Jews found they could live a complete Jewish life anywhere, even while praying for the restoration of the Temple in the Messianic Age. Jews in small numbers continued on pilgrimages to Israel , but few moved to the Land.

We therefore possess two competing visions of where Jewish life should be lived: the Diaspora and the Land of Israel. Each could be fully justified. Until modern times and the reestablishment of the State of Israel , these thoughts were more theoretical than actual.

Reform Judaism has emphasized the universal aspect within Judaism . We began as a religious movement two generations before Zionism ; we sought equality in the lands where we lived at the same time as we wished to influence those lands. We felt that our mission in the world could be best accomplished through living in the lands where we found ourselves; we would move the world toward our Messianic dream. That optimism was best expressed by the American Reform movement at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Reform and Zionism therefore clashed. By the 1930's the universal and particular tensions of Judaism were felt more strongly within the Reform movement, and the particular and the universal came into balance. The Columbus Platform of 1937 gave a place to Zionism within Reform , but without the demand that we personally resettle in the Land of Israel. Zionism has grown stronger within Reform ranks through ARZA, through the placement of the headquarters of the World Union in Jerusalem , and through the establishment of Progressive congregations and several Reform kibbutzim in Israel . All Reform rabbis train in Israel for a year, and a separate group is educated to serve the Reform movement there. Yet the vast majority of Reform Jews, along with our Orthodox and

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