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Solomon Schechter (1847–1915), the charismatic leader of New York's Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS), came to America in 1902 intent on revitalizing traditional Judaism. While he advocated a return to traditional practices, Schechter articulated no clear position on divisive issues, instead preferring to focus on similarities that could unite American Jewry under a broad message. Michael R. Cohen demonstrates how Schechter, unable to implement his vision on his own, turned to his disciples, rabbinical students and alumni of JTS, to shape his movement. By midcentury, Conservative Judaism had become the largest American Jewish grouping in the United States, guided by Schechter's disciples and their continuing efforts to embrace diversity while eschewing divisive debates. Yet Conservative Judaism's fluid boundaries also proved problematic for the movement, frustrating many rabbis who wanted a single platform to define their beliefs. Cohen demonstrates how a legacy of tension between diversity and boundaries now lies at the heart of Conservative Judaism's modern struggle for relevance. His analysis explicates four key claims: that Conservative Judaism's clergy, not its laity or Seminary, created and shaped the movement; that diversity was—and still is—a crucial component of the success and failure of new American religions; that the Conservative movement's contemporary struggle for self-definition is tied to its origins; and that the porous boundaries between Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Judaism reflect the complexity of the American Jewish landscape—a fact that Schechter and his disciples keenly understood. Rectifying misconceptions in previous accounts of Conservative Judaism's emergence, Cohen's study enables a fresh encounter with a unique religious phenomenon.

Passionate Centrism is an important discussion of Positive Historical Judaism and the benefit of holding the center of Judaism-that is, the Conservative Movement. This book is an important resource for clergy and other congregational leaders and is an excellent product for lecture series.

Fall 2017 marked the 100th anniversary of Max Weber's essay, \"Science as a Vocation,\" which has greatly influenced the way a host of scholars, including me, have approached the study of religion in the modern West. One cannot imagine the work of Peter Berger, Talcott Parsons, or Marshall Sklare, without Weber's notions of disenchantment, charisma, or religious virtuosos. It is also impossible, a century after Weber confidently declaimed on these matters, not to notice how wrong he was in key respects. My own work has been less interested in the processes of modernization and secularization that have shaped Jews in the modern period than in the ways Jews have responded to those challenges with new modes of thought and observance; for that reason and others, I find quantitative evidence less useful than qualitative reports and observation. The question facing those of us committed to the study and the practice of Judaism in 2018, I believe, is whether those patterns of thought and observance, honed over two centuries of encounter with modernity, will require further adjustment in coming years. Will the \"solutions\" arrived at my baby boomers like me—who grew up in, and responded to, the sociological situation Sklare described so perceptively—\"work\" for millennials and the cohorts that follow? The essay that follows suggests that both continuity and change are likely to prove decisive.

Illustrates how the American Conservative Movement in Judaism can continue to prosper amidst ideological and institutional challenges. Viewing the Conservative Movement at a turning point, this book analyzes the problems facing the religious movement with the largest synagogue membership in the American Jewish community and outlines a plan of action for the future. Elazar and Geffen suggest: clarifying ideology, mission, and purpose, finding the right balance between traditionalists and advocates of change, unifying movement institutions in a cooperative effort, staunching the decline of membership to the left, recapturing the loyalty of lapsed adherents, closing the gap in observance between the laity and the standard bearers of the movement, developing the Movement in Israel and world-wide, and strengthening ties with Jewish federations and other Jewish communal bodies. The authors propose that the Conservative Movement’s remedying of these problems will benefit not just American, but all world Jewry.

The Angel of Jewish History casts a philosophical gaze upon the relationship between the traditional Jewish past and the present through the metaphysical worldviews of five formative Jewish studies scholars: Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, Amos Funkenstein, Gershom Scholem, Baruch Kurzweil, and Nathan Rotenstreich. Their hermeneutic worldviews and writings deal with the nature and formation of modern Judaism, the Wissenschaft des Judentums, historicism, the image of the Jewish past and tradition, secularization, and God’s status in present-day Jewish reality. In this volume, these issues are explored against the background of the tense discourse between the perception of modern Jewish reality as a break from the past and tradition and the argument for continuity despite the changes and developments of modernity.

