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.