It's official: The God of Reform Judaism cares to end only Jewish oppression

Reform Judaism opposes oppression only when it happens to Jews. This was not the case until recently. The change was effected in the central daily prayers in the prayerbook, and is manifest in the English translation.

Thus, Reform Judaism veered to the right partly as a result of the work of translators. (As a translator myself, I find this interesting.)

This has been stated in its official prayerbook, which changed importantly in a little-noticed amendment to the Amidah or daily prayers, in 2007. The previous prayerbook, adopted in 1975, had as prayer #7 in the Amidah:

"Sound the great shofar to proclaim our freedom, inspire us to strive for the liberation of the oppressed, and let the song of liberty be heard in the four corners of the earth."

So Jews must oppose oppression everywhere. As indeed many Jews do. I always took for granted that this was true of the liberal (and secular) Jews I knew. It seemed to be so when I was a teenager back in the 1970s. Of course, events that had already taken place were making this more problematic, and more difficult. The current Reform prayerbook, adopted in 2007, translates the same Hebrew passage as follows:

"Sound the great shofar to proclaim our freedom, raise a great banner for our oppressed, and let the voice of liberty be heard in the four corners of the earth. Blessed are you, Adonai, who redeems the oppressed."

Not only was the last line added, correctly, concluding the prayer with a recognition that what's important about the redemption of the oppressed is not that people struggle for it but that God performs it. (One might wonder if he guarantees it, or if we can just wait and see for it to happen.). It also changed “inspire us to strive” to “raise a great banner.” Does this mean that one can go to protest marches but not actually do work to end oppression? Does it mean that it might be best to waive one’s own group’s national flag?
But even more decisively, in what I take to be a crucial line, the prayer changes its object from "the oppressed" to "our oppressed." “The oppressed” is now said only in the closing line, where opposition to oppression in general, including that of other people, is God’s concern, while an (only) slightly more active temperament is suggested in connection with “our oppression,” perhaps on the assumption that each particular national people, including Jews, may struggle independently against their own oppression, though our concern should only with our own.

It follows from the principal change in the line that substitutes “the” with “our,” that the oppression of the Palestinians doesn't matter, and that of blacks and others in America who are not Jewish doesn't matter.

One English word, "the," was changed to a weaker and more restrictive one, "our," a personal pronoun from a definite article. That words are important will escape few Jews, whose religion is based more than any other on understanding what is said in language.