There is a quiet crisis unfolding in the American rabbinate, and it is one that too few institutional leaders are willing to name. Across movements, a growing number of rabbinical students are either indifferent to or actively hostile toward Zionism. For those of us in yeshivas and seminaries who maintain an unapologetic connection to Israel, the isolation can be disorienting.

I know this firsthand. Together with a group of like-minded rabbinical students, I have facilitated cross-denominational focus groups with peers who share a deep concern about the direction of their schools. What we have heard is consistent: students across movements report that antizionist sentiment is present and growing in their seminaries, and that institutional leadership is not confronting it. The students who love Israel often feel they must whisper that love rather than proclaim it. Support for and education about Israel exists for students in private whatsapp groups or in fellowships funded by external organizations.

The pattern is not anecdotal. Just this week, six undergraduate seniors and four rabbinical students at the Jewish Theological Seminary signed a letter opposing the invitation of Israeli President Isaac Herzog to speak at their commencement. Six students at a Conservative institution whose very mission is woven into the fabric of Jewish peoplehood and the Land of Israel. Rabbi Menachem Creditor, a JTS graduate and prominent voice in the American rabbinate, responded with a piece that named the stakes clearly: “Antizionism is not normal. Nor should we normalize it…Zionism is not political preference,” Creditor wrote. “It is the modern expression of ancient covenant.” It is the insistence that Jewish life, Jewish memory, and Jewish destiny require a home in the world. “To strip Judaism of that commitment is not to refine it. It is to hollow it out.” When our own institutions struggle to say that directly, those of us who share this clarity must find community where it can be said without........

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