At the Zionist movement’s main international gathering in Jerusalem on Tuesday, an Orthodox rabbi from California watched quietly as dozens of Progressive Jews protested Israel’s war in Gaza.

Then, turning to one of the demonstrators, he said with friendly candor: “I don’t believe in making peace with someone who wants to kill you.”

The brief exchange between Rabbi David Eliezrie and a protester affiliated with the Reform Movement’s Arzenu faction took place on the sidelines of the World Zionist Congress, the main democratic gathering of the World Zionist Organization and the first to take place in person in a decade.

It encapsulated the deep ideological rifts that continue to divide the Zionist movement, and which were on full display during the kickoff of the three-day democratic as

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