The number of people converting to Judaism has risen since October 7, according to Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ). Jacobs, who recently made his third solidarity visit to Israel since the war began, exemplifies the Reform movement’s staunch support for Israel. The URJ which he leads encompasses an estimated two million Reform Jews across nearly 900 synagogues in North America.
Known as a social justice advocate, Rabbi Jacobs has previously intervened in crisis areas such as Haiti, and the Darfur-Sudan border. But since October 7, he has focused on mobilizing the Reform movement as it rallies behind Israel while also confronting the rising antisemitism in North America. The Jewish people are at a crossroads, he says. We met Rabbi Jacobs for an interview at the Hebrew Union College campus in Jerusalem.
Has each of your three visits to Israel since the war began provided a different perspective?
Each visit had a different feeling. Coming right after October 7 was like paying a shiva call. I felt the trauma. It was so raw. In the winter, I came with a group of Reform lay leaders, for whom it was their first time here since the war began. It amazed us that people we met wanted to start by asking us about the growing antisemitism in the States. It was striking. Israelis were living in the middle of this trauma, and everyone had a personal story about a family member or a close friend who was impacted directly. This one’s brother is a hostage; this one’s son was killed in Gaza. Yet they wanted to ask us about antisemitism in the US. It said something very powerful.
Did the dramatic rise in antisemitism take you by surprise, or were you feeling it in the air before?
We have been experiencing it over the last few years. I was here in Jerusalem in 2018 with our high school program for North American students. I was leading the Shabbat morning service, praying while the people in Pittsburgh, members of the Tree of Life Synagogue, were still asleep. Right after the services, I had a Q&A with the students. One asked me, “Rabbi Jacobs, have you recently experienced antisemitism personally”? I said, “Not recently, not personally.” But then it occurred to me to ask the students the same question. I was stunned by their response. At least two-thirds of the hands in the room went up. I thought to myself, ‘This is significant.’ I was not prepared for that many hands to go up. Shabbat ended, and I was getting ready to go to the airport, and suddenly I got phone calls. Did you hear? They told me about the Tree of Life shooting. That morning, I had this conversation about antisemitism with our high school students, and then came that horrific shooting. Now it’s 2024, and we see this trend continue to rise. People ask me where I think antisemitism is worse, on the Right or the Left. I say that’s a silly question. It’s terrible wherever it is. Can’t we agree that our Jewish community needs to respond to antisemitism wherever we find it? Let’s be busy combating antisemitism rather than arguing where it’s worse.
On this third visit, did you come for a specific reason?
For many reasons. I just met with our teens who came here on our summer program. I’ll be teaching our first-year rabbinical students. Tomorrow, we’ll spend the whole day with Knesset political leaders. We meet with people in decision-making roles. When that happens to be a government whose policies with which we’re happy, that’s great. If it’s a government with policies we’re not so happy about, we still will meet. We’ll meet with the people you would identify as the potential leaders of the next government: Benny Gantz, Yair Lapid, Yair Golan, Gilad Kariv, Avigdor Liberman, Gideon Sa’ar and Mansour Abbas. It’s important that they see our strong connection to Israel. We can love Israel without loving the government – a mantra we also say in America. People say, ‘Oh, does the Reform movement care about Israel?’ They sometimes have a notion that somehow the progressive anti-Zionists are reflective of our movement; they are not. There are such people, but it’s a small segment.
I read that some Reform rabbis have been fulminating and demonstrating against Israel.
It’s so peripheral. I have to say, critical of the government, yes. Anti-Zionists, there are such people. Jewish Voice for Peace, which is the farthest Left, has a few Reform rabbis in there. Some people assume that somehow they’re speaking for the movement. (Fact check: Many of the rabbis in the JVP leadership are, in fact, from the Reconstructionist movement.) Some anti-Zionists grew up in the movement. They’re not leading our community; many are not necessarily rabbis, cantors, or lay leaders. The Reform movement is solidly behind Israel. We don’t apologize for being proudly and deeply connected to Israel. That’s important for your readers to know. We would not admit somebody into our rabbinical school who thought that Israel has no right to exist. Israel is the largest Jewish community on the planet, and we have an obligation to express solidarity with our people wherever they live. The obligation is two ways, with Israelis also responsible for expressing solidarity with the very large Jewish community in North America. When we met with our young progressives, we did so because I felt that I didn’t want to scold them; I wanted to talk with them. I want to hear their questions. Some of their questions are harsh. Some were filled with what they had seen on social media – only images of Gaza. Plenty also had empathy for what had happened on October 7. It wasn’t that they were haters of the people of Israel or the state; they were adamantly objecting to the conduct of the war.
