform Jews. And Reform Jews get a bad rap when it comes to Israel.

Spend enough time in Jewish spaces, and you will hear both narratives repeated as fact: liberal Jews are distancing themselves from Israel, and Reform Jews are uncomfortable with Zionism. Israel, meanwhile, is increasingly perceived as conservative, exclusionary, even hostile to the values many American Jews hold dear.

Rabbi Tracy Kaplowitz

Participants in a Volunteer Birthright trip for Reform Jews from across North America volunteer on a kibbutz with Leket, Israel’s national food rescue organization.

There is truth here, but only partial truth — and partial truths, when left unexamined, harden into assumptions that distort our decision-making and weaken our communal future.

A recent survey by Jewish Federations of North America helps explain what is actually happening. Only about one-third of American Jews say they identify as “Zionist.” And yet 88% affirm Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state. Among younger Jews, discomfort with the label “Zionism” is even more pronounced, while support for Israel’s existence remains strong.

Yes, many liberal Jews are deeply critical of Israel’s current government and the policies enacted in their name. And for some, that criticism has become so entangled with the word “Zionism” that they no longer recognize their own commitments in the term itself. They reject what they understand Zionism to mean — but not the idea of Israel, not Jewish Peoplehood and not the moral responsibility that binds them to the Jewish state.

This is where the story often goes wrong. We misread discomfort with language as rejection of substance. We mistake critique for abandonment. And we conclude — wrongly — that liberal and Reform Jews no longer want meaningful connection to Israel.

In my experience, the opposite is true. What liberal Jews want is honest engagement. They want moral seriousness, complexity and relationship — not slogans or litmus tests. They want to encounter an Israel that reflects their values as well as their questions. And when that Israel is made visible, they show up.

In December, I traveled with 95 participants on Volunteer Birthright for Reform Jews — adults ages 26 to 50 from Reform communities across North America. They came from Vancouver and Toronto, Los Angeles and New York. They traveled during a deeply uncertain moment, in the shaky quiet of a tenuous ceasefire.

On our first day of volunteering, we found ourselves weeding a muddy rhubarb field on a kibbutz outside Kfar Saba, partnering with Leket, Israel’s national food rescue organization. At one point, we were pulled from the work to sit in a circle with Israeli volunteers from the country’s electric company. The cards in our hands prompted conversation about Israel and the Diaspora.

Assumptions surfaced quickly — and dissolved just as fast. Not all of the Israelis in the circle were Jewish. Two were Arab citizens of Israel who spoke with devotion about this land and their hopes for its future. As we shared our own experiences of antisemitism in North America, they listened with care and solidarity. For many in our group, this was the first time Israel felt neither defensive nor demanding — but invitational. Encounters like this do not happen by accident. They require intentional pathways, trusted frameworks and leadership willing to take responsibility for building access.

For nearly a decade, those pathways were missing. When the Reform movement ceased operating as an official Birthright provider in 2017 due to difficulties recruiting for trips, a critical doorway quietly closed. Other Israel experiences remained, but many did not reflect Reform theology, pluralism, or Jewish diversity. Over time, the movement’s absence reinforced a false binary: that one must choose between being pro-Israel or progressive, committed or critical, engaged or ethical.

But in the intervening years, we at Stephen Wise Free Synagogue believed that there was still a hunger for Israel experiences among liberal Jews. So, we decided to test our theory.

The response was unmistakable. Nearly 180 people initially registered for a planned July 2025 trip before it was canceled due to the war with Iran. In December, 95 traveled. Registration is already open for July 2026, and interest continues to exceed capacity. When liberal Jews are offered access to an Israel that reflects their values — when they are invited into relationship rather than rhetoric — they do not turn away. They lean in.

Reform Zionism, at its best, has always insisted that loving Israel means engaging honestly with its complexity; that democracy, equality, pluralism and justice are not peripheral Jewish values but core values. Israeli Reform communities live these values every day, often with far less visibility than they deserve. When American Jews never encounter that Israel, it is understandable that they feel alienated from the story altogether.

If we want a future in which Reform Jews feel at home in the Jewish story, not pushed to its margins, we must rebuild the pathways that make that belonging possible. Reform Judaism did not become the largest Jewish movement in North America by retreating from responsibility. It grew by meeting its people where they were, speaking their moral language and building institutions that reflected their deepest commitments.

The hunger is real. The demand is there. The question is, are we willing to meet it?

Rabbi Tracy Kaplowitz is the director of Amplify Israel at Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, where she has helped bring Birthright Israel opportunities back to the Reform movement. Learn more or register for the July 2026 trip at reformbirthright.com.