Rabbis David Cohen of Congregation Sinai and Jacob Herber of Congregation Beth Israel come from different Jewish religious movements — Reform and Conservative, respectively. But they agree that the relationship Jews in the United States have with Israel, and with each other about Israel, needs to be transformed.
“The conversation has grown so polarized over the past years, it’s difficult for people to stay in the same room together when the issue of Israel comes up,” Cohen said to The Chronicle on Dec. 15 in a telephone interview from the Union of Reform Judaism’s biennial general assembly in Washington, D.C. “It is greatly troubling to me.”
“We believe it is vitally important for the Jewish community of North America to be engaged with Israel and to have a constructive and healthy relationship with Israel,” Herber said in a telephone interview on Dec. 14.
And because they are both among the senior rabbinical fellows of the Jerusalem-based Shalom Hartman Institute who studied there this past summer, they learned that the institute had finished creating a project aimed at addressing these issues.
Called “Engaging Israel,” it seeks “to respond to growing feelings of disenchantment and disinterest toward Israel among an ever-increasing number of Jews worldwide by creating a new narrative regarding the significance of Israel for Jewish life,” according to its website (iengage.org.il).
“This narrative will serve as a foundation for a new covenant between Israel and world Jewry, elevating the existing discourse from one with a crisis-based focus to one rooted in Jewish values and ideas,” the website description continues.
See the rest of this article in the coming January edition.
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