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November 14, 2003/Cheshvan 19 5764, Vol. 56, No. 8
Putting the 'Judaism' in Reform
JOE BERKOFSKY
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
MINNEAPOLIS - The prospect of a new, catchier name did not seem to excite many Reform Jews - until it actually happened.
Thousands gathered at the 67th biennial of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations in Minneapolis last week, yet few seemed to have much passion for the impending vote to change the venerable synagogue association's name to the Union for Reform Judaism.
The sentiments of Stephen Lynn, president of one of the oldest and most prestigious Reform congregations in North America, the Stephen S. Wise Free Synagogue on Manhattan's Upper East Side, were typical: The name-change "is silly," Lynn said. "I don't care. I'll still come to the conventions."
But that was before the Nov. 7 vote.
The president of the body representing more than 900 Reform congregations, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, urged the name change in a speech that touched on the spiritual.
Names "are not unimportant" in Jewish tradition, Yoffie said.
Referring to the weekly Torah portion that coincided with the conference and the vote, Yoffie said, "Abram becomes Abraham and Sarai becomes Sarah, signifying that they are no longer leaders of a clan or a tribe but of a people - and not only a people, but a religious people covenanted to God."
In Judaism, he added, "a change of name takes place when a person or a group undergoes a change in essence."
That transformation is taking place in the Reform movement, Yoffie said.
Since its founding 130 years ago, Reform Judaism has gone from a German Jewish movement advocating enlightenment and emancipation from ritual to one seeking more tradition and more active participation in Jewish life.
Reform has grown into "the largest and most dynamic religious movement in American Jewish life," Yoffie said, with 1.5 million members and 920 congregations.
Studies bear that out.
Of the 46 percent of 4.3 million Jews who claim affiliation with a synagogue, 39 percent identified as Reform, compared to 33 percent Conservative; 21 percent Orthodox; 3 percent Reconstructionist and 4 percent other, according to the National Jewish Population Survey 2000-01.
Reform attributes some of its success to its outreach to unaffiliated Jews, and its embrace of non-Jewish spouses of Jews.
Yet the congregational umbrella has found it difficult to win acceptance in wider circles, Yoffie said, in part because of an "awkward" moniker.
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