Conservative Judaism
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Conservative Judaism (known as Masorti Judaism outside
While regarding itself as the heir of Rabbi Zecharias Frankel's 19th-century positive-historical school in Europe,[2] Conservative Judaism fully institutionalized only in the United States during the mid-20th century. Its largest center today[when?] is in North America, where its main congregational arm is the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, and the New York–based Jewish Theological Seminary of America operates as its largest rabbinic seminary.[3] Globally, affiliated communities are united within the umbrella organization Masorti Olami. Conservative Judaism is the third-largest Jewish religious movement worldwide, estimated to represent close to 1.1 million people, including over 600,000 registered adult congregants and many non-member identifiers.
Theology
Attitude
Conservative Judaism, from its earliest stages, was marked by ambivalence and ambiguity in all matters theological. Rabbi Zecharias Frankel, considered its intellectual progenitor, believed the very notion of theology was alien to traditional Judaism. He was often accused of obscurity on the subject by his opponents, both Reform and Orthodox. The American movement largely espoused a similar approach, and its leaders mostly avoided the field. Only in 1985 did a course about Conservative theology open in the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS). The hitherto sole major attempt to define a clear credo was made in 1988, with the Statement of Principles Emet ve-Emunah (Truth and Belief), formulated and issued by the Leadership Council of Conservative Judaism. The introduction stated that "lack of definition was useful" in the past but a need to articulate one now arose. The platform provided many statements citing key concepts such as God, revelation and Election, but also acknowledged that a variety of positions and convictions existed within its ranks, eschewing strict delineation of principles and often expressing conflicting views.[2][4][5][6] In a 1999 special edition of Conservative Judaism dedicated to the matter, leading rabbis Elliot N. Dorff and Gordon Tucker stated that "the great diversity" within the movement "makes the creation of a theological vision shared by all neither possible nor desirable".[7]
God and eschatology
Conservative Judaism largely upholds the
A similarly inconclusive position is expressed toward other precepts. Most theologians adhere to the
Revelation
Conservative conception of
A small but influential segment within the JTS and the movement adhered, from the 1930s, to Mordecai Kaplan's philosophy that denied any form of revelation but viewed all scripture as a purely human product. Along with other Reconstructionist tenets, it dwindled as the latter consolidated into a separate group. Kaplan's views and the permeation of Higher Criticism gradually swayed most Conservative thinkers towards a non-verbal understanding of
Ideology
The Conservative mainstay was the adoption of the historical-critical method in understanding Judaism and setting its future course. In accepting an evolutionary approach to the religion, as something that developed over time and absorbed considerable external influences, the movement distinguished between the original meaning implied in traditional sources and the manner they were grasped by successive generations, rejecting belief in an unbroken chain of interpretation from God's original Revelation, immune to any major extraneous effects. This evolutionary perception of religion, while relatively moderate in comparison with more radical modernizers—the scholarship of the Positive-Historical school, for example, sought to demonstrate the continuity and cohesiveness of Judaism over the years—still challenged Conservative leaders.
They regarded tradition and received mores with reverence, especially the continued adherence to the mechanism of Religious Law (Halakha), opposing indiscriminate modification, and emphasized they should be changed only with care and caution and remain observed by the people. Rabbi Louis Ginzberg, summarizing his movement's position, wrote:
We may now understand the apparent contradiction between theory and practice... One may conceive of the origin of Sabbath as the professor at university would, yet observe the smallest detail known to strict Orthodoxy... The sanctity of the Sabbath reposes not upon the fact that it was proclaimed on Sinai, but on the fact that it found for thousands of years its expression in Jewish souls. It is the task of the historian to examine the beginnings and developments of customs and observances; practical Judaism, on the other hand, is not concerned with origins but regards the institutions as they have come to be.
This discrepancy between scientific criticism and insistence on heritage had to be compensated by a conviction that would forestall either deviation from accepted norms or laxity and apathy.[14]
A key doctrine which was to fulfil this capacity was the collective will of the Jewish people. Conservatives lent great weight in determining religious practice, both in historical precedent and as a means to shape present conduct. Zecharias Frankel pioneered this approach; as Michael A. Meyer commented, "the extraordinary status which he ascribed to the ingrained beliefs and practices of the community is probably the most original element of his thought." He turned it into a source of legitimacy for both change and preservation, but mostly the latter. The basic moderation and traditionalism of the majority among the people were to guarantee a sense of continuity and unity, restraining the guiding rabbis and scholars who at his age were intent on reform but also allowing them manoeuvrability in adopting or discarding certain elements.[10] Solomon Schechter espoused a similar position. He turned the old rabbinic concept of K'lal Yisrael, which he translated as "Catholic Israel", into a comprehensive worldview. For him, the details of divine Revelation were of secondary significance, as historical change dictated its interpretation through the ages notwithstanding: "The centre of authority is actually removed from the Bible", he surmised, "and placed in some living body... in touch with the ideal aspirations and the religious needs of the age, best able to determine... This living body, however, is not represented by... Priesthood, or Rabbihood, but by the collective conscience of Catholic Israel."[15]
