Once again, we few subversives burrowing furtively inside the Union for Reform Judaism-we call it the Union for Deformed Judaism- girded ourselves for the Big Cringe: The Biennial. And once again, the leaders of Reform didn't disappoint.

Some eight-thousand aging hippies and their guitars met and hugged in San Diego in December, re-enacting, where canes and walkers permitted, the glory days of Woodstock. There, amid songs and nostalgic tales of the '60s, with the strains of "All the World Needs is Love" in the background, they held hands and unfolded their agenda: a scornful look at us miserable capitalist sinners, complemented by their utopian recipes for our redemption.

Many of the agenda items were warmed-over re-runs of resolutions from former biennials. The ever-green Resolution on the War in Iraq, replete with the same halachic lectures on torture, humiliation, and war itself, calling in 2005 for a "clear exit strategy," has now been updated. Inasmuch as "the situation continues to deteriorate" and we have failed "to pursue all reasonable alternatives to war," the URJ now insists on a "phased withdrawal of our troops from Iraq.." Footnotes to the gassy nine-page resolution indicate the Union's reliance on such patriotic standbys as the Baker-Hamilton report, various New York Times and Washington Post articles, and a Gallup poll...

...But most cringe-making of all was the camel in the tent: the Resolution on Jewish-Muslim Dialogue. Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie, president of the Union, who prides himself on this initiative, said it this way...