Urgent Election Notice Email Sent By Reform Judaism

An urgent election update was sent by email from Jennifer Brodkey Kaufman, Chair, URJ (Union for Reform Judaism) and Rabbi Rick Jacobs President, URJ last week. The email read:

Today, we are writing to share an urgent appeal concerning the World Zionist Congress election…

…The results of the election are nothing short of essential for the Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism (IMPJ), whose funding streams are determined by the results of the election.

So much of the dramatic growth of our Movement in Israel throughout the past five years can be traced directly to our success in the 2015 WZC election. This year, our Reform partners in Israel have asked over and over again, with deep concern, about our campaign work here in the United States – and they cannot stress enough the importance of a strong showing by our Movement….

…However, it is with both sadness and alarm that we have witnessed some truly ugly efforts to undermine us, carried out by those who recognize that our success will allow us to more effectively advance our Reform views and values. Some slates have gone so far as to explicitly claim that we are supporters of BDS and haters of “true Judaism.”

They fear that our victory would be critical in advancing religious pluralism, peace, and economic justice in Israel. They are right to be afraid – because that is exactly what we intend to do! …

This email openly confirms the agenda of the Reform movement through their ARZA party to use the WZO to promote their agenda. Some in the American orthodox community have doubted how important this campaign is and if the stakes are real. Well, according to the Reform movement, “The results of the election are nothing short of essential for…Reform and Progressive Judaism, whose funding streams are determined by the results of the election.” And, “So much of the dramatic growth of our Movement in Israel throughout the past five years can be traced directly to our success in the 2015 WZC election.” 

Traditional Orthodox Jews have stayed away from voting in the WZO elections. For many this was because of ideological issues, and many were unaware of the elections altogether. However, after the results of the last elections in 2015, and the aftermath seen in critical areas of religious concern to Frum Jews in Israel, such as control of the Orthodox led Chief Rabbinate over marriage, divorce and conversion. 

On July 23, 2018 JNS ran a story of “a woman praying in the egalitarian prayer plaza [that] was narrowly spared from death on Monday morning when a 220-pound stone fell out of the Western Wall. A woman—the only person at the “Ezrat Yisrael” mixed-gender prayer plaza at the time—seemed so absorbed that she failed to notice the falling brick, which broke the plaza floor just a few meters in front of her…The breakage comes just a day after the Western Wall plaza was filled with worshippers marking Tisha B’Av.” 

Some saw a Divine message in this story. Whether or not you do, the fact that an egalitarian prayer plaza exists at the Kossel, according to the Reform movement’s email, “can be traced directly to our success in the 2015 WZC election.” 

On February 22, 2020, Arutz Sheva quoted Blue and White leader MK Yair Lapid who spoke to members of the Reform Movement in Israel. He said, “The State needs to recognize Reform and Conservative conversion. And the same is true with budget allocations – we need equality between the streams of Judaism.” 

In a recent Tablet Magazine Article, calling this the Worst Election Yet, Liel Leibovitz writes: “They are members of Hatikvah slate, emerging as the main voice of progressive Jews, committed to working “with communal partners, especially Muslim organizations, to promote a common defense to our shared safety and values through interfaith and intercommunal dialogue.” On their slate you’ll find such heavy hitters as Peter Beinart, the columnist for the radical leftist publication Jewish Currents and a fulsome defender of bona fide anti-Semites like Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib; Rabbi Jill Jacobs, who took to Twitter to suggest that only right-wing white Americans can be anti-Semites, and that any violence from African American perpetrators is, well, complicated; and Jeremy Ben-Ami, leader of J Street, who just last week embraced and kissed Mahmoud Abbas, a Holocaust-denying terrorist who currently squanders a fair share of his budget to reward the murderers of Jews.” 

Leibovitz continues, “The WZC was and remains a decayed organization barely worth our time and effort. But now all well-intentioned Jews…need to engage, if only to make sure this run-down castle doesn’t accidentally fall into the wrong hands and become a moneyed and weaponized bastion from which to attack the very thing it was supposed to defend.” 

Of course, there is Eretz HaKodesh, a new slate running in the WZO elections. Eretz HaKodesh Slate #1 in this election seems to be what Reform calls “truly ugly efforts to undermine us,” and those who, “have gone so far as to explicitly claim that we are…haters of “true Judaism.” Eretz HaKodesh refused to respond directly to the Reform email sent yesterday which they were apparently the targets of. But, Eretz HaKodesh did issue a statement which read, “Any Orthodox American Jew who reads the facts and learns what is really going on understands exactly what he or she needs to do. The agenda of the pluralistic slates are clear, and the only way to ensure Orthodox Jews have a seat at the table to influence the trajectory of religious life in Eretz Yisroel in accordance with our age-old mesorah is by voting in this critical election.”  

Although in America, according to a Jerusalem Post report in 2019, Reform and Conservative Judaism is facing extinction. Reform Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin is quoted as “bemoan[ing] the trends in the Reform and Conservative congregations on Long Island, saying synagogues are merging, consolidating or closing altogether.” But, the Post reports, “in the midst of all this consternation a synagogue building boom is underway.” This is referring to a boom of Orthodox synagogues being built all across the country. Israel seems to be the last stand for the fledgling movements. Is this why they are trying so hard? 

Reform claims: “They are right to be afraid – because that is exactly what we intend to do! …” But, is it possible that they are the ones who are afraid? 

For information about voting all the slates in the election you can visit this website. To vote go to

www.ZionistElection.org.