I was an unaffiliated Jew for a long time but when my kids needed to find a place to continue with Hebrew school that went to the 12th grade I visited the different congregations in my area with an interest in how they ran their Hebrew school.
I had taken many classes with them over the years in their adult learning programs but we were happy with an unaffiliated lay led community.
Last year I finally joined this Reform congregation and have been really happy there. We have a new Rabbi as of last year and he is a dynamic leader of our community.
Sometimes I feel that many people really don't have a correct idea of the Reform movement. The ideals that I see in the Reform movement that draw me in are listed below.
Snippet:
1.
Reform Jews accept the Torah as the foundation of Jewish life, a living document that enables them to confront life’s challenges.
2. They believe Judaism must change and adapt to the needs of the day to survive.
Link:http://www.usatoday.com/news/religio...rts/56083696/1
The idea of patrilineal descent I think is the difficulty that other movements have but the children of Jewish fathers and non Jewish mothers need to be raised as Jews and even then people in the Reform movement understand that other movements don't accept this and when patrilineal Jews get married they will need to make a choice. If they marry in a movement that does not accept them as Jews they will need to undergo the conversion process. Given that they have spent their entire lives within a Jewish community and lived as Jews and gone though Brit Milah, Baby naming, B'nai Mitzvot, Hebrew school etc. it will be different then someone who has not.
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