June 19, 2026
Over the last two weeks, I have written about the foundational platforms that guided Reform Judaism in America, beginning with the Pittsburgh Platform in 1885 and the Columbus Platform in 1937. Post–World War II America brought about a rush of changes in American life, as well as Jewish life. We saw a large shift from city life to suburban Jewish life and the establishment of many synagogues, including Congregation Beth Tikvah in 1961. The Classical Reform prayer experience began to shift from a choir that sang melodies by Sulzer and Lewandowski to the music of Jewish composers and singers who shape what we sing today—Debbie Friedman, Rabbi Dan Freelander, and Cantor Jeff Klepper, to name a few.
Rabbi Maurice Eisendrath, who led the Union of American Hebrew Congregations from the late 1940s and moved the UAHC headquarters from Cincinnati to New York, placed a strong focus on the ethical obligations of Jewish life. He helped establish the Religious Action Center as the social justice arm of the movement. He marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and helped establish the pursuit of justice as central to Reform Judaism. His leadership helped centralize the UAHC as the voice of Reform Judaism. Prior to his leadership, Hebrew Union College, as well as the voices of rabbis leading large congregations, had competed for leadership.
After Eisendrath’s death in 1973, Rabbi Alexander Schindler took up the mantle of leadership. He brought a different connection to Judaism and Jewish life. Under Rabbi Schindler’s leadership, the UAHC centralized Jewish education and Yiddishkeit. There were numerous publications, such as Gates of Mitzvah and A Guide to Shabbat, that helped bring cohesion to what was becoming a fragmented Jewish experience. The CCAR published Gates of Prayer, its first prayer book in more than a generation, and the book that many of us who grew up in Reform congregations used throughout much of our lives. Reform Judaism was shifting back toward a more traditional observance of Judaism. The kippah and tallit, which would have been considered contraband in a Reform temple 50 years earlier, were becoming more commonplace.
The world was changing as well. The 1960s saw the rise of the Civil Rights Movement and a wave of legislation granting rights to the African American community and other minorities. The Vietnam War and the protests surrounding it took hold in America. In Ohio, the Big Red Machine went on to win back-to-back World Series titles, and the New York Knicks won a couple of championships—something that wouldn’t happen again until 2026 (yes, this week has been a dream come true for me—Go Knicks!). In the Jewish community, Israel was still threatened by its neighbors, as its very existence came to the brink in 1967 and 1973.
The UAHC Centennial in 1973 and the HUC Centennial in 1975 created both a desire and an opportunity to develop a new platform. Michael Meyer writes in Response to Modernity that representatives from the HUC faculty, congregational rabbis, and laity began meeting for this purpose in 1971. Longtime HUC professor Eugene Borowitz, a traditionalist in theology, led a group of faculty at HUC-JIR in New York to create a new platform. After these efforts did not succeed, CCAR President Robert Kahn created a committee of CCAR members to draft a new platform. A year later, in 1976, the CCAR gathered in San Francisco to adopt Reform Judaism: A Centenary Perspective.
The echoes of the Holocaust guided Jewish life, even though it had not yet become commonplace to discuss it openly. The language of survival is clear throughout the document. Meyer explains that this new platform avoided taking a clear theological position. Torah, it explained, resulted from the relationship among God, the Jewish people, and Israel as an uncommon union of faith and peoplehood. Mitzvot were described as “claims made upon us.” The document began with a reflection on history and concluded with history, stating, “with God’s help people are not powerless to affect their destiny.” Absent from the creation of this platform were divisions over Zionism; those discussions gave way to deep conversations about how one lives as a Jew.
It is this document, and the Reform Jewish world it helped shape, that influenced the ways I grew up Jewishly. Just like its predecessors, it mirrors what was happening in the world—both Jewish and non-Jewish—during a time of rapid change.
As we navigate this pathway through history, we learn about the thinking and experiences that have shaped Jewish life today. As Reform Jews, we adapt, change, and grow.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Rick Kellner