The scope, limits and role of this corpus were a matter for contention in Conservative ranks. Schechter himself used it to oppose any major break with either traditionalist or progressive elements within American Jewry of his day, while some of his successors argued that the idea became obsolete due to the great alienation of many from received forms, that had to be countered by innovative measures to draw them back. The Conservative rabbinate often vacillated on to which degree may the non-practicing, religiously apathetic strata be included as a factor within Catholic Israel, providing impulse for them in determining religious questions; even avant-garde leaders acquiesced that the majority could not serve that function. Right-wing critics often charged that the movement allowed its uncommitted laity an exaggerated role, conceding to its demands and successively stretching halakhic boundaries beyond any limit.[16]
The Conservative leadership had limited success in imparting their worldview to the general public. While the rabbinate perceived itself as bearing a unique, original conception of Judaism, the masses lacked much interest, regarding it mainly as a compromise offering a channel for religious identification that was more traditional than Reform Judaism yet less strict than Orthodoxy. Only a low percentage of Conservative congregants actively pursue an observant lifestyle: in the mid-1980s, Charles Liebman and Daniel J. Elazar calculated that barely 3 to 4 per cent held to one quite thoroughly. This gap between principle and the public, more pronounced than in any other Jewish movement, is often credited at explaining the decline of the Conservative movement. While some 41 per cent of American Jews identified with it in the 1970s, it had shrunk to an estimated 18 per cent (and 11 per cent among those under 30) in 2013.[17]
Jewish law
Role
Fidelity and commitment to
The tension between "tradition and change"—which were also the motto adopted by the movement since the 1950s—and the need to balance them were always a topic of intense debate within Conservative Judaism. In its early stages, the leadership opposed pronounced innovation, mostly adopting a relatively rigid position. Mordecai Kaplan's Reconstructionism raised the demand for thoroughgoing modification without much regard for the past or Halakhic considerations, but senior rabbis opposed him vigorously. Even in the 1940s and 1950s, when Kaplan's influence grew, his superiors rabbis Louis Ginzberg, Louis Finkelstein and Saul Lieberman espoused a very conservative line. Since the 1970s, with the strengthening of the liberal wing within the movement, the majority in the Rabbinic Assembly opted for quite radical reformulations in religious conduct, but rejected the Reconstructionist Non-Halakhic approach, insisting that the legalistic method be maintained.[19] The Halakhic commitment of Conservative Judaism has been subject to much criticism, from within and without. Right-wing discontents, including the Union for Traditional Judaism which seceded in protest of the 1983 resolution to ordain women rabbis—adopted at an open vote, where all JTS faculty regardless of qualification were counted—contested the validity of this description, as well as progressives like Rabbi Neil Gillman, who exhorted the movement to cease describing itself as Halakhic in 2005, stating that after repeated concessions, "Our original claim has died a death by a thousand qualifications... It has lost all factual meaning."[20]
The main body entrusted with formulating rulings, responsa and statues is the
Characteristics
The Conservative treatment of Halakha is defined by several features, though the entire range of its Halakhic discourse cannot be sharply distinguished from either the Traditional or Orthodox one. Rabbi David Golinkin, who attempted to classify its parameters, stressed that quite often rulings merely reiterate conclusions reached in older sources or even Orthodox ones. For example, in the details of preparing Sabbath ritual enclosures, it draws directly on the opinions of the Shulchan Aruch and Rabbi Hayim David HaLevi. Another tendency prevalent among the movement's rabbis, yet again not particular to it, is the adoption of the more lenient positions on the matters at question—though this is not universal, and responsa also took stringent ones not infrequently.[21]
A more distinctive characterization is a greater proclivity to base rulings on earlier sources, in the
Ethical considerations and the weight due to them in determining halakhic issues, mainly to what degree may modern sensibilities shape the outcome, are subject to much discourse. Right-wing decisors, like Rabbi Joel Roth, maintained that such elements are naturally a factor in formulating conclusions, but may not alone serve as a justification for adopting a position. The majority, however, basically subscribed to the opinion evinced already by Rabbi Seymour Siegel in the 1960s, that the cultural and ethical norms of the community, the contemporary equivalents of Talmudic Aggadah, should supersede the legalistic forms when the two came into conflict and there was a pivotal ethical concern. Rabbi Elliot Dorff concluded that in contrast to the Orthodox, Conservative Judaism maintains that the juridical details and processes mainly serve higher moral purposes and could be modified if they no longer do so: "In other words, the Aggadah should control the Halakha." The liberal Rabbi Gordon Tucker, along with Gillman and other progressives, supported a far-reaching implementation of this approach, making Conservative Judaism much more Aggadic and allowing moral priorities an overriding authority at all occasions. This idea became very popular among the young generation, but it was not fully embraced either. In the 2006 resolution on homosexuals, the CJLS chose a middle path: they agreed that the ethical consideration of human dignity was of supreme importance, but not sufficient to uproot the express Biblical prohibition on not to lie with mankind as with womankind (traditionally understood as banning full anal intercourse). All other limitations, including on other forms of sexual relations, were lifted.[23] A similar approach is manifest in the great weight ascribed to sociological changes in deciding religious policy. The CJLS and the Rabbinical Assembly members frequently state that circumstances were profoundly transformed in modern times, fulfilling the criteria mandating new rulings in various fields (based on general talmudic principles like Shinui ha-I'ttim, "Change of Times"). This, along with the ethical aspect, was a main argument for revolutionizing the role of women in religious life and embracing egalitarianism.
