The Origin of Reform in Judaism

The movement’s mostly unknown origins go a long way to explain Jews who are hostile to traditional Judaism and to Israel.

Ron Kean | July 10, 2026

It seems strange that some Jews are antagonistic toward Judaism and Israel. They will demean Jews or the Jewish state and promote enemies of Judaism and Israel. Jews are also so associated with atheism, communism, and other “isms” that, even though they’re a minority in those movements, they seem prominent. Much, if not all, of that behavior is contrary to Jewish teaching but can be explained by examining Reform Judaism’s early days.

Intriguingly, the Reform movement’s origins are shrouded. Many people know Martin Luther, Karl Marx, Thomas Jefferson, and others, what they wrote and started. Who were the early Reformers in Judaism, and what did they write?

This essay explains what Reform was, who started it, when, and what they were thinking. It should also explain why some modern Jews have radical, counterculture, and anti-establishment values. This is not meant to paint all Reform Jews with the same broad brush. The debt the world owes to the achievements of many individual Reform Jews is immense.

Still, it matters who the first Jews were to open the shop on Saturday or go to the theater on Friday night. This is a story about a few gods and maybe a reason for obeying the Commandments from Mount Sinai.

Jews have always believed that God chose Israel to be a nation of laws. Jewish teaching says that He created the heavens, the earth, man, a lawful teaching, and everything else.

We are told about a paradise and how man was banished from it. The teaching called Torah says the God of Israel is wrathful when His laws are disobeyed and especially wrathful when His people worship other gods.

In the 16th century, a Jewish mystic, Isaac Luria, formulated a system to explain existence. It came to him that when existence began, in a first epoch, there was a perfect mystical structure symbolic of an ideal. Then, because of Adam’s mistake, the structure shattered, and shards fell.

After that, the second epoch—our epoch—began. Luria believed Jews, by obeying........

© American Thinker