In December 2023, as Sarah was preparing for their admissions interview for the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College (RRC), they received an email from the college asking them to get on a phone call with an administrator. Sarah assumed the call would be about upcoming Hebrew competency testing. Instead, they were greeted with a series of questions about Israel/Palestine, including whether they knew that RRC students were required to study in Israel during their fourth year. The school knew about Sarah’s history with the anti-occupation group IfNotNow and the organization Open Hillel, which sought to bring non-Zionist perspectives onto American college campuses, and the administrator appeared to be asking, in so many words, how they would relate to Zionist Jewish life: Could they serve a Zionist congregation? Would they complete the required travel to Israel? Could they do what the college thought a position as a rabbinical student would require of them? ….more