On this, your third visit, do you see a shift in Israel and within yourself?
I was walking to a meeting in Jerusalem on the 4th of July and looking around at the city and the cafés. I realized that you could have no idea there’s a war. But the reality is that everybody’s carrying the trauma – everyone. All you have to do is stop and talk to any person. It isn’t that people were forgetting; they were going about their daily lives. That was not the case in the winter, and it was not the case after October. Every encounter then was like their eyes had dried out from all the tears.
In October, we met with the hostage families. They asked us what we could do. We said, ‘We will be in touch with the White House and the US secretary of state.’ And we have been, constantly. Our whole movement has been very active. I’ve not been to one synagogue where there wasn’t every week not just a reminder about the plight of the hostages but specific things they would be asked to do, to contact their elected officials to advocate for their release.
We’ve also seen an outpouring of financial support for Israel.
Sometimes, writing a check is not the main thing, but this time it was one of the main things. The other thing was raising one’s voice in support of Israel and effectively expressing it in one’s community. We are still seeing all of this happening.
What meetings did you have with US government officials?
We have met several times with Attorney-General Merrick Garland and his top leadership team to discuss growing antisemitism. We have met with representatives of the FBI, ATF, and other top law enforcement officials. At one meeting with the attorney-general, we pointed out the date two days before the anniversary of Kristallnacht. We know that in the 1930s in Germany, a meeting like this was never held. What does it mean that the United States government has taken upon itself the responsibility to respond to the antisemitism, which is real and growing? This is not the 1930s. This administration has been doing more than just paying lip service. We’ve met repeatedly with the secretary of education about what’s happening on college campuses, and often with the secretary of Homeland Security. Of course, Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff has taken this on as a key effort, and we were proud to have him speak at our 150th celebration in December. You can see the elaborate and very comprehensive government response at the highest levels.
You have attended multiple ecumenical services and supported many social justice causes. Did they show up in your time of need?
I received many calls, texts, and messages from partners: Black leaders, Latino leaders, and other people we work with. These are solid personal relationships; some immediately expressed solidarity and condolences. I would say to them, ‘I’m so grateful. It means so much that you reached out. What do you think of saying it publicly? How about a sermon on Sunday?’
And?
Some did, some didn’t, and others didn’t speak up at all.
Do you feel betrayed?
I had more who stayed in contact, even ones who had very strong feelings. You could open their social media feeds and know they were critical of the war, but many have kept in touch. Some of my colleagues say that we, as Jews, must circle our wagons around the Jewish community and forget everyone else. I don’t agree. I was invited to speak at an annual New York City conference of very progressive, Left-wing leaders.
Did you wear your yarmulka?
I did.
It was nice that they invited you.
The woman who led gathering had traveled with me to Israel, and I trust her. Having that relationship and ones like it matters to our security and ability to work together across our differences. She said, ‘I don’t know that everybody wants to hear what you have to say, but I think it’s important that they hear it.’ I had two nightmares: One was that everybody stood up and turned their backs on me. That was the easier one. The harder one was that I was shouted down; I couldn’t even speak a word, which is what often happens to Israeli speakers. They get shouted down. There were plenty of people in the audience of several hundred wearing keffiyehs. I got up to speak and was waiting for somebody to disrupt me. Amazingly, not a single person called out “Free Palestine.” It was quiet. People listened. I don’t know what they took away, but they listened. I will go anywhere I can to bring my message. I’m a liberal Zionist, but I’m a Zionist. Israel is critical to me. At the same time, there is this idea that if you’re a devoted lover of Israel, you don’t have room in your heart for the dignity and the rights of Palestinians. Why is it one or the other? Why can’t it be both?
What about the encampments on college campuses?
I went to Columbia University when all hell broke loose. I live in New York City and wanted to see and hear for myself. I wore a yarmulka, as I always do. It turns out that the students formed different groups. There were student groups, the basis of the encampment, where I heard some harsh things, but some spoke in a language I recognized. They spoke in anti-war language. They weren’t demonizing Israel, saying it has no right to exist. Other people were older, and now we know some were paid organizers. Their language was the purest form of antisemitism I’ve ever heard. This was not pro-Palestinian or anti-war. This was pro-Hamas. But the news reports made it seem like this was all happening together.
Do American progressive Jews still believe that Palestinians can form a liberal democratic state alongside Israel?
