The Return of the American Council for Judaism

On the Nose · Jun 12, 2025 · 44m

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…