Progressive Judaism, Zionism and the State of Israel

Questions of Israel, Zionism, Diaspora and Peoplehood are being debated today with unprecedented intensity.Within this climate, we find ourselves searching for language that can hold multiple truths at once: grief for Israeli lives lost on and since October 7th, anguish for the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, fear at rising antisemitism, and deep concern about the moral and political direction of Israel itself.Conversations have become more difficult, sometimes more painful, and more necessary than ever before.This book is the response.As the first publication of The Movement for Progressive Judaism, it celebrates the multivocality of clergy and lay leaders in the face of an increasingly binary world.The 40 essays gathered in this volume reflect the breadth and depth of Progressive Jewish thought. Some are scholarly, rooted in Jewish texts and traditions that stretch back centuries. Others emerge from lived Jewish experience, shaped by pastoral encounters, activism, teaching, prayer and community leadership.Most important of all, taken together they reflect what Progressive Judaism at its best has always been: a tradition that takes both ideas and people seriously, and that refuses to resolve complexity by silencing difference. Read more