Those words sound like oxymorons. Right now, the idea of anyone talking about two states as a near-term solution is either asleep or on another planet. I’m not naïve. It’s not happening today. It’s not happening tomorrow, but every one of these decisions (to annex more land on the West Bank) forecloses more possibilities. So, when you talk about Israel as a democratic state with a few million Palestinians who have no political rights, what does that do to your democracy? It undermines it. So, this is not about just some noble, altruistic gesture. It’s about our self-interest. Let’s do all we have to do to defend Israel. We do not support any calls for conditioning military aid. Israel must have the ability to defend itself. You can be for peace and be for military aid. If it weren’t for Iron Dome and other defensive weaponry, can you imagine the death and destruction in April with all those missiles and drones coming in from Iran? There could have been tens of thousands of casualties.
We must balance the possibility of peace and the need for a strong military. This is not a kumbaya place. Do you want to go up to Nasrallah and ask him to please be nice to us? I’m not giving a sermon to tell Israelis what they should or shouldn’t do. But I do know that in the past, when it seemed there was no chance for peace, particularly after the Yom Kippur War, Anwar Sadat came to Jerusalem four years later, and Israelis across the spectrum believed peace was possible. Even during this dark time, I want to hold out that possibility for peace.
What keeps you up at night?
What’s keeping me up at night is also getting me up early in the morning. I am deeply concerned about the threats to Jewish safety in North America, whether it’s in person or online. And I’m very worried about the trauma that is still unfolding here in Israel, a war that is not over. We are at a very challenging moment. There is a tendency, particularly in North America, to focus only on things like antisemitism and the struggle for Jewish safety. That’s a key concern, but we also currently have 20,000 plus people in our 14 summer camps. There’s a lot of joy, study, learning, and celebrating Jewish life. That’s what drew me to devote my life to serving and leading the Jewish people. When young people experience the beauty and depths of our tradition, they want to be a part of it. And sometimes, they want to update rituals and practices. That’s OK. That is what it means to be young. But I’m also very encouraged, so that’s what gets me up early: It’s exciting to shape a new and, in some sense, the next chapter of Jewish life in North America, which I see is filled with wonderful opportunities. We have to reinvent how we organize Jewish life. Synagogues have undergone significant changes in the last centuries, and they didn’t always look the way they do today. We’re not just resilient; we’re also creative and open to changing and growing the Jewish tradition. We now see this openness and this surge of interest after October 7.
What do you mean when you say you see ‘a surge’?
We’re seeing this phenomenon, which is quite remarkable, that amid a war in Gaza and the uptick in antisemitism, people feel that they want to discover more of what being Jewish is all about. Surveys studying how North American Jews felt about Israel and the war found that there was overwhelming support for Israel, even among the non-Orthodox groups. However, the surprising finding was that more people post-October 7 were seeking out not only to participate in Shabbat and holidays but also to learn about Jewish life. We also see an interest in parents who want to send their kids to Jewish camps and are considering sending them to Jewish schools. There have been more conversions to Judaism this last year, and that’s not just the Reform movement. It’s across all of the denominations, including Conservative and Orthodox. It’s a real phenomenon, and it’s a little surprising that in this intense moment, there’s this hunger and desire to connect and understand more deeply what it means to be Jewish. Some are looking for the safety of being in Jewish settings, while others want to understand better what’s at the heart of Jewishness. [No organization tracks the number of conversions to Judaism in North America. However, based on anecdotal evidence, since October 7 there has been an unprecedented spike.]
I read that the Reform movement is shrinking. True or false?
It depends on what you mean by shrinking. More people identify with the Reform movement, and even those not currently members are participating in activities of Reform synagogues. So, it is true that fewer people are formally joining institutional forms of Jewish life, but there are more people who are identifying and interested in participating. The last two Pew surveys say that two million people in North America identify their Judaism as Reform Judaism.
What do you say to the Israeli politician who said Reform Jews will disappear in three generations?
I don’t see that happening. I don’t see fewer people identifying with the more liberal expressions of Judaism. I see our movement growing in Israel, and that’s a fact.
In 2011 you said, ‘This moment in Jewish history demands bold thinking with big ideas.’ How much more so is that true for 2024?
I would put a big emphasis right in the center of that statement. As a Jewish people, we’re at a crossroads and must think about what this moment demands. It doesn’t mean that we abandon what we’ve known, but we must find new ways for Jewish values to live. This is a moment for us to build bridges for more people to come into Jewish life, places where they can dip their toes in the water, and hopefully, then we can draw them into the deeper water of Jewish living. ■