Conservative Judaism

• Formation: 1845
• Founder: Zechariah Frankel

During the final third of the nineteenth century, the American Jewish population, which dates from colonial times, differentiated into three distinct religious movements that still dominate Jewish religious life. Conservative Judaism emerged during this period, developing in tandem with several affiliated institutions: the Jewish Theological Seminary (founded 1886), the Rabbinical Assembly of America (founded 1901), and the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism (founded 1913). Generally speaking, Conservative Jews accept the binding authority of traditional Jewish law (halacha), while asserting and insisting that such law continues to evolve over time, just as the lives of Jewish people change and evolve. The term Conservative implies a respectful attitude toward halacha, without the rigidity often ascribed to Orthodox Judaism or the dismissiveness ascribed to Reform Judaism. A major 2016 research study by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) found that 14 percent of American Jewish individuals identified themselves with the Conservative movement, a decline from previous studies. This compared with 10 percent of the population, which identified as Orthodox, 28 percent which identified as Reform, 5 percent with smaller denominations, and 37 percent as unaffiliated.

History

Though the modern Jewish denominations are primarily American phenomena, the roots of each are European. The widely acknowledged intellectual founder of Conservative Judaism was the German scholar and rabbi Zechariah Frankel (1801–75). In May of 1845, Frankel effectively founded Conservative Judaism when he withdrew from a conference of reform-minded rabbis being held in Frankfurt, Germany, over the issue of using the Hebrew language in Jewish prayer.

Since the early years of the nineteenth century, a shifting coalition of German rabbis had been introducing changes to Jewish worship and ritual observance. The appropriate pace and extent of these changes were matters of bitter factional dispute, as the very survival of the Jewish people in the post-Enlightenment world was considered to be at stake. By withdrawing from the Frankfurt conference, Frankel laid claim to a middle position between the radical changes proposed by those who went on to found the institutions of Reform Judaism and those who defended the bulwark of what became known as Orthodox Judaism.

By the latter half of the nineteenth century, much of the intellectual and institutional energy behind Jewish denominationalism had moved to the United States, where Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise established the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (UAHC) in 1873. Originally conceived as an incubator for a nondenominational, authentically American interpretation of Judaism, the UAHC soon became a locus of radical innovation. More conservative members of the Jewish community thus felt forced to split away from the UAHC and to define their ideologies in contrast to it.

The two great founding figures of Conservative Judaism in America were Rabbi Alexander Kohut (1842–1894), and Rabbi Sabato Morais (1823–1897). Rabbi Kohut had been a student of Zechariah Frankel in Germany, coming to America in 1885. He played an instrumental role in defining an ideology of Conservative Judaism, especially in a widely followed public controversy with Rabbi Kaufman Kohler, one of the founders of Reform Judaism in America. The nascent Conservative movement turned to the more deeply Americanized Rabbi Morais, who had arrived in America in 1851 and served as rabbi of a congregation in Philadelphia, to become the first president of its new Jewish Theological Seminary in New York.

A fourth key figure in the development of Conservative Judaism was Rabbi Solomon Schechter (1847–1915). Born in Romania, educated both in the traditional Jewish schools in Eastern Europe and the secular universities of Western Europe, Schechter came to New York in 1901 to become president of the Jewish Theological Seminary. There he built a world-class facility that created and articulated a modern and enlightened version of traditional Jewish studies. Rabbi Schechter was open to a diversity of voices shaping American Jewish life, notably declaring that "I would consider my work . . . a complete failure if this institution would not in the future produce such extremes as on the one side a raving mystic . . . ; on the other side, an advanced critic, . . . while a third devotee of strict orthodoxy would raise protest against any critical views I may entertain" (Gillman 46). Some of the diverse thinkers in the decades following Rabbi Schechter were Louis Finkelstein (1895–1991), Mordecai Kaplan (1881–1983), and Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972), among others.

Throughout the balance of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, Conservative Judaism created a network of vibrant congregations throughout North America along with supplementary schools for Jewish education, full-time schools that offered both religious and secular education, and summer camping experiences for Jewish children.