The most distinctive feature of Conservative legalistic discourse, in which it is conspicuously and sharply different from Orthodoxy, is the incorporation of critical-scientific methods into the process. Deliberations almost always delineate the historical development of the specific issue at hand, from the earliest known mentions until modern times. This approach enables a thorough analysis of the manner in which it was practiced, accepted, rejected or modified in various periods, not necessarily in sync with the received rabbinic understanding. Archaeology, philology and Judaic Studies are employed; rabbis use comparative compendiums of religious manuscripts, sometimes discerning that sentences were only added later or include spelling, grammar and transcription errors, changing the entire understanding of certain passages. This critical approach is central to the movement, for its historicist underpinning stresses that all religious literature has an original meaning relevant in the context of its formulation. This meaning may be analyzed and discerned, and is distinct from the later interpretations ascribed by traditional commentators. Decisors are also far more prone to include references to external scientific sources in relevant fields, like veterinarian publications in Halakhic matters concerning livestock.[24]
Conservative authorities, as part of their promulgation of a dynamic Halakha, often cite the manner in which the sages of old used rabbinic statutes (
Rulings and policies
The RA and CJLS reached many decisions through the years, shaping a distinctive profile for Conservative practice and worship. In the 1940s, when the public demanded mixed seating of both sexes in synagogue, some rabbis argued there was no precedent but obliged on the ground of dire need (
The need to encourage arrival at synagogue also motivated the CJLS, during the same year, to issue a temporal statue allowing driving on that day, for that purpose alone; it was supported by decreeing that the combustion of fuel did not serve any of the acts prohibited during the construction of the
In 1954, the issue of
The 1970s and 1980s saw the emergence of women's rights on the main agenda. Growing pressure led the CJLS to adopt a motion that females may be counted as part of a quorum, based on the argument that only the Shulchan Aruch explicitly stated that it consist of men. While accepted, this was very controversial in the Committee and heavily disputed. A more complete solution was offered in 1983 by Rabbi Joel Roth, and was also enacted to allow women rabbinic ordination. Roth noted that some decisors of old acknowledged that women may bless when performing positive time-bound commandments (from which they are exempted, and therefore unable to fulfill the obligation for others), especially citing the manner in which they assumed upon themselves the Counting of the Omer. He suggested that women voluntarily commit to pray thrice a day et cetera, and his responsa was adopted. Since then, female rabbis were ordained at JTS and other seminaries. In 1994, the movement accepted Judith Hauptman's principally egalitarian argument, according to which equal prayer obligations for women were never banned explicitly and it was only their inferior status that hindered participation. In 2006, openly gay rabbinic candidates were also to be admitted into the JTS. In 2012, a commitment ceremony for same-sex couples was devised, though not defined as kiddushin. In 2016, the rabbis passed a resolution supporting transgender rights.[26]
Conservative Judaism in the United States held a relatively strict policy regarding intermarriage. Propositions for acknowledging Jews by patrilineal descent, as in the Reform movement, were overwhelmingly dismissed. Unconverted spouses were largely barred from community membership and participation in rituals; clergy are banned from any involvement in interfaith marriage on pain of dismissal. However, as the rate of such unions rose dramatically, Conservative congregations began describing gentile family members as K'rov Yisrael (Kin of Israel) and be more open toward them. The Leadership Council of Conservative Judaism stated in 1995: "we want to encourage the Jewish partner to maintain his/her Jewish identity, and raise their children as Jews."[27]
Despite the centralization of legal deliberation on matters of Jewish law in the CJLS individual synagogues and communities must, in the end, depend on their local decision-makers. The rabbi in his or her or their community is regarded as the Mara D'Atra, or the local Halakhic decisor. Rabbis trained in the reading practices of Conservative Jewish approaches, historical evaluation of Jewish law and interpretation of Biblical and Rabbinic texts may align directly with the CJLS decisions or themselves opine on matters based on precedents or readings of text that shine light on congregants' questions. So, for instance, a rabbi may or may not choose to permit video streaming on Shabbat despite a majority ruling that allows for use of electronics. A local Mara D'Atra may rely on the reasoning found in the majority or minority opinions of the CJLS or have other textual and halakhic grounds, i.e., prioritizing Jewish values or legal concepts, to rule one way or another on matters of ritual, family life or sacred pursuits. This balance between a centralization of Halakhic authority and maintaining the authority of local rabbis reflects the commitment to pluralism at the heart of the Movement.
