(RNS) — There’s nothing unusual about the honorary doctorate the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College will grant at commencement next week to Hasia R. Diner — except one thing.

Ever since she publicly renounced Zionism in an op-ed in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz 10 years ago, this leading historian of the American Jewish experience has been persona non grata in most institutional Jewish spheres.

The Reconstructionist Rabbinical College insists the honor it will grant her on Sunday (May 17) has nothing to do with her views on Zionism. “Our criteria for this award is outstanding contributions in one’s field of expertise,” said Rabbi Deborah Waxman, the college’s president and CEO based in Wyncote, Pennsylvania, outside Philadelphia.

Still, the honor is noteworthy for what it says about American Judaism at this moment.

The consensus that made Zionism a centerpiece of Jewish identity has broken down. Younger Jews are increasingly alienated from an identity joined at the hip with unquestioning support for Israel. Anguished over Israel’s war on Gaza — one 2025 survey found that half of American Jews ages 18-34 said Israel had committed genocide — and its policies toward Palestinians in all occupied territories, they want to shift their focus to developing a Judaism for the Diaspora.

The college, part of the Reconstructionist denomination, represents roughly 3% of U.S. Jews. It considers itself a progressive Zionist institution but has long been known for its open and inclusive approach to Judaism. Its ranks include dozens of non-Zionist rabbis.

The decision to grant Diner an honorary doctorate contrasts sharply with another seminary commencement two days later. The Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, the flagship seminary for Conservative rabbis, plans to give Israeli President Isaac Herzog an honorary degree.

Before 2023, the choice of Herzog, Israel’s ceremonial head of state, might have been routine. This year, it seems intended to make a statement — that the Jewish Theological Seminary is doubling down on its Zionist identity.

Students were furious with the choice, writing a letter to the chancellor to complain, saying, “This should be a moment of unity and joy, not a ceremony that members of the graduating class are now morally conflicted about attending.”

Herzog was widely condemned for saying one week after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack that “an entire nation is responsible … (and) there are no uninvolved civilians.” A U.N. commission accused him of inciting genocide in Gaza.

Of the two degrees, the one honoring Diner stands out.

Diner, who is 79, is a social historian who has written 11 books, on topics including Jewish immigration to the U.S.; the history of American Jewish women; American Jews and Blacks; the history of Jewish peddling; and Irish, Italian and Jewish foodways in America. She is a professor emerita at New York University.

In 2015, Diner met in the lobby outside a Jewish studies conference with another historian. In hushed tones, Diner and Professor Marjorie Feld of Babson College, outside Boston, discussed their growing alienation from Zionism.

“She said she felt a responsibility, as a senior scholar, to speak up, and especially as somebody in Jewish studies with a lot of power and decision-making and visibility,” said Feld of Diner.

Feld encouraged her to do so, and the idea of co-writing an op-ed in the English-language edition of Haaretz was hatched. That op-ed, “We’re American Jewish Historians. This Is Why We’ve Left Zionism Behind,” was essentially a point of no return.

In it, Diner described being asked to be a delegate to the World Zionist Congress but having to sign a document saying she was committed to the “strengthening [of] Israel as a Jewish, Zionist and democratic state.”

“The singular insistence on Israel as a Jewish and Zionist state made me realize that, at least in light of this document, I could not call myself a Zionist, any longer,” she wrote, suggesting she could not countenance a state that grants one race or ethnicity superior status over others.

The response was fast and furious.

“The blowback was kind of incredible,” Diner recalled. “There were articles in various media, excoriating us. And I received hundreds of emails from people, some of whom I knew, most of whom I didn’t, as well as phone calls. Some of them were truly absurd, like pronouncing a blood curse on me. Fairly shortly thereafter, places which had asked me to speak withdrew their invitations. And there were a few cases where somebody would invite me to speak, and then call back or email me and say, Oh, we’re sorry. We can’t have you speak because your name is on a list.”

Diner did not lose her job at NYU and continued with her scholarship, but the price of speaking up about rejecting Zionism made her a pariah in many mainstream Jewish institutions.

In the past few years, she was asked to write a handful of essays for Evolve, an online site that curates essays on Jewish life for the Reconstructionist movement. Still, she was stunned when she heard the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College wanted to honor her. She will not be giving an address during the commencement ceremony.

“I really was floored when they offered it to me,” Diner said of the honorary doctorate. “I don’t think that would have happened five years ago.”

Diner’s graduate students said she is more than worthy of the honor.

“We need scholars who write American Jewish history without romanticizing, without nostalgia, reflecting on the history of the community that is in this tension right now, and who at the same time speak out against injustice,” said Hadas Binyamini, who graduated last week from NYU with a Ph.D. in history. Diner was her adviser. “Hasia does both. She writes rigorous social history, and she is morally courageous.”

Recently, a nonprofit documentary filmmaking collective, Tikkun Olam Productions, brought Diner and Feld together to discuss how the 2016 op-ed affected their lives. It was a chance to reminisce about just how far the U.S. Jews have moved since then.

In another sign that things have changed, Diner said she is speaking to the Reconstructionist seminary about a seminar series she might lead next year with rabbinical students.

“What Marjorie and I wrote in 2016 may still be a reviled position,” she said. “But it’s out there now. There’s just nothing shocking about it any longer.”