Conservative Judaism's Rabbinical Assembly allowed women to be ordained as rabbis beginning in 1985 and openly gay and transgender rabbis in 2006. The denomination supports the marriage of same-sex Jewish couples and, in 2016, officially affirmed transgender rights. Conservative rabbis have been barred from performing, attending, or blessing intermarriages between Jewish and non-Jewish people, however; debate has arisen over whether intermarriage encourages greater religious engagement or signals disengagement, as well as whether it is permissible under halacha.

In the early twenty-first century, there was a growing tension within Conservative Judaism between defending traditional practices and adapting to modern ideas and sensitive issues such as interfaith couples and fully embracing LGBTQ+ members. As a denomination, Conservative Judaism officially took a public stance of inclusion. Additionally, in 2016, the Rabbinical Assembly passed a resolution affirming the rights of transgender and non-conforming people. Despite this official stance, individuals' experiences may vary significantly between synagogues. Young Jewish people in the 2020s tended to lean towards the Reform Judaism branch or chose not to be a part of any organized Jewish faith, thus negatively affecting membership of Conservative synagogues.

Beliefs & Practices

Conservative Judaism did not articulate an official statement of belief until 1990, despite many calls for it to do so. This deliberate lack of clarity resulted from many factors, including a principled decision to walk a middle path between Reform and Orthodox Judaism, both of which were seen as being more ideologically driven. The 1990 statement of principles, called Emet Ve-Emunah ("Truth and Belief"), makes this clear by stating, "Given our changing world, finality and certainty are illusory at best, destructive at worst. Rather than claiming to have found a goal at the end of the road, the ideal Conservative Jew is a traveler walking purposefully towards ‘God’s holy mountain’" (46). A document of about fifty pages, Emet Ve’Emunah explains and chronicles the ways in which Conservative Judaism "most directly confronts the challenge to integrate tradition with modernity [by] retaining most of the tradition while yet being hospitable to the valuable aspects of modernity" (11). The three primary chapter headings under which the document addresses this challenge are "God in the world," "The Jewish people," and "Living a life of Torah."

Bibliography

"A Portrait of Jewish Americans." Pew Research Center, 30 Oct. 2013, pewforum.org/2013/10/01/jewish-american-beliefs-attitudes-culture-survey. Accessed 21 Nov. 2024.

"Authentic and Dynamic Judaism." USCJ, 20 Nov. 2023, uscj.org/beliefs/. Accessed 21 Nov. 2024.

Cohen, Michael R. The Birth of Conservative Judaism: Solomon Schechter's Disciples and the Creation of an American Religious Movement. Columbia UP, 2012.

"Denominational Switching among U.S. Jews: Reform Judaism Has Gained, Conservative Judaism Has Lost." Pew Research Center, 22 June 2021, pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/06/22/denominational-switching-among-u-s-jews-reform-judaism-has-gained-conservative-judaism-has-lost/. Accessed 21 Nov. 2024.

Emet Ve-Emunah: Statement of Principles of Conservative Judaism. JTS, RA, USA, 1988.

Gillman, Neil. Conservative Judaism: The New Century. Behrman House, 1993.

Green, Emma. "'We're Headed toward One of the Greatest Divisions in the History of the Jewish People.'" The Atlantic, 16 July 2017, theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/07/intermarriage-conservative-judaism/533637. Accessed 21 Nov. 2024.

"Jewish Americans in 2020." Pew Research Center, 11 May 2021, pewresearch.org/religion/2021/05/11/jewish-americans-in-2020/. Accessed 21 Nov. 2024.

Jones, Robert P., and Daniel Cox. America's Changing Religious Identity: Findings from the 2016 American Values Atlas. Public Religion Research Institute, Sept. 2017, prri.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/PRRI-Religion-Report.pdf. Accessed 21 Nov. 2024.

Meyer, Michael A. Response to Modernity: A History of the Reform Movement in Judaism. Oxford UP, 1988.

"Stances of Faiths on LGBTQ+ Issues: Conservative Judaism." Human Rights Campaign, https://www.hrc.org/resources/stances-of-faiths-on-lgbt-issues-conservative-judaism#:~:text=LGBTQ%2B%20Conservative%20Jews%20will%20encounter,and%20public%20stance%20for%20inclusion. Accessed 1 Dec. 2024.