Jews have been a religious and cultural presence in America since the colonial era, and the community of Jews in the United States today—some six million people—continues to make a significant contribution to the American religious landscape. Emphasizing developments in American Judaism in the last quarter century among active participants in Jewish worship, this book provides both a look back into the 350-year history of Judaic life and a well-crafted portrait of a multifaceted tradition today. Combining extensive research into synagogue archival records and secondary sources as well as interviews and observations of worship services at more than a hundred Jewish congregations across the country, Raphael’s study distinguishes itself as both a history of the Judaic tradition and a witness to the vitality and variety of contemporary American Judaic life. Beginning with a chapter on beliefs, festivals, and life-cycle events, both traditional and non-traditional, and an explanation of the enormous variation in practice, Raphael then explores Jewish history in America, from the arrival of the first Jews to the present, highlighting the emergence and development of the four branches: Orthodox, Conservative, Reconstructionist, and Reform. After documenting the considerable variety among the branches, the book addresses issues of some controversy, notably spirituality, conversion, homosexuality, Jewish education, synagogue architecture, and the relationship to Israel. Raphael turns next to a discussion of eight American Jews whose thoughts and/or activities made a huge impact on American Judaism. The final chapter focuses on the return to tradition in every branch of Judaism and examines prospects for the future.

Mientras en la última dictadura militar argentina (1976-1983) el terror inducía a los individuos a retirarse del espacio público hacia el privado –lo que implicaba un importante proceso de atomización social–, en el campo judío se producía un fenómeno de multiplicación de instituciones adheridas a una corriente religiosa llamada Conservative Judaism. En este artículo analizamos las motivaciones que llevaron a los dirigentes de esas instituciones ubicadas en Buenos Aires, a integrar esa corriente religiosa. Estudiamos desde los primeros contactos hasta las prácticas desarrolladas por los “especialistas religiosos” de esa corriente. En especial, determinamos los sentidos y representaciones que circulaban en torno al despliego de una práctica religiosa. En esos años en los que las autoridades de la dictadura militar argentina buscaban remodelar a la sociedad y despolitizarla, el Conservative Judaism ofrecía nuclear al campo judío con una propuesta de vida religiosa, social y cultural sumamente rica, adaptada a las pautas y normativas de la época.

In recent decades, various communities and organizations have been working to promote LGBTQ+ inclusion and justify their equal rights. This task becomes more complex within religious communities that are based on traditional values that reject homosexuality. This historical-anthropological study presents “K’Afikim BaNegev”—a special manual that includes more than 347 pages and incorporates 73 diverse sources distributed in early 1994 in American Conservative Jewish congregations aimed at combating homophobia. I clarify how the documents reveal progressive qualitative methodologies for identifying and understanding barriers and mechanisms of community change. Textual analysis of personal letters, educational programs, workshops, and rabbinical sermons revealed two methods for creating this egalitarian change and constructing the Jewish community as a safe space for gay men and lesbian women and their family members: (1) using and promoting personal narrative (storytelling) as a channel to voice LGBTQ+ people’s stories and (2) adapting a text-centered approach that considers biblical sources as authoritative in recognizing LGBTQ+ identity. Thus, the acceptance of homosexuality was not conceptualized in terms of liberal human rights rhetoric but rather as a religious commandment. Thus, I define this novel initiative as an act of ‘queer Jewish activism,’ offering a new typology for community development and practice that advocates for LGBTQ+ individuals within contemporary religious communities.

This article discusses the rise of the Israeli conservative movement, and examines the dominance of religious-Zionists within the movement. The article focuses on the ideology of Moshe Koppel, the chair of the Kohelet Policy Forum and a dominant figure in the conservative movement. Through an analysis of Koppel's political writings, this article presents Koppel's unique worldview, and demonstrates how it is a critique of the secular-Zionist hegemony, and also of the \"classical\" religious-Zionist worldview. The article argues that Koppel's ideology appeals to religious-Zionists, who have undergone a political crisis as a result of their failure to convince the general Israeli public to oppose the evacuation of Gaza settlements in 2005. Koppel's worldview addresses the need for religious-Zionists to justify their commitment to Jewish settlement in the Occupied Palestinian territories in a way that will appeal tonon-Orthodox Jews as well. This is a key factor in the Israeli right's conscious attempt to achieve political hegemony in Israel.

Illustrates how and why Jewish denominational preferences are more a matter of individual choice than family heritage. Having a religious preference and expressing it via a denominational choice is a fundamental way Americans relate to their society. Similarly, American Jews have divided their religion into four parts—Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and no preference Jews. This book focuses on how Jewish lifestyles are expressed through denominational affiliation. The development of American Jewish denominations is viewed as more a matter of individual choice than family heritage. The characteristics of individual adherents of the three major denominations vary systematically as does one’s involvement both in local Jewish communities and in the community-at-large. The authors show that as one goes from Orthodox to no preference Jews, the extent of religious expression, ethnic attachments, and Jewish community involvement declines. They project the distribution of denominational preference in 2010 and conclude with recommendations for those who wish to see Jewish identity survive and thrive in America.