Organization and demographics
The term Conservative Judaism was used, still generically and not yet as a specific label, already in the 1887 dedication speech of the
The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, covering the United States, Canada and Mexico,[28] is by far the largest constituent of Masorti Olami. While most congregations defining themselves as "Conservative" are affiliated with the USCJ, some are independent. While accurate information of Canada is scant, it is estimated that some third of religiously affiliated Canadian Jews are Conservative.[29] In 2008, the more traditional Canadian Council of Conservative Synagogues seceded from the parent organization. It numbered seven communities as of 2014. According to the Pew Research Center survey in 2013, 18 per cent of Jews in the United States and in 2020 13 per cent [30] identified with the movement, making it the second largest in the country. Steven M. Cohen calculated that as of 2013, 962,000 U.S. Jewish adults considered themselves Conservative: 570,000 were registered congregants and further 392,000 were not members in a synagogue but identified. In addition, Cohen assumed in 2006 that 57,000 unconverted non-Jewish spouses were also registered (12 per cent of member households had one at the time): 40 per cent of members intermarry. Conservatives are also the most aged group: among those aged under 30 only 11 per cent identified as such, and there are three people over 55 for every single one aged between 35 and 44. As of November 2015, the USCJ had 580 member congregations (a sharp decline from 630 two years prior), 19 in Canada and the remainder in the United States.[31] In 2011 the USCJ initiated a plan to reinvigorate the movement.[32]
Beyond North America, the movement has little presence—in 2011, Rela Mintz Geffen appraised there were only 100,000 members outside the U.S. (and the former figure including Canada).[33] "Masorti AmLat", the MO branch in Latin America, is the largest with 35 communities in Argentina, 7 in Brazil, 6 in Chile and further 11 in the other countries. The British Assembly of Masorti Synagogues has 13 communities and estimates its membership at over 4,000. More than 20 communities are spread across Europe, and there are 3 in Australia and 2 in Africa. The Masorti Movement in Israel incorporates some 70 communities and prayer groups with several thousand full members. In addition, while Hungarian Neolog Judaism, with a few thousands of adherents and forty partially active synagogues, is not officially affiliated with Masorti Olami, Conservative Judaism regards it as a fraternal, "non-Orthodox but halakhic" movement.[34]
In New York, the JTS serves as the movement's original seminary and legacy institution, along with the
The current chancellor of the JTS is
The global youth movement is known as NOAM, an acronym for No'ar Masorti; its North American organization is called United Synagogue Youth. Marom Israel is the Masorti movement's organization for students and young adults, providing activities based on religious pluralism and Jewish content. The Women's League for Conservative Judaism is also active in North America.
The USCJ maintains the
History
Positive-Historical School
The rise of modern, centralized states in Europe by the early 19th century heralded the end of Jewish judicial autonomy and social seclusion. Their communal corporate rights were abolished, and the process of emancipation and acculturation that followed quickly transformed the values and norms of the public. Estrangement and apathy toward Judaism were rampant. The process of communal, educational and civil reform could not be restricted from affecting the core tenets of the faith. The new academic, critical study of Judaism (Wissenschaft des Judentums) soon became a source of controversy.[39][40] Rabbis and scholars argued to what degree, if at all, its findings could be used to determine present conduct. The modernized Orthodox in Germany, like rabbis Isaac Bernays and Azriel Hildesheimer, were content to cautiously study it while stringently adhering to the sanctity of holy texts and refusing to grant Wissenschaft any say in religious matters. On the other extreme were Rabbi Abraham Geiger, who would emerge as the founding father of Reform Judaism, and his supporters. They opposed any limit on critical research or its practical application, laying more weight on the need for change than on continuity.
The
In 1844, Geiger and like-minded allies arranged a conference in
The rabbi of Saxony had many sympathizers, who supported a similarly moderate approach and change only on the basis of the authority of the Talmud. When Geiger began preparing a third conference in Breslau,
In 1854, Frankel was appointed chancellor in the new Jewish Theological Seminary of Breslau, the first modern rabbinical seminary in Germany. His opponents on both flanks were incensed. Geiger and the Reform camp long accused him of theological ambiguity, hypocrisy and attachment to stagnant remnants, and now protested the "medieval" atmosphere in the seminary, which was mainly concerned with teaching Jewish Law. The hardline Orthodox Samson Raphael Hirsch, who fiercely opposed Wissenschaft and emphasized the divine origin of the entire halakhic system in the Theophany at Sinai, was deeply suspicious of Frankel's beliefs, use of science and constant assertions that Jewish Law was flexible and evolving.
The final schism between Frankel and the Orthodox occurred after the 1859 publication of his Darke ha-Mishna (Ways of the
Hirsch succeeded, severely tarnishing Frankel's reputation among most concerned. Along with fellow Orthodox Rabbi Azriel Hildesheimer, Hirsch launched a protracted public campaign through the 1860s. They ceaselessly stressed the chasm between an Orthodox understanding of Halakha as derived and revealed, applied differently to different circumstances and subject to human judgement and possibly error, yet unchanging and divine in principle—as opposed to an evolutionary, historicist and non-dogmatic approach in which past authorities were not just elaborating but consciously innovating, as taught by Frankel. Hildesheimer often repeated that this issue utterly overshadowed any specific technical argument with the Breslau School (the students of which were often more lenient on matters of headcovering for women, Chalav Yisrael and other issues). Hildesheimer was concerned that Jewish public opinion perceived no practical difference between them; though he cared to distinguish the observant acolytes of Frankel from the Reform camp, he noted in his diary: "How meager is the principal difference between the Breslau School, who don silk gloves at their work, and Geiger who wields a sledgehammer." In 1863, when Breslau faculty member Heinrich Graetz published an article where he appeared to doubt the Messianic belief, Hildesheimer immediately seized upon the occasion to prove once more the dogmatic, rather than practical, divide. He denounced Graetz as a heretic.
The Positive-Historical School was influential, but never institutionalized itself as thoroughly as its opponents. Apart from the many graduates of Breslau,
The Breslau Seminary and the Reform Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums maintained very different approaches; but on the communal level, the former's alumni failure to organize or articulate a coherent agenda, coupled with the declining prestige of Breslau and the conservatism of the Hochschule's alumni—a necessity in heterogeneous communities which remained unified, especially after the Orthodox gained the right to secede in 1876—imposed a rather uniform and mild character on what was known in Germany as "Liberal Judaism". In 1909, 63 rabbis associated with the Breslau approach founded the Freie Jüdische Vereinigung, another brief attempt at institutionalization, but it too failed soon. Only in 1925 did the Religiöse Mittelpartei für Frieden und Einheit succeed in driving the same agenda. It won several seats in communal elections, but was small and of little influence.
