For many, Yom Ha’atzmaut, is a day of celebration marking Israel’s declaration of independence and the creation of the first Jewish nation-state in nearly 2,000 years. For Rabbi Shoshana Hantman, it’s also the day that she resigned her membership in the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association after 36 years.

“I don’t want to be a member of a group that also welcomes Israel haters as rabbinical members,” she told eJewishPhilanthropy. “When I identify as a Reconstructionist rabbi, I immediately have to push back on the assumption that I’m an anti-Zionist.”

For years, Hantman and other Zionist peers had exchanged angry emails about the movement. Last year, they revived their offshoot of the movement, Beit Kaplan, the Rabbinic Partnership for Jewish Peoplehood, which first formed in 2016 in response to the Reconstructionist movement’s decision to ordain rabbis with non-Jewish partners but relatively quickly lost steam. In the announcement of its renewal, Beit Kaplan declared that it “unequivocally support[s] the right of Israel to exist and to exist as a Jewish state.”

The revival of Beit Kaplan followed a public rift within the movement over anti-Zionism, after two students at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College (RRC) penned an opinion piece in The Forward announcing that they were dropping out over what they saw as the college’s increasingly antagonistic attitude toward Israel and Zionism. The outgoing CEO of Reconstructing Judaism, Rabbi Deborah Waxman, countered that while the movement believes in Israel’s right to exist, it will not impose “litmus tests” on its members. And thus, battle lines were drawn. 

In September, Beit Kaplan hosted the former students, Talia Werber and Steven Goldstein, who had accused the school of being “a training ground for anti-Zionist rabbis,” for an online discussion.

Before the event, Rabbi Alex Weissman, the director of the mekhinah (preparatory program) and cultural and spiritual life at RRC, sent a pre-Shabbat email to the college community about it. “We share your frustration and disappointment that this is happening,” Weissman wrote in the email, which was obtained by eJewishPhilanthropy. 

He then quoted that week’s Torah portion, which included the punishments for those who bear false witness against their fellow Israelites, implying that Werber and Goldstein were doing so. “‘If the one who testified is a false witness… you will sweep out evil from your midst… life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot’ (Dev. 19:21),” Weissman wrote.

“These verses are both comforting and chilling. They are comforting because they recognize the immense power of speech and the need for consequences when people speak unethically. … On the other hand, these verses are chilling in their retributive and fear-based approach to making things right,” he wrote, noting that these punishments were, in practice, replaced with monetary compensation. Yet the implication that Werber and Goldstein were speaking “unethically” remained.

While Jewish congregations, communities and families throughout the country grapple with fraught discussions over Israel, Reconstructing Judaism, the official organization for the movement, remains the only one to ordain openly anti-Zionist rabbis. On May 18, the RRC, based in Wynote, Pa., ordained 10 new rabbis, several of whom will become members and leaders of anti-Zionist and non-Zionist movements, such as Rabbis for Ceasefire, IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace. With Waxman stepping down next summer, many are wondering what is next for the denomination. 

The Reconstructionist movement was founded by Conservative Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, who viewed Judaism as an evolving “civilization,” not a static religion defined by halacha. Though Kaplan unequivocally identified as a Zionist and supported the State of Israel, some believe his views would have changed with the times.

In addition to its significance for the tens of thousands of American Jews estimated to be part of the Reconstructionist movement, this growing division within the denomination over the acceptance of anti-Zionism carries significance beyond its borders. What starts within the Reconstructionist movement often spreads, first to the Reform movement and then to the Conservative Jewry and even sometimes to Orthodoxy (bat mitzvahs, say). Indeed, less than a decade after Beit Kaplan launched in response to the RRC’s decision to ordain students in interfaith relationships, the Reform movement’s Hebrew Union College announced that it was doing the same.

For proponents of the RRC’s acceptance of anti-Zionism, this stance represents a general openness to different ideas. For opponents, this professed lack of “litmus tests” by the movement is blatantly false.

“Of course, you have litmus tests,” Goldstein told eJP. “You pick and choose what you want them to be. It’s simply that Zionism and support for Israel’s right to exist do not rise to an important enough level for the movement and the school.”

