Resolution Adopted by the CCAR

Reform Zionist Think Tank

Adpoted by the 103rd Annual Convention of
the Central Conference of American Rabbis
San Antonio, Texas, April, 1992

The Central Conference of American Rabbis supports the initiative by ARZA to convene a Reform Zionist Think Tank to be co-chaired by our colleagues Stanley Davids and Leon Jick along with Constance Kreshtool. Its purpose is to formally consider the relationship of the Reform Jew to Zionism and to Israel, and to seek to define the Reform Zionist mission. These questions have been posed in various ways since the inception of the Zionist movement and have been the subject of ongoing reevaluation ever since. A variety of statements have been issued but at no point has the Reform Movement engaged in a thorough-going analysis or defined a position.
         Our Movement has come a long way in developing a positive relationship with Zionism, but as late as 1943 the terms of the relationship could still be debated under the rubric "Are Zionism and Reform Judaism incompatible? "
         The emergence of ARZA and of a growing Reform Movement in Israel, the changing character and composition of the Zionist Movement, and the challenge of religious developments within the State of Israel confront us with the need to reexamine the basic question.
         The intent of the Think Tank is to formulate a statement of principles on Reform Zionism that will spur a renewed Reform commitment to the concept of Jewish peoplehood which is at the heart of the Zionist idea.
         The Conference endorses this goal and calls upon its members to cooperate fully in this important exercise of self-definition.