Jewish Theological Seminary
Jewish immigration to the United States bred an amalgam of loose communities, lacking strong tradition or stable structures. In this free-spirited environment, a multitude of forces was at work. As early as 1866, Rabbi Jonas Bondi of New York wrote that a Judaism of the "golden middleway, which was termed Orthodox by the left and heterodox or reformer by the right" developed in the new country. The rapid ascendancy of
While spearheaded by radical and principled Reformers like Rabbi
The explicit wording alienated a handful of conservative UAHC ministers: Henry Hochheimer,
The JTS was a small, fledgling institution with financial difficulties, and was ordaining merely a rabbi per year. But soon after Chancellor Morais' death in 1897, its fortunes turned. Since 1881, a wave of Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe was inundating the country—by 1920, 2.5 million of them had arrived, increasing American Jewry tenfold. They came from regions where civil equality or emancipation were never granted, while acculturation and modernization made little headway. Whether devout or irreligious, they mostly retained strong traditional sentiments in matters of faith, accustomed to old-style rabbinate; the hardline
Schechter arrived in 1902, and at once reorganized the faculty, dismissing both Pereira Mendes and Drachman for lack of academic merit. Under his aegis, the institute began to draw famous scholars, becoming a center of learning on par with HUC. Schechter was both traditional in sentiment and quite unorthodox in conviction. He maintained that theology was of little importance and it was practice that must be preserved. He aspired to solicit unity in American Judaism, denouncing sectarianism and not perceiving himself as leading a new denomination: "not to create a new party, but to consolidate an old one". The need to raise funds convinced him that a congregational arm for the Rabbinical Assembly and the JTS was required. On 23 February 1913, he founded the United Synagogue of America (since 1991: United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism), which then consisted of 22 communities. He and Mendes first came to major disagreement; Schechter insisted that any alumnus could be appointed to the USoA's managerial board, and not just to serve as communal rabbi, including several the latter did not consider sufficiently devout, or who tolerated mixed seating in their synagogues (though some of those he still regarded as Orthodox). Mendes, president of the Orthodox Union, therefore refused to join. He began to distinguish between the "Modern Orthodoxy" of himself and his peers in the OU, and "Conservatives" who tolerated what was beyond the pale for him. However, this first sign of institutionalization and separation was far from conclusive. Mendes himself could not clearly differentiate between the two groups, and many he viewed as Orthodox were members of the USoA. The epithets "Conservative" and "Orthodox" remained interchangeable for decades to come. JTS graduates served in OU congregations; many students of the Orthodox Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary and members of the OU's Rabbinical Council of America, or RCA, attended it. In 1926, RIETS and the JTS even negotiated a possible merger, though it was never materialized. Upon Schechter's death in 1915, the first generation of his disciples kept his non-sectarian legacy of striving for a united, traditional American Judaism. He was replaced by Cyrus Adler.[42]
The USoA grew rapidly as the Eastern European immigrant population slowly integrated. In 1923 it already had 150 affiliated communities, and 229 before 1930. Synagogues offered a more modernized ritual: English sermons, choir singing, late Friday evening services which tacitly acknowledging that most had to work until after the Sabbath began, and often mixed-gender seating. Men and women sat separately with no partition, and some houses of prayer already introduced family pews. Motivated by popular pressure and frowned upon by both RA and seminary faculty—in its own synagogue, the institute maintained a partition until 1983—this was becoming common among the OU as well. As both social conditions and apathy turned American Jews away from tradition (barely 20 per cent were attending prayers weekly), a young professor named Mordecai Kaplan promoted the idea of transforming the synagogue into a community center, a "Shul with a Pool", a policy which indeed stymied the tide somewhat.[43]
In 1927, the RA also established its own Committee of Jewish Law, entrusted with determining halakhic issues. Consisting of seven members, it was chaired by the traditionalist Rabbi Louis Ginzberg, who already distinguished himself in 1922, drafting a responsa that allowed the use of grape juice rather than fermented wine for Kiddush on the background of Prohibition. Kaplan himself, who rose to become an influential and popular figure within the JTS, concluded that his fellow rabbis' ambiguity in matters of belief and the contradiction between full observance and critical study were untenable and hypocritical. He formulated his own approach of Judaism as a Civilization, rejecting the concept of Revelation and any supernatural belief in favour of a cultural-ethnic perception. While valuing received mores, he eventually suggested giving the past "a vote, not a veto". Though popular among students, Kaplan's nascent Reconstructionism was opposed by the new traditionalist Chancellor Louis Finkelstein, appointed in 1940, and a large majority among the faculty.
Tensions within the JTS and RA grew. The Committee of Jewish Law consisted mainly of scholars who had little field experience, almost solely from the seminary's Talmudic department. They were greatly concerned with halakhic licitness and indifferent to the pressures exerted on the pulpit rabbis, who had to contend with an Americanized public which cared little for such considerations or for tradition in general. In 1935, the RA almost adopted a groundbreaking motion: Rabbi Louis Epstein offered a solution to the agunah predicament, a clause that would have had husbands appoint wives as their proxies to issue divorce. It was repealed under pressure from the Orthodox Union. As late as 1947, CJL Chair Rabbi Boaz Cohen, himself a historicist who argued that the Law evolved much through time, rebuked pulpit clergy who requested lenient or radical rulings, stating he and his peers were content to "progress in inches... Free setting up of new premises and the introduction of novel categories of ritual upon the basis of pure reason and thinking would be perilous, if not fatal, to the principles and continuity of Jewish Law."