He noted that the movement has plenty of litmus tests: They wouldn’t ordain someone who vocally opposed the LGBTQIA+ community, was a messianic Jew or supported annexation of the West Bank. (In her opinion piece, Waxman noted that while the movement believes in Israel’s right to exist, it also opposes Israeli settlements in the West Bank and supports Palestinian statehood.)

During the recent World Zionist Congress elections, Reconstructing Judaism, which defines itself as a progressive Zionist organization, ran on the same platform as J Street, which is fitting, Langer said, because most Reconstructionist Jews and leaders are on the same page as the liberal Zionist advocacy and lobby organization. 

“Every seminary has anti-Zionist students,” Armin Langer, a 2022 graduate of the RRC told eJP. “The question is how the leadership of these seminaries approaches these students, whether these students are given a platform or not appreciated.”

During his time at the RRC, Langer, who serves on J Street’s rabbinic cabinet, socialized, debated and studied with peers across the political spectrum. The diversity of views added to his learning experience, he said, but he recognized that his experiences in the school were pre-Oct. 7, before the massacres and war and trauma and tensions spiked.

“Reconstructionism as a movement should serve the Jewish People,” he said, “and the fact is that the Jewish People are a politically diverse group.”

Werber argues that the movement is not transmitting the values that it purports to stand for to its students, particularly around Israel and Zionism.

“If an ordaining body has certain values, narratives and perspectives that they want to transmit about Judaism and their stream of Judaism,” Werber told eJP, “[and] if they’re ordaining people whose central values are not just ambivalent, but directly in conflict with one of their stated core values… that’s a question of mission and purpose.” 

During his time there, Goldstein said, the terms apartheid, ethnic cleansing, settler colonialism and genocide in relationship to Israel were normalized, while Zionist voices were shamed and Jewish pain and trauma, including related to the Holocaust, were brushed off. 

In 2023, Goldstein, a civil rights lawyer, was awarded the Whizin Prize, an award given to scholars for “fresh thinking on issues of contemporary Jewish ethics.” The following year, he recalls being called racist by fellow students “at least nine times” at a town hall because he advocated against the RRC’s student association making a $1,000 donation to Black Jewish Liberation Collective, a nonprofit that has referred to Israel’s actions as settler colonialism, apartheid and genocide on social media. Waxman and other RRC administrators were present at the meeting and didn’t intervene, he added.

After the experience, Goldstein, Werber, and two other students who identify as Zionist left the school, feeling pushed out for their beliefs and feeling that the movement was not supporting a notion of Jewish peoplehood that includes Jews in Israel, with most transferring to the Academy for Jewish Religion, a pluralistic rabbinical school in Yonkers, N.Y. Waxman never reached out to discuss the matter, Werber said.

Waxman was hesitant to speak with eJP without first being assured “that this isn’t going to be another story about ‘Israel tensions in the Reconstructionist movement,’” her press representative said.

“The Reconstructionist movement has been my home my entire adult life — religiously, intellectually and professionally,” Waxman wrote in a statement to eJP. “In a time filled with disruption and uncertainty, I remain convinced that a Reconstructionist approach and, even more, communities — both in person and online — that are nourished by our approach, can help us to find connection and meaning as we work to create the world we want to live in,” she said.

In addition to leading RRC as it began ordaining rabbis with non-Jewish partners, Waxman also oversaw the movement’s merging of rabbinical school and congregational organizations into one organization — Reconstructing Judaism — a move that critics, including Werber, believe put all the power in the hands of a few individuals and cut down on checks and balances within the movement.

The idea that Zionists are being pushed out of the movement is inaccurate, according to Rabbi Sarah Brammer-Shlay, dean of religious life and chaplain/rabbi at Grinnell College and a co-founder of IfNotNow, who was invited to speak at an online event hosted by the movement in December, titled “All of the People Israel are Responsible for One Another: Reconstructionist Values That Shape Our Relationships with Israelis and Palestinians.” Brammer-Shlay believes that Zionist Jews are not used to having their views challenged in Jewish spaces.

“For people who maybe have different politics around Israel than me, and they’re used to being in the majority in a space, it can be emotionally difficult to grapple with a shifting reality that we face,” she said.

