Throughout the recent campus tumult, media outlets have always been careful to say the Jewish students are part of the "mostly peaceful" protests. The press has dutifully reported about shabbat dinners and Passover seders at the encampments. The message is clear: how can these protests be anti-semitic if Jews are involved? Indeed, the Jewish students at these encampments insist that the Jewish faith is separate from Israel–they maintain that real Jewish values are inconsistent with Zionism.
These arguments have brought to the forefront an issue that has pervaded Judaism for millennia: there is no single Jewish religion. There is one Catholic church, and one set of doctrine. There are a range of protestant faiths, but when there are broad disagreements, there is a schism, and branches go in different directions. (For an example, look at recent developments in the Methodist church). But for Jews, a formal schism is impossible, and really unnecessary, because different groups within the faith can and have adopted radically different understandings.
This dynamic presented itself (trigger warning) in debates about Judaism and abortion. Some Jewish people claim that scripture imposes something like a religious obligation to have an abortion in certain circumstances. And, they asserted that RFRA compels the state to grant an exemption for women to have an abortion in those circumstances. Other Jewish people vigorously dispute and contest this reading of religious teachings. But for purposes of RFRA, it doesn't matter. The courts can probe sincerity of belief, but they cannot mediate what are and are not the tenets of a particular faith.