A third movement
The boundaries between Orthodox and Conservative Judaism in America were institutionalized only in the aftermath of World War II. The 1940s saw the younger generation of JTS graduates less patient with the prudence of the CJL and Talmud faculty in face of popular demand. Kaplan's Reconstructionism, while its fully committed partisans were few, had much influence. The majority among recent alumni eschewed the epithet "Orthodox" and tended to employ "Conservative" exclusively. Succeeding Schechter's direct disciples who headed the RA, JTS and United Synagogue in the interwar period, a new strata of activist leaders was rising. Rabbi Robert Gordis, RA president in 1944–1946, represented the junior members in advocating more flexibility; Rabbi Jacob Agus, a RIETS graduate who joined the body only in 1945, clamored that "we need a law making body, not a law interpreting committee." Agus argued that the breach between the Jewish public and tradition was too wide to be bridged conventionally, and that the RA would always remain inferior to the Orthodox as long as it retained its policy of merely adopting lenient precedents in rabbinic literature. He offered to extensively apply the tool of takkanah, rabbinic ordinance.
In 1946, a committee chaired by Gordis issued the Sabbath and Festival Prayerbook, the first clearly Conservative liturgy: references to the sacrificial cult were in the past tense instead of a petition for restoration, and it rephrased blessings such as "who hast made me according to thy will" for women to "who hast made me a woman". During the movement's national conference in Chicago, held 13–17 May 1948, the pulpit rabbis in the RA gained the upper hand. Spurred by Gordis, Agus and fellow leaders, they voted to reorganize the CJL into a Committee of Jewish Law and Standards, enfranchised to issue takkanot by a majority. Membership was conditioned on having experience as a congregational rabbi, and unseasoned JTS faculty were thus denied entrance. While the RA was asserting a Conservative distinctive identity, the seminary remained more cautious. Finkelstein opposed sectarianism and preferred the neutral epithet "traditional", later commenting that "Conservative Judaism is a gimmick to get Jews back to real Judaism". He and the very right-wing Talmud professor Saul Lieberman, who maintained ties with the Orthodox while also viewing them as obstructionist and ossified, dominated the JTS, providing a counterweight to the liberals in the Assembly. Kaplan, meanwhile, spent more time on consolidating his Society for Advancement of Judaism. Abraham Joshua Heschel, who espoused a mysticist understanding of Jewish religion, also became an important figure among the faculty.
The CJLS now proceeded to demonstrate its independence. Sabbath was widely desecrated by a large majority of Jews, and the board believed attendance at synagogues should be encouraged. They therefore enacted an ordinance that allowed driving on the Sabbath (for worship alone) and the use of electricity. The driving responsum was later severely criticized by Conservative rabbis, and was charged with imparting that the movement was overly keen to condone the laxity of congregants. It also signified the final break with the Orthodox, who were themselves being bolstered by more strictly observant immigrants from Europe. In 1954, the RCA reversed its 1948 ruling that allowed the use of microphones on Sabbath and festivals and declared that praying without a partition between sexes was banned. Though enforced slowly—in 1997, there were still seven OU congregations with no physical barrier, and so-called "Conservadox" remain extant—these two attributes became a demarcation line between Orthodox and Conservative synagogues. RA converts were denied ablution in Orthodox ritual baths, and rabbis from one movement would gradually cease serving in the other's communities.
Rather than a force within American Judaism, the JTS-centered movement emerged as a third movement. The historicist and critical approach to halakha, as well as other features, were emphasized by leaders eager to demonstrate their uniqueness. In their efforts to solidify a coherent identity, Conservative thinkers like Mordecai Waxman in his 1957 Tradition and Change, ventured beyond Schechter's conceptions to Rabbi Zecharias Frankel and Breslau, presenting themselves as its direct inheritors via Alexander Kohut and others. The CJLS continued to issue groundbreaking ordinances and rulings.
The postwar decades were a time of immense growth for the Conservative movement. Most of the 500,000 decommissioned Jewish GIs left the densely populated immigrant neighbourhoods of the East Coast, moving to
Already in a 1955 study,
The movement peaked in numbers in the 1970s. During that decade, the tensions between the various elements within it intensified. The right wing, conservative in halakhic matters and often adhering to a verbal understanding of revelation, was dismayed by the failure to bolster observance among the laity and the resurgence of Orthodoxy. The left was influenced by the Reconstructionists, who formed their own seminary in 1968 and were slowly coalescing, as well as the growing appeal of Reform, which turned more traditional and threatened to sway congregants. While the rightists opposed further modifications, their left-wing peers demanded them. The Chavurah movement, consisting of nonaligned prayer quorums of young (and frequently, Conservative-raised) worshipers who sought a more intense religious experience, also weakened congregations. In 1972, the liberal wing gained an influential position with the appointment of Gerson D. Cohen as JTS Chancellor. During the same year, after Reform began to ordain female rabbis, a strong lobby rose to advocate the same. The CJLS rapidly enacted an ordinance which allowed women to be tallied for a minyan, and by 1976 the percentage of synagogues allowing them to bless during the reading of the Torah grew from 7 per cent to 50 per cent. In 1979, ignoring the denominational leadership, Beth Israel Congregation of Chester County accepted the RRC-ordained Rabbi Linda Joy Holtzman. Pressures to allow women to assume rabbinical positions was mounting from the congregational level, though the RA agreed to delay any action until the JTS scholars would concur.
