The Return of the American Council for Judaism

This episode of On the Nose comes from a live Zoom conversation between associate editor Mari Cohen and Rabbi Andrue Kahn in February, in which they discussed the anti-nationalist tradition of the American Reform movement and the American Council for Judaism (ACJ), the anti-Zionist organization created by Reform rabbis in 1942. Kahn, the executive director of a newly revived ACJ, answers questions about the Reform movement’s roots in German Jewish emancipation, its attempts to offer a religious paradigm appealing to American Jews, and why early leaders eschewed Zionism. They also discuss early Reform anti-Zionists’ racial politics, how some ACJ leaders developed a concern for Palestinian rights, and what a revived ACJ might offer American Jews today, in a world where official Reform Judaism has long been Zionist. 

Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”

Texts Mentioned 

“The Pittsburgh Platform” 

“The Columbus Platform” 

“Declaration Adopted by the Biltmore Conference” 

“Antisemitism, Anti-Zionism, and the American Racial Order,” Matthew Berkman, American Jewish History 

Our Palestine Question by Geoffrey Levin

The Threshold of Dissent by Marjorie Feld

“A Conversation with Professor Matt Berkman,” American Council for Judaism 

“A Reconstructionist Reckoning,” Shane Burley, Jewish Currents