The Union for Reform Judaism’s 2005 Biennial resolution on Iraq and the Executive Committee’s update of the resolution last March were passed after much deliberation. I am proud that our leadership debated the war, although I know it was painful for those who feared losing members and donors if the Union spoke out on this issue. Without revisiting the merits of the resolutions, I want to provide some historical context.

It is the conceit of every generation that it is wiser than those who came before it and more experienced than those who will follow. Still, historians remind us that we are well advised to learn the lessons of the past. And we are far from being the first generation of Reform leaders to apply our values to major social and political issues over vocal opposition from within our own ranks.

In the 1920s and ’30s—despite internal protestations—the Union repeatedly passed resolutions supporting workers’ rights. At the 1929 San Francisco Biennial, Roscoe Nelson of Portland, Oregon countered the opposition: “Too often I have heard it said, ‘When I go to synagogue, I go for spiritual inspiration. I hear enough elsewhere about the coal strikes, the housing problems, the juvenile delinquency, and the rest of such Bolshevik cant.’ Let me say to my good friends who reason thus that no rabbi ever announced a holier or more truly Jewish topic than the one embraced in the broad category of Jewish social justice.”

At the 1957 Biennial, Union President Rabbi Maurice Eisendrath called on the delegates to insist that America “sustain and strengthen the UN, enact the Genocide Convention,” and lead the world in “risky” but “imperative reduction in world-threatening armaments.” “If these are not the tasks of the synagogue, if this is not the be all and end all of our religion,” he thundered, “then of what does our faith and our purpose as ministers of the Most High consist?”

And through the 1950s and ’60s, the Union passed a series of civil rights resolutions over the objections of well-intentioned southern leaders who warned of a loss of members and withdrawal of congregations from the Union itself.

In 1962, Union Board member Philip Heller, my father, summed up eight decades of the Union’s actions: “Our fellow Jews spoke out cogently, directly, conscientiously upon problems of great ethical and moral import and saw their principles prevail within their own lifetimes…[demonstrating] the wisdom of the attitude expressed by President Kennedy when he wrote in a letter to Rabbi Eisendrath that ‘religious freedom within a [democratic] society creates an explicit responsibility, that religion must bear, to illuminate and fortify the moral purposes of society.’”

Whether the issue was the working person’s rights, segregation, nuclear disarmament, civil rights, or Vietnam, history has vindicated the Union’s actions.

Where there is substantial agreement—and there has never been unanimity—as to what our texts and tradition demand of us, we have spoken out. We must, of course, guard against oppressive majorities and respect dissenting voices (Union policies are not binding in any way upon congregations or individuals, who are free to express their own personal views), just as the Talmud respects minority points of view. But we must also have the moral courage to stand up to those who would try to thwart the majority opinion by threatening to withhold support or worse. Above all, we must encourage open debate, with the understanding that once the vote has been taken, the end results must be accepted.

I do not know how history will judge our resolutions on Iraq. I do know that the manner in which we arrived at our Iraq positions was wholly in keeping with our mission and practice since the Union’s founding.

Amy joins me in extending best wishes for the New Year to all.