Female ordination was a matter of great friction until 1983, when Rabbi Joel Roth devised a solution that entailed women voluntarily accepting the obligation to pray regularly. The leadership passed it not by scholarly consensus but via a popular vote of all JTS faculty, including non-specialists. Two years later, the first JTS-ordained female rabbi, Amy Eilberg, was admitted into the RA. David Weiss Halivni, professor of the Talmud faculty, claimed that Roth's method must have required waiting until a considerable number of women did prove sufficient commitment. He and his sympathizers regarded the vote as belying any claim to halakhic integrity. They formed the Union for Traditional Conservative Judaism in 1985, a right-wing lobby which numbered some 10,000 supporters from the Conservative observant elite. The UTJC withdrew from the movement and erased the word "Conservative" in 1990, attempting to merge with moderate Orthodox organizations.
In the very same year, the Reconstructionist also seceded fully, joining the World Union for Progressive Judaism under observer status. The double defection narrowed the movement's spectrum of opinions, at a time when large swaths of congregants were abandoning in favour of Reform, which was more tolerant of intermarriage. RA leaders were engaged in introspection through the later 1980s, resulting in the 1988 Emet ve-Emunah platform, while Reform slowly bypassed them and became the largest American Jewish movement.
After the issue of egalitarianism for women subsided, LGBT acceptance replaced it as the main source of contention between the declining right wing and the liberal majority. A first attempt was rebuffed in 1992 by a harsh responsum written by Roth. The retirement of Chancellor Ismar Schorsch, a staunch opponent, allowed the CJLS to endorse a motion which still banned anal intercourse but not any other physical contact, and allowed the ordination of openly LGBT rabbis, in 2006. Roth and three other supporters resigned from the panel in protest, claiming the responsum was not valid; Masorti affiliates in South America, Israel and Hungary objected severely. The Seminario is yet to accept the resolution, while several Canadian congregations seceded from the United Synagogue in 2008 to form an independent union in protest of the slide to the left. Since the 2013 Pew survey, which assessed that only 18 per cent of American Jews identify with it, Conservative leadership is engaged in attempting to solve Conservative Judaism's demographic crisis.
References
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- ^ a b Ismar Schorsch (1981). Zecharias Frankel and the European Origins of Conservative Judaism, Judaism 30 (4). pp. 344–348.
- ISBN 0819144800.
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- ^ a b c Alan Silverstein, Modernists vs. Traditionalists: Competition for Legitimacy within American Conservative Judaism, in: Studies in Contemporary Jewry, Volume XVII, Oxford University Press, 2001. pp. 40-43.
- ISBN 9780791492024.
- ^ ”If you are My witnesses...”: Special Issue on Theology. Conservative Judaism 51, no. 2 (Winter 1999). p. 13.
- ^ ”If you are My witnesses...”, pp. 41, 59.; Gordis, 353-354.
- ^ Elliot N. Dorff, Conservative Judaism: Our Ancestors To Our Descendants, United Synagogue New York, 1996. pp. 49 ,201-202; Martha Himmelfarb, Resurrection, in: Adele Berlin (ed.), The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion, Oxford University Press, 2011. p. 624
- ^ a b Michael Meyer, Response to Modernity: A History of the Reform Movement in Judaism, Wayne State, 1995. pp. 84-89, 414.
- ^ Dorff, pp. 103–105
- ^ Dorff, pp. 107-108.
- ^ Dorff, pp. 107-114.
- ^ Dorff, pp. 20-23; David Golinkin, Halakha For Our Time: A Conservative Approach To Jewish Law, United Synagogue, 1991. pp. 13–17. See also: S. H. Schwartz, "Conservative Judaism's 'Ideology' Problem".
- ^ Neil Gillman, Conservative Judaism: The New Century, Behrman House, 1993. pp. 54–56.
- ^ Dorff, pp. 24-25; Michael R. Cohen, The Birth of Conservative Judaism: Solomon Schechter's Disciples and the Creation of an American Religious Movement, Columbia University Press, 2012. pp. 13-14, 18; Daniel H. Gordis, Positive-Historical Judaism Exhausted Archived April 10, 2015, at the Wayback Machine. in: Conservative Judaism, XLVII.
- ^ Gordis, Struggle between Ideology and Popularity, pp. 345-248; Geffen, Elazar, pp. 4-5, 73, 105-106; Gordis, Conservative Judaism: A Requiem, Jewish Review of Books, Winter 2014.
- ^ Neil Gillman, Doing Jewish Theology: God, Torah and Israel in Modern Judaism, Jewish Lights, 2008. p. 188.; Dana Evan Kaplan, Contemporary American Judaism: Transformation and Renewal, Columbia University Press, 2013. p. 123; Leonard Levin, Is the “Halakhic Authenticity” of Conservative Judaism a Broken Myth? in: Daniel Plevan ed., Personal Theology: Essays in Honor of Neil Gillman, Academic Studies Press.
- ^ Elazer, Minz-Geffen, pp. 63-65.
- ^ Gillman, Doing Jewish Theology, p. 190.
- ^ Golinkin, Halakha For Our Time, pp. 5, 9, 13.
