


Table of contents
1 Movement organization
2 History
3 Beliefs
4 Important figures
5 Jewish identity
6 External links
7 References

Movement organization

Conservative Judaism is a unified movement; the international body of Conservative rabbis is the Rabbinical Assembly (RA), the organization of synagogues is the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism (USCJ), and the primary seminary and cantorial school is the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS) in New York City.

Conservative Judaism outside the USA is often called Masorti Judaism; Masorti rabbis belong to the Rabbinical Assembly.

Other seminaries include the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, California; the Marchall Meyer Seminario Rabbinico Latinoamericano in Argentia; and Machon Schechter (in Jerusalem.)





In 1902, Solomon Schechter reorganized the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City and made it into the flagship institution of Conservative Judaism.




However, Conservative Judaism holds that Orthodox Judaism is a valid and legitimate form of rabbinic Judaism; its respects the validity of its rabbis. Conservative Judaism holds that both Reform and Reconstructionist Judaism have made major breaks with the historic definition of Judaism, both by their rejection of Jewish law as normative, and by their unilateral acts in creating a separate definition of Jewishness (i.e. the latter movement's acceptance of patrilineal descent as an additional way of defining Jewishness). Depite the Conservative movement's disagreement with the more liberal movements, it does respect the right of Reform and Reconstructionist Jews to interpret Judaism in their own way. Thus the Conservative movement recognizes the right of Jews to form such denominations, and recognizes their clergy as rabbis, but often does not accept their specific decisions as valid.


The Conservative position is that Orthodoxy had deviated from historical Judaism through an excessive concern with recent codifications of Jewish law. The Conservative movement consciously rejects the Orthodox understanding of Jewish history, which entails near-total deference to seemingly infallible rabbis, and instead holds that a more fluid model is both necessary, and theologically and historically justifiable. The Conservative movement makes a conscious effort to use historical sources to determine what kind of changes to Jewish tradition have occurred, how and why they occurred, and in what historical context. With this information they believe that can better understand the proper way for rabbis to interpret and apply Jewish law to our conditions today.





In agreement with traditional Judaism, Conservative Judaism holds that God inspired prophets to write the Torah (five books of Moses) and the Hebrew Bible. However, for theological reasons most Conservative Jews reject the traditional Jewish idea that God dictated the words of the Torah to Moses at Mount Sinai in a verbal revelation. Divine revelation, however, while held to be real, is generally believed to be non-verbal -- that is, the revelation did not include the particular words of the divine texts. Conservative Judaism allows its adherents to hold to a wide array of views on the subject of revelation.

Conservative Jews are comfortable with the findings of higher criticism, including the documentary hypothesis, the idea that the current text of the Torah was redacted together from several earlier sources. They go further, and the movement's rabbinic authorities and official Torah commentary (Etz Hayim: A Torah Commentary) affirm that Jews should make use of modern critical literary and historical analysis to understand how the Bible developed. These views are rejected as heretical by most of Orthodox Judaism, but is accepted as valid by all non-Orthodox Jewish movements.

Conservative Jews reconcile these beliefs by holding that God, in some way, God did reveal his will to Moses and later prophets. However, records of revelation may have been passed down through the centuries in many ways, including written documents, folklores, epic poems, etc. These records were eventually redacted together to form the Torah, and later on, the other books of the Tanakh [Hebrew Bible].

Jewish principles of faith

In the charter of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (1902) and in the preamble to the Constitution of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism (1913), Conservative Jews briefly outlined their beliefs, which included the call "to assert and establish loyalty to the Torah and its historical exposition". However, the movement deliberately avoided publishing systematic explications of theology and belief, as part of a conscious attempt to hold together a wide coalition. This concern became a non-issue after the left wing of the movement seceded in 1968 to form the Reconstructionist movement and the right wing seceded in 1985 to form the Union for Traditional Judaism. In 1988, the leadership council of Conservative Judaism finally issued an official statement of belief, "Emet Ve-Emunah: Statement of Principles of Conservative Judaism."


Jewish law

Conservative Jews view the laws and customs from the various law codes as the basis for Jewish law. However it holds that "however great the literary value of a code may be, it does not invest it with infallibility, nor does it exempt it from the student or the Rabbi who makes use of it from the duty of examining each paragraph on its own merits, and subjecting it to the same rules of interpretation that were always applied to Tradition". (Solomon Schechter.)

Conservative Judaism affirms that halakha (Jewish law and tradition) is not just a good idea, it's the law. At the same time, Conservative Jews find it repugnant to suggest that anyone should be coerced into following religious practices. Thus, like Modern Orthodoxy, Conservative Judaism holds that Jewish law is normative, but not enforced. That is, Jewish law encompasses actions that a Jews actually ought to be following in their daily lives, even though there is no enforcement of these rules.

There is a separate article which has details on Conservative responsa, the legal opinions and rulings of Conservative and Masorti Judaism.

Important figures

Zecharias Frankel - founder of positive-historical Judaism

Solomon Schechter - Creator of Conservative Judaism as a distinct movement

Mathilde Roth Schechter - Founder of Women's League and of Hadassah

Louis Finkelstein Talmud scholar and halakhic expert

Louis Ginzberg Talmud scholar and halakhic expert

Saul Lieberman Talmud scholar at JTS

Isaac Klein Rabbi, expert in Jewish law

Robert Gordis Rabbi, Theologian, Educator

Jules Harlow - Primary liturgist of the Conservative movement

Abraham Joshua Heschel Theologian and social activist

Ismar Schorsch - Chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America


Joel Roth Talmud scholar and halakhic expert, JTS Talmud scholar

Neil Gillman Theologian, JTS Philosophy Professor

Judith Hauptman JTS Talmud scholar

Jewish identity



External links

Additional reading

CJews: Conservative Judaism open discussion forum

An intro to Conservative Judaism

The Rabbinical Assembly

The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism

The Jewish Theological Seminary of America

University of Judaism

The Masorti Movement

A Conservative Jewish view on Intermarriage

Principles of Masorti Judaism

The Core Principles of Conservative Judaism

What is Masorti Judaism?

Formulating Jewish Law For Our Time

A Guide to Jewish Religious Practice - Official work on Jewish law

The role of women in Conservative Judaism


Elliot N. Dorff Conservative Judaism: Our Ancestors To Our Descendants (Revised Edition) United Synagogue New York, 1996

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

David Golinkin Halakha For Our Time: A Conservative Approach To Jewish Law, United Synagogue, 1991

Isaac Klein A Guide to Jewish Religious Practice JTS, New York, 1992

Conservative Judaism in America: A Biographical Dictionary and Sourcebook Pamela S. Nadell, Greenwood Press, NY 1988


''Etz Hayim: A Torah Commentary", Ed. David Lieber, Chaim Potok and Harold Kushner, The Jewish Publication Society, NY, 2001