Enough Is Enough: The Slander Against Reform Jews Must End

For months, we have been witnessing, from members of the coalition, a campaign of insults, delegitimization, and incitement against Reform Jews. These are no longer isolated unfortunate remarks. This has become a political line.

First came the words of Galit Distel-Atbaryan, who, in a Knesset committee, suggested that Reform Jews were not truly part of the Jewish people. Then came the opinion pieces, by voices ideologically close to the current coalition, questioning the loyalty, seriousness, religious legitimacy, and national legitimacy of millions of Jews around the world Finally, the latest episode, perhaps the most grotesque and shameful of all: Minister May Golan, addressing Reform rabbi and Knesset member Gilad Kariv, used language unworthy of the Knesset, insinuating that in “delusional” Reform synagogues, marriages between dogs are performed.

Now every limit of decency has been crossed.

Let this be clear: Reform Jews do not need to prove their Jewishness to anyone. Not to May Golan, not to Galit Distel-Atbaryan, not to the self-appointed guardians of Jewish identity, and certainly not to a Knesset that would do better to concern itself with the real problems of the State of Israel: security, the threat posed by the Iranian regime, terrorism, internal social fractures, and the unequal burden of military service caused by those who evade their collective duty while claiming the right to dictate the Jewish identity of others.

And if the coalition really wants to talk about the diaspora, then let it talk about the antisemitism that diaspora Jews are experiencing today. Let it talk about the threats, the isolation, the verbal and physical attacks, the demonization of Zionism, the communities forced to strengthen their security, the Jewish students intimidated on campuses, the Jewish citizens in Europe and elsewhere wondering whether it is still wise to wear a Magen David in public.

No, Minister Golan: over the past two years, I have not attended marriages between dogs. I have endured antisemitism, threats, incitement, and hatred in Italy because of my loyalty to Am Yisrael and to the Zionist ideal. It is in the name of that same loyalty that I now denounce your rethoric.

But at this point, the issue is no longer only about words. It is about laws.

The so-called Kotel question is a glaring example. The Knesset has given preliminary approval to a bill that would place the entire Western Wall complex under the authority of the Chief Rabbinate and could turn forms of prayer that do not conform to Orthodox practice into offenses punishable even by years in prison. This must be said without equivocation: the criminalization of Jewish religious freedom in the only Jewish state would be a historic and moral disaster.

A state born to guarantee the Jewish people freedom, dignity, and self-determination cannot become the place where Jews are criminalized for praying as Jews in a non-Orthodox way. It cannot be that at the Kotel, a symbol of memory, exile, return, and a reunified Jerusalem, a Reform, Conservative, or Masorti Jew — or a woman reading from a Sefer Torah — is treated as a threat to public order. If such a law were proposed in Europe, the United States, or Australia, and prevented Jews from praying according to their own tradition under threat of imprisonment, Israel would have a moral duty to denounce it as antisemitism. Do we really want this to happen in Jerusalem at the hands of a Jewish government?

And the same applies to the Law of Return.

The attempt to deny or erase, de facto, the right of return for non-Orthodox converts would constitute a devastating rupture with the very idea of Israel as the state of the entire Jewish people. This month, a proposal was reported that aimed to deny Israeli citizenship to non-Orthodox converts, after decades in which Reform and Conservative conversions performed abroad have been recognized for the purposes of aliyah, and after the decision of the Israeli Supreme Court recognizing Reform and Conservative conversions performed in Israel for the purposes of the Law of Return.

And the most absurd thing is that all this is happening while Israel’s enemies are trying to prove exactly that Zionism is not a national liberation movement of the Jewish people, but rather a sectarian, exclusive, coercive project. If the Jewish state were to begin criminalizing non-Orthodox Jewish prayer, or erasing the Law of Return for non-Orthodox converts, it would hand its enemies an unprecedented ideological victory. It would be the end of Israel as the state of all Jews. Not the physical end of the state, but the end of its basic ideological premise.

Reform Judaism is not a caricature. It is the spiritual home of millions of Jews. It is one of the principal expressions of contemporary Judaism, especially in the North American diaspora, but not only there. Its communities educate, pray, study Torah, celebrate Shabbat, support Israel, raise funds, fight antisemitism, and transmit Jewish identity to new generations. One may disagree with Reform theology. But religious debate is one thing; the public delegitimization of millions of Jews is another.

This is not a criticism of Rav Gilad Kariv and the Israeli left, about which I myself would have more than a few things to say. This is low-grade electioneering on the backs of diaspora Jews, within the context of the internal skirmishes of Israeli society and in relation to the issue of relations with the Supreme Court.

Millions of Reform Jews around the world cannot be treated as campaign material. They cannot become the scapegoat of a coalition that prefers to stir up culture wars instead of confronting the country’s real crises. They cannot be insulted by ministers who forget that the diaspora is not a reservoir of support to be mobilized when convenient, but a living part of the Jewish people.

Those who insult Reform Jews today should remember one simple thing: many of those Jews defended Israel when doing so was difficult. They spoke in universities, synagogues, parliaments, and local communities. They raised funds. They sent their children to Israel. They mourned October 7. They defended Israel’s right to exist when that right was being denied in the streets of the world.

Are they now supposed to accept lessons in Judaism from those who ridicule them from the Knesset podium?

No. The only thing Reform Jews are willing to accept, Minister Golan, is your apology.