- ^ Golinkin, Halakha For Our Time, pp. 26-31; See also Binyamin Lau, ההלכה הלכה לאיבוד / הכרות עם התנועה הקונסרבטיבית מתוך עיון בכתבי ועד ההלכה, De'ot, December 1999.
- ^ Shai Cherry, Ethical Theories in the Conservative Movement, in: Elliot N. Dorff, Jonathan K. Crane ed. The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Ethics and Morality, OUP 2012; Gillman, Doing Jewish Theology, pp. 187-190; Silverstein, Modernists vs. Traditionalists, p. 42; Dorff, p. 161.
- ^ Golinkin, Halakha For Our Time, pp. 30-41; Dorff, pp. 101-107 etc.
- ^ Diana Villa, תהליכים בפסיקת ההלכה הקונסרבטיבית בימינו Archived August 10, 2014, at the Wayback Machine, Akdamot 27, 2012.
- ^ "The rabbis of Conservative Judaism pass a resolution supporting transgender rights". Washington Post. Retrieved June 2, 2016.
- ^ "LEADERSHIP COUNCIL OF CONSERVATIVE JUDAISM, Statement on Intermarriage, Adopted March 7, 1995". Archived from the original on April 6, 2016. Retrieved May 5, 2010.
- ^ "About USCJ". United Synagogue Conservative of Judaism. Retrieved April 30, 2019.
- ^ Arnold Dashefsky, Ira Sheskin, American Jewish Year, Book 2012, Springer Science & Business Media, 2012. p. 75.
- ^ "Denominational switching among U.S. Jews: Reform Judaism has gained, Conservative Judaism has lost".
- ^ Steven M. Cohen, Conservative Jewry’s numbers plummeting, but core engagement steady, JTA, 10 November 2015; Uriel Heilman, Conservative Judaism Seeks To Rebrand Itself—But as What?, Jewish Daily Forward, 20 November 2015; Steven M. Cohen, Members and Motives: Who Joins American Jewish Congregations and Why Archived December 22, 2015, at the Wayback Machine, S3K Report, Fall 2006
- ^ Conservative Judaism’s Rebranding Effort Could Signal a Sea Change The Algemeiner, January 15, 2016
- ^ Judith R. Baskin ed., The Cambridge Dictionary of Judaism and Jewish Culture, Cambridge University Press, 2011. p. 355.
- ^ Elazar, Geffen. The Conservative Movement in Judaism. pp. 133, 174.
- ^ "About the Network". Archived from the original on February 22, 2015. Retrieved March 5, 2015.
- ^ a b Jennifer Siegel, Will Conservative Day Schools Survive?, June 5, 2008
- ^ Michael Greenbaum, "Ramah: Paradigm for Conservative Jews", Ramah at 60, National Ramah Commission, pp. 53–55.
- ^ Nancy Scheff, "Romance at Ramah", Ramah at 60, National Ramah Commission, p. 174.
- ^ ISBN 0-87441-286-2.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-19-975927-9.
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- ^ Cohen, The Birth of Conservative Judaism, pp. 80–82.
- ^ Jack Wertheimer, The Conservative Synagogue, Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Further reading
- Cohen, Steven M. (January 2007). "Gays, Lesbians, and the Conservative Movement: The JTS Survey of Conservative Clergy, Students, Professionals, and Lay Leaders" (PDF).
- Deshen, Shlomo; ISBN 978-1-56000-178-2.
- Dorff, Elliot N. (1996). Conservative Judaism: Our Ancestors To Our Descendants (Rev. ed.). New York: United Synagogue.
- ISBN 0-87441-547-0.
- Golinkin, David (1991). Halakha For Our Time: A Conservative Approach To Jewish Law, United Synagogue.
- ISBN 1-57718-058-5.
- ISBN 9780791492024.
- Keysar, Ariela; Kosmin, Barry. Eight Up: The College Years, Survey of Conservative Jewish youth from middle school to college.
- Klein, Isaac (1992). A Guide to Jewish Religious Practice, JTS Press, New York.
- Lieber. David; Jules Harlow; Chaim Potok; Harold Kushner, eds. (2001). Etz Hayim: A Torah Commentary The Jewish Publication Society, NY.
- Nadell Pamela S. (1988). Conservative Judaism in America: A Biographical Dictionary and Sourcebook, Greenwood Press, NY.
- ISBN 0870682792.
- Raphael, Marc Lee (1984). Profiles in American Judaism: the Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, and Reconstructionist traditions in historical perspective. San Francisco, Ca: Harper & Row. pp. 79–124. ISBN 0-06066801-6.
- Rudavsky, David (1979) [1967]. Modern Jewish Religious Movements: A History of Emancipation and Abjustment (3rd rev. ed.). New York: Behrman House. pp. 317–346. ISBN 0-87441-286-2.
- Sklare, Marshall (1955). Conservative Judaism: An American Religious Movement. Glencoe, Il: The Free Press. ISBN 0819144800.
- Tabory, Ephraim (2004) [1990]. "Reform and Conservative Judaism in Israel". In Goldscheider, Calvin; ISBN 1-59244-943-3.
- Tabory, Ephraim (2004). "The Israel Reform and Conservative Movements and the Marker for the Liberal Judaism". In Rebhum, Uzi; Waxman, Chaim I. (eds.). Jews in Israel: Contemporary Social and Cultural Patterns. Brandeis University Press. pp. 285–314.
- ISBN 0838131042.
- ISBN 0-8135-2821-6.
- ISBN 978-0-691-18129-5.