In the U.S., the demand for Reform and Conservative synagogue rabbis has been outpacing supply. Now, Gabby Deutsch reports, congregations searching for clergy face an additional problem:

A large Conservative synagogue on the East Coast came face-to-face with the divide between some young rabbis and the synagogues they hope to serve last year. When several candidates applied for a rabbinical position at the synagogue, the congregation’s search committee was thrilled to be in the increasingly rare position of having options—and to their surprise, one of the first candidates they interviewed came in eager to critique the synagogue’s approach to Israel and armed with a plan to push it to the left.

Officially, Zionism is a key pillar of all three major Jewish denominations in the U.S. But in the more progressive Reform and Conservative movements, some prominent rabbis are raising the alarm about a small but significant number of rabbinical students and early-career rabbis who identify as non-Zionist or anti-Zionist, and who lack the connection to Israel that has for decades been a key part of what it means to be Jewish in the diaspora.

A November poll from the Jewish Electorate Institute found that more than 90 percent of Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox Jews identified as emotionally attached to Israel.

Yesterday I saw an unconfirmed report that the Biden administration has offered Israel a massive arms deal in exchange for a promise not to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities. Even if the report is incorrect, there is plenty of other evidence that the White House has been trying to dissuade Jerusalem from mounting such an attack. The thinking behind this pressure is hard to fathom, as there is little Israel could do that would better serve American interests in the Middle East than putting some distance between the ayatollahs and nuclear weapons. Aaron MacLean explains why this is so, in the context of a broader discussion of strategic priorities in the Middle East and elsewhere:

If the Iran issue were satisfactorily adjusted in the direction of the American interest, the question of Israel’s security would become more manageable overnight. If a network of American partners enjoyed security against state predation, the proactive suppression of militarily less serious threats like Islamic State would be more easily organized—and indeed, such partners would be less vulnerable to the manipulation of powers external to the region.

[The Biden administration’s] commitment to escalation avoidance has had the odd effect of making the security situation in the region look a great deal as it would if America had actually withdrawn [from the Middle East].

Alternatively, we could project competence by effectively backing our Middle East partners in their competitions against their enemies, who are also our enemies, by ensuring a favorable overall balance of power in the region by means of our partnership network, and by preventing Iran from achieving nuclear status—even if it courts escalation with Iran in the shorter run.