The Folk Theology of Reform Judaism

Even Reform jews aren't really Reform jews

After thinking over my last post, I realized that it didn’t really capture the core of what the Reform movement is really like for most members on the ground. There is an unofficial folk theology behind the movement, and I’d like to try and tease it out.

If you came of age in a Reform synagogue in the suburbs during the 1980s or 1990s, as I did, your Jewish experience was almost certainly memorable as a vaguely spiritual, vaguely ethnic, vaguely political blend of New Age vibes, pro-Israel enthusiasm, Holocaust guilt, Hebrew singalongs, and bagels. All of it animated by the absolutely central goal of keeping the Jewish people going.

To understand the Reform movement as it actually existed for many of us, you have to start by recognizing the unofficial folk religion that animated it. It wasn’t halacha, or covenant, or even “values” in the way we use the term now. It was something closer to American New Age spirituality wrapped in Jewish language and held together by trauma, music, and the ever present specter of intermarriage.

God, when mentioned, was hazy and abstract: “the source of strength,” in the immortal words of Debbie Friedman’s “Mi Shebeirach.” Prayer was not obligation; at most it was introspection.

For a generation of highly assimilated, suburban, educated, politically liberal, religiously disinterested American Jews, it offered a package that felt both comforting and respectable. It gave just enough structure to mark life-cycle events with dignity, just enough tradition to feel connected to something old, and just enough spirituality to justify calling it a religion.

The central pitch, of course, was “Jewish values.” These were never defined with much precision. The ever-present tikkun olam — a phrase with deep mystical roots — was reinterpreted to mean volunteering at the food pantry and supporting progressive politics.

But if the values felt generic, Zionism gave everything ballast. Not today’s morally complex Zionism, but the purer version of affirming that the Jews have a homeland and you should love it. Israel was the only thing tethering all this airy spirituality and vague ethics to something concrete. It had land, history, soldiers, and falafel. It gave substance to an otherwise ethereal Jewish identity.

Israel provided the sense of collective identity that the rest of Reform Judaism often lacked. You could be a doubter, a skeptic, or a secularist, but you still went on Birthright, sang “Hatikvah,” and had a Jewish star necklace tucked in your drawer. Israel was proof that Judaism was more than just a lifestyle brand. It was history. It was peoplehood. It was real.

And alongside Israel, lending even more emotional urgency, was the Holocaust. Every Reform synagogue had a Holocaust memorial, and no Reform education was complete without extensive Shoah programming: survivor talks, field trips to museums, etc. Holocaust memory wasn’t just historical. It was foundational. It was there to tell you, with absolute clarity, that Jewish identity mattered, because it had been nearly wiped out. If you didn’t believe in God or care much for tradition, the Holocaust still gave you a reason to be Jewish. Jewish identity was about resistance to persecution, about refusing to let the Jewish people disappear.

You didn’t need theology when you had six million ghosts whispering “never forget.”

Holocaust remembrance was identity insurance. It made being Jewish feel serious, even if the religion itself was vague. And it paired perfectly with Zionism. Israel wasn’t just a homeland, it was protection. “Never Again” wasn’t just a slogan — it was the glue. If you didn’t have God or mitzvot, you at least had history and trauma.

Then there were the Hebrew songs, which provided the emotional core of the whole experience. “Hatikvah” and “Lo Yisa Goy” during Hebrew school. “Oseh Shalom” at the end of services. “Hava Nagila” at every wedding and bar mitzvah. These songs did something that the absent theology couldn’t—they made Judaism feel joyful and connected to something larger than yourself.

The Hebrew songs worked because they weren’t trying to convince you of anything. They were just beautiful and communal and tied to Jewish memory. They suggested that Judaism was about celebration and community, not just history and obligation.

In fact, ethnic nostalgia was the background music. The foods at synagogue events. The Yiddish phrases that older congregants would drop. The stories about immigrants ancestors. The general sense that we were the inheritors of a rich cultural tradition, even if we weren’t particularly religious.

This nostalgia provided warmth and texture to Jewish identity without requiring any particular beliefs or practices. It said that you come from something interesting and distinctive, something worth preserving.

But all of it — the spirituality, the values, the songs, the Zionism, the Holocaust, the kugel — served the singular core purpose of Jewish continuity. The quiet, anxious drumbeat behind everything was: don’t let the Jews disappear. Every institution, from Hebrew school to youth group to Birthright to Hillel, was part of a massive project to keep the demographic graph from collapsing. This wasn’t about following God’s commandments or preparing for the messianic age. It was about not letting the chain break. Hence the frequently repeated refrain of “dor l’dor,” generation to generation. It wasn’t about religion; it was about ethnicity and history and responsibility to the past and future.

Looking back, I think that version of Reform Judaism was essentially a successful experiment in ethnic preservation through institutional innovation. It took the basic Jewish commitment to survival and built a whole spiritual-cultural system around it that could work for highly assimilated American Jews. It gave a generation of suburban Jews just enough tradition to feel connected, just enough ritual to feel communal, and just enough guilt to keep them coming back on Yom Kippur. It was a soft, gentle, low-commitment Judaism that let you feel Jewish without having to believe, observe, or know all that much.

Reform Judaism was, in many ways, a brilliant and creative response to the conditions of mid-20th-century American Jewish life. But it was also a fragile one, and now it’s starting to break. Only time will tell if the movement can find a way to hold it all together.