Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, says U.S. Jewry is “afraid” to conduct internal discussions regarding Israel.

“Conversations about Israel often get polarized,” Jacobs told Haaretz this week, “so we’ve stopped having them. And that’s the worst kind of disengagement there is.”

Jacobs, who is the “scholar in residence” at this year’s General Assembly in Baltimore, also believes that U.S. Jewry must insist on a new definition of religion and state in Israel. Read more.