Their mission “endeavors to make Israel fundamental to the sacred lives and Jewish identity of Reform Jews.
We reaffirm that the object of Judaism is not political nor national, but spiritual, and addresses itself to the continuous growth of peace, justice and love in the human race.
[1] In the early 20th century, many Jewish leaders accepted the ideal of Americanization, which was an undivided political, economic and cultural affiliation with America.
Zionism was, to them, an ideology of foreign origins that was associated with newly arrived Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe.
In the San Francisco Centenary Perspective of 1976 the State of Israel is described as the land to which Reform Jews have "innumerable religious and ethnic ties".
The Shoah [Holocaust] intensified our resolve to affirm life and pursue the Zionist dream of a return to Eretz Yisrael.
We, therefore, affirm Am Yisrael's reassertion of national sovereignty, but we urge that it be used to create the kind of society in which full civil, human, and religious rights exist for all its citizens.
Through the ideal of Tikkun Olam (healing the world), Reform Zionism sees the role of the State of Israel as the means by which the messianic era can be achieved, by acting as a "light unto the nations", a national example of ideal prophetic principles of justice and peace.
In 1897, Hebrew Union College President and founder Isaac M. Wise described Judaism as "eternal" and "not tied down to a piece of land here or there".
Public perception, including among the students of the College, was that Margolis was a victim of bigoted prejudice against Zionism.
The Jewish Exponent wrote that a Zionist professor could not be allowed to turn the universal teachings of Judaism into "crude and nationalistic utterances".
Bernheim and publications like The American Hebrew suggested replacing the term "Jewish" to avoid association with Zionist ideology, which they feared could create doubts about their loyalty to America.