LONDON: Israel’s political trajectory could see the country become “incompatible with Jewish values,” according to two senior rabbis in the UK, The Guardian reported on Tuesday.
Charley Baginsky and Josh Levy, who lead a third of synagogues in the UK under the Progressive Judaism movement, said it is a “Jewish obligation” to challenge Israel’s government, which poses an “existential threat” to itself and the faith.
“We’ve often talked about the direction of Israel being an existential threat not to Jews per se, but to Judaism,” Baginsky said.
“What happens when the direction of the government within Israel takes Israel down a line that makes it incompatible with our Jewish values? That’s a huge worry.”
Levy said questioning Israel’s government “is to be part of a millennial conversation about Jewish values and what God wants of us in the world and our relationship with the land.”
He added: “What the government of Israel does reflects on us as Jews and reflects on our Judaism. Therefore, it is our Jewish obligation to be in dialogue with that in some way.”
The pair were speaking ahead of the launch of the book “Progressive Judaism, Zionism and the State of Israel,” which contains a series of essays on the relationship between the faith and the idea of the Jewish state.
It comes as part of a review that the Progressive Judaism movement is undergoing over its relationship with Zionism, and features passages directly critical of positions laid out by far-right Israeli politicians such as Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir.
Baginsky said: “To say you’re a Zionist, to say you’re critical of the Israeli government, and to also talk about antisemitism means there are very few spaces that you can’t be criticized in.”
She added: “We have a responsibility to show that our religious Zionism is not the religious Zionism that we see sometimes coming out of the West Bank. My Zionism is also a recognition of Palestinian self-determination.”
Levy said: “It’s not that kind of proprietorial Zionism. It’s a different kind of Zionism that’s articulated out of our religious life. It’s textual, it’s deep, and it’s rich.”
The pair’s approach to reassessing their relationship with Israel has seen them draw criticism from other parts of the UK’s Jewish community, including seeing them heckled while speaking at an event last year supporting Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.
Baginsky and Levy had used the event to call for an end to the war and the establishment of a Palestinian state.
“That moment was painful. It was nearly a year ago, and I still feel it viscerally,” Baginsky said.
However, Levy said after the event there was “an outpouring of responses from across the Jewish community, and the wider faith community, who wanted to show their support.”