Brammer-Shlay’s politics were influenced during a year studying in Jerusalem and doing activism in the West Bank. She has no issue with the movement acknowledging its Zionism because “there’s a de facto Zionism in our community, and we should name it as such,” she said. “I am genuinely committed to being in diverse political community, but that also means that my voice needs to be heard too, and that’s not something I’m willing to negotiate on.”

Other critics have taken issue with the school’s outward Zionism, with a Jewish Currents’ article focused on current anti-Zionist RRC students, most speaking anonymously, criticizing the school for not having a full diversity in the views of their staff because they employ no openly anti-Zionist professors. The RRC’s only anti-Zionist faculty member, Linda Holtzman, was laid off from her part-time position as director of student life in spring 2024. Although students no longer have to study a year in Israel, they are expected to study for a summer there — though there is an unspoken understanding that students can get out of it by claiming that personal reasons prevent you from going. The school also will only fund internships that aren’t explicitly anti-Zionist, and one former student told Jewish Currents that higher-ups monitored her social media and pressured her to take down statuses using the phrase “from the river to the sea” — a call for the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state.

At the online event in December, which was attended by over 600 people, panelists, some of whom identified as Zionist, others who didn’t, were told to avoid terms like Zionist, anti-Zionist and non-Zionist because people define them differently, Brammer-Shlay said. She too is not “particularly interested in ascribing to Zionist, anti-Zionist, non-Zionist identities. For my personal politics, I’m most interested in there being freedom and dignity for all people, including Palestinians.”

The conference is proof that people are hungry to discuss these issues, Seth Rosen, chair of Reconstructing Judaism’s board of governors, told eJP. “Evolution is messy. Evolution is not a simple, clear line from point A to point B. Evolution is a process through which competing ideas… sort of vibe with each other to see which emerge as the ones that are best suited to survival.”

Because the movement is willing to talk about these issues, congregations are thriving, Rosen said. Philanthropy is growing, too, he said. “In all of the press that we’ve had over the last year around this issue, our major donors have stayed with us with great generosity.”

Major Jewish donors to the movement, such as the Nathan Cummings Foundation and UJA-Federation of New York, did not respond to requests for comments about whether they would support the movement if it hired an anti- or non-Zionist leader. A representative from the Henry Luce Foundation said that the organization “values the diversity of the perspective of our grantees and does not endorse or repudiate the views of our grantees. Our Religion and Theology Program aims to deepen understanding of the great variety of American religion, promote more curious and civil public conversations, and stimulate faith-rooted efforts to envision and build a more just, compassionate, and democratic world.”

As the movement begins its search for a new leader, most expect the new CEO to identify as a Zionist.

“Based on my personal experience, an anti-Zionist candidate wouldn’t have the best chances simply because most Reconstructionist Jews are not anti-Zionist,” Langer said. “I don’t think that it would be the end of the movement if a new leader would be anti-Zionist as long as they will tolerate other positions, including Zionist positions.”

Werber hopes this moment is an opportunity for the RJ to clarify its principles and values, “even if it ends up in a place that I don’t personally agree with and that’s not the right fit for me,” she said. If they decide to be an outwardly anti-Zionist movement, “then be honest about it.”

Many in Beit Kaplan remain skeptical of the future of Reconstructing Judaism, the organization, which they say has abandoned Kaplan’s Zionist views. But they have faith in Reconstructionist Jews, Hantman, board chair of Beit Kaplan, told eJP.

If rabbis are not being taught the “historic connection between Jews and the land of Israel,” that’s a failure of teachers and of the school, Hantman said.

“If Reconstructing Judaism fails to live up to its mission and its moral obligation, then Beit Kaplan will have to do it for them,” she said. “If Beit Kaplan is forced to, we will form a rabbinical association. We actually already are, because there’s 90 of us already that will provide support and guidance for rabbinical students, for congregations, for individuals who are seeking that confusing path to their own Jewish identity… It has to be done, because if Reconstructionist Judaism disappears, that would be a catastrophe for American Jews.”

Ed. note: An earlier version of this report stated that Waxman refused to speak with eJP. She did not explicitly refuse, but repeatedly asked first for assurances that the conversation would not deal with the movement’s tensions over Zionism.