Beit Kaplan on RRC’s Honoring Professor Diner

I post this as Secretary to the Board of
Beit Kaplan: The Rabbinic Partnership for Jewish Peoplehood

Beit Kaplan Statement on the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College’s Honorary Degree for Professor Hasia Diner

Beit Kaplan: The Rabbinic Partnership for Jewish Peoplehood (Beit Kaplan) was founded out of a deep commitment to Reconstructionist Judaism, to the teachings of Mordecai Kaplan, and to the enduring centrality of Jewish peoplehood and Zionism within Jewish civilization. We remain committed to a Reconstructionism rooted in Ahavat Yisrael — love for the Jewish people in all our diversity — and to the State of Israel as the historic and contemporary homeland of the Jewish people.

It is therefore with deep disappointment and concern that we respond to the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College’s decision to honor Hasia Diner with the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters. Public reporting has made clear that Professor Diner has renounced Zionism and embraced positions that place her outside the broad historical consensus that understood Jewish national self-determination as central to modern Jewish life.

We recognize Professor Diner’s significant scholarly contributions to the study of American Jewish history. Academic achievement deserves respect. But honorary degrees are not merely acknowledgments of scholarship; they are moral and communal statements about the values institutions choose to elevate and celebrate publicly.

Reasonable Jews may disagree about Zionism, Israeli policy, and the future of Jewish life. Our concern is not with academic debate, but with the symbolic message conveyed by institutional honor at this particular historical moment.

At a moment when Jewish communities around the world are facing unprecedented hostility, when Zionist students and rabbis increasingly report alienation within progressive Jewish spaces, and when the bonds of Jewish peoplehood are under extraordinary strain, this decision communicates a painful message to many Reconstructionist rabbis, students, and laypeople who continue to see Zionism as inseparable from Jewish collective identity.

Rabbi Kaplan envisioned Judaism as an evolving religious civilization grounded in the life of the Jewish people. Zionism was not peripheral to that vision. It was foundational. Kaplan himself spoke of the rebuilding of Jewish civilization in both the Diaspora and the Land of Israel as intertwined projects of Jewish renewal.

Beit Kaplan rejects the growing tendency within some Jewish spaces to frame Zionism as incompatible with ethics, pluralism, or progressive values. We believe one can wrestle deeply with Israeli policy, grieve the suffering of Palestinians and Israelis alike, and advocate passionately for peace and justice — while still affirming the legitimacy and necessity of a Jewish state.

We fear that honoring voices that reject Jewish national self-determination, particularly without equal recognition of those working to strengthen the bonds between progressive Judaism and the Jewish people, accelerates a dangerous estrangement between Reconstructionist institutions and much of the Jewish community they seek to serve.

Our intention is not to sever ties with Reconstructionism, but to continue calling it back to its deepest foundations: Jewish peoplehood, democratic pluralism, intellectual honesty, and an abiding commitment to the flourishing of the Jewish people in both Israel and the Diaspora.

Especially in this painful moment in Jewish history, we believe Reconstructionist institutions should be building bridges within the Jewish world, not deepening fractures.

Beit Kaplan remains committed to that sacred work.

Beit Kaplan: The Rabbinic Partnership for Jewish Peoplehood

Contact:
Rabbi Shoshana Hantman, Chair

Beit Kaplan: The Rabbinic Partnership for Jewish Peoplehood
rabbihantman@aol.com