ABSTRACT
Among all American Jewish congregations, Reform Judaism is certainly the one that most radically severed itself from its original discourse. Perhaps this is not so unusual, considering the progressive and somewhat radical nature adopted by the movement right from the beginning. American Reform Jewry has been quite successful in using the early German Reform emphasis on going with the spirit of time, but after the 1960s this turned out to mean a withdrawal from the principles of universalism and rationalism. In their answers to Commentary magazine’s question on chosenness in 1966, Reform rabbis and scholars referred to notions such as ‘unique experiences of Jewry’, ‘the miracle of Jewish survival’, ‘mystery’, ‘myth’, ‘historic fact’, ‘messianic hopes’ as well as the ‘uniqueness of the covenant’ and ‘special responsibility’. ‘What Judaism can contribute to the world’, Eugene Borowitz wrote:
is not an idea or a concept. What Judaism can uniquely give to the world is Jews . . . that live by their social, messianic hopes. . . . The story of the survival of this improbable people is its chief testimony. Just by being here, the Jewish people is an evidence of hope.1
