Jewish Reconstructionist Federation

The Jewish Reconstructionist Federation (JRF), founded in 1955, was the synagogue arm of Reconstructionist Judaism, serving more than 100 congregations and havurot spread across North America. In June 2012, the Reconstructionist movement underwent a restructuring that merged JRF with the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College to form a new national organization initially named RRC and Jewish Reconstructionist Communities. The merged organization was initially headed by Rabbi Dan Ehrenkrantz, a 1989 graduate of the College, and currently by Rabbi Deborah Waxman who took over in 2014. In January 2018, the merged organization changed its name to Reconstructing Judaism.

In 2025, tensions over Israel led the largest Reconstructionist synagogue in the U.S., Kehillat Israel in Pacific Palisades, California, to announce plans to disaffiliate from the movement. The congregation cited dissatisfaction with the national leadership’s perceived lack of support for Zionism and failure to adequately address rising anti-Zionist sentiment among Reconstructionist rabbis and institutions.