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Conservative Judaism

Judaism

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Origin 1845 to 1913

A centrist movement, known outside North America as Masorti, seeking a middle path between Orthodox and Reform Judaism. It affirms that halakha, Jewish law, is binding and to be observed, yet holds that the law has always developed through history and may be adapted by trained rabbis using modern critical scholarship. Thus it keeps the traditional shape of worship, the Hebrew liturgy, the Sabbath, and the dietary laws, while allowing considered changes, such as the ordination of women and the use of historical methods in Torah study. It grew in the later nineteenth and twentieth centuries from those who found Reform too radical in discarding tradition and Orthodoxy too resistant to change. Positioned between the two, it prizes both fidelity to Jewish law and openness to the modern world, and is guided by its own rabbinical assembly and law committee.

Facts
Belief
Defining Doctrinal Position
Halakha binding, but developing through scholarship 1Tradition: Judaism
Position on Marriage
Marriage is held to be monogamous, with remarriage after divorce sanctioned under specified conditions 2
Conservative Judaism retains the halakhic structure of kiddushin (betrothal) and a ketubah (marriage contract), egalitarian in the Conservative movement's own practice, with monogamy assumed and polygyny never sanctioned in Conservative practice. Divorce requires a get, a formal bill of divorce; the movement's Joint Beit Din applies mechanisms including hafka'at kiddushin (retroactive annulment) and the Lieberman clause to address the agunah problem where a husband withholds a get, so that a woman is not permanently barred from remarriage.
Position on SexualitySourced to the subject's own account
The body holds no single settled position; the question is actively and openly contested within it 3
Sexuality Position Detail
On 31 May 2012 the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards approved, 13 to 0 with one abstention, an appendix by Rabbis Elliot Dorff, Daniel Nevins and Avram Reisner titled "Rituals and Documents of Marriage and Divorce for Same-Sex Couples," offering two model same-sex wedding ceremonies and same-sex divorce guidelines. This did not resolve the movement's own underlying divide from the 2006 twin responsa; it extended practical ritual guidance to congregations and rabbis who follow the Dorff, Nevins and Reisner position, while Rabbi Joel Roth's competing 2006 responsum, maintaining the traditional prohibition, remains equally valid Conservative practice under the movement's rule of halakhic pluralism. 2
Sexuality Position DetailSourced to the subject's own account
On 6 December 2006 the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards approved two contradictory responsa in the same session under the movement's own rule of halakhic pluralism, whereby a position reaching the sitting majority stands as valid Conservative practice even when a competing view also passes. The Dorff, Nevins and Reisner responsum (thirteen in favor, twelve opposed) permits the ordination of gay and lesbian rabbis and same-sex commitment ceremonies while retaining the traditional textual prohibition on the specific act of male anal intercourse. Rabbi Joel Roth's responsum (thirteen in favor, eight opposed, four abstaining) maintains the traditional prohibition in full and calls for celibacy rather than ordination or a blessed union. Individual rabbis, congregations, and the movement's own seminaries independently choose which position to follow, so no single Conservative position on ordination or same-sex marriage exists; this fact is written as debated-unsettled rather than flattened to either side. 3
Organisation
Governance
Delegated representation from congregations up to a general conference 1
The Rabbinical Assembly, the United Synagogue and the Jewish Theological Seminary, with the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards issuing rulings that congregations may follow.
Ordination
Open to women and men 1
Practice
Liturgical Language
Hebrew 1
Liturgical Language
The vernacular 1
Trajectory
Membership Over Time
Pew Research Center's "Jewish Americans in 2020" survey found 17 percent of US Jewish adults identifying as Conservative, a small decline from its 2013 survey, with the Center's companion analysis finding Reform had gained members through denominational switching over the same period while Conservative had lost some. 5
Membership Over Time
Pew Research Center's 2013 survey of Jewish Americans found that 18 percent of US Jewish adults identified as Conservative, the second largest branch after Reform, a figure the Center's own 2020 survey later cites for comparison. 5
Membership Figure As Of
2013-01-01 5
Membership Figure As Of
2020-01-01 5
Basis of the Membership Figure
Independent Survey 5
Origins
Origin Period
1845 to 1913 1
Place of Origin
Breslau and New York 1
Founder
Solomon Schechter (1847-1915), on the Positive-Historical school of Zacharias Frankel (1801-1875). 1
History
Separation or Divergence
Reform, over the 1883 Cincinnati banquet and the 1885 Pittsburgh Platform 1
Separation or Divergence
The Jewish Theological Seminary was founded in 1886 by those who held that Reform had gone too far 1
Date of Separation
1883 to 1913 1
Status
Status Today
Living tradition, practised today 1
Giving
Standing Giving Expectation
Most Conservative congregations still run on a conventional dues model rather than Reform's voluntary shift: in congregations of two hundred members or more, dues typically fund about half of the annual operating budget, the rest raised through other giving. The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism's own finance office now runs a multi-year initiative helping congregations weigh flexible alternatives, but most member congregations had not adopted one as of this reporting. No single dues figure applies across congregations, since each sets its own budget and rate. 4
How the Expectation Is Enforced
Obligation to Support, No Set Rate 4
Learn More
The Middle That Had to Be Argued For

Conservative Judaism, called Masorti outside North America, was built to occupy a position that its founders thought obvious and that both its neighbours regard as unstable: that Jewish law is genuinely binding and genuinely historical.

Its intellectual origin is the Positive-Historical school of Zacharias Frankel in nineteenth-century Germany, who walked out of a Reform rabbinical conference in 1845 over the proposal to abandon Hebrew as the language of prayer. Frankel held that Judaism is the possession of the whole people and develops through their practice over time, so that change is legitimate when it grows from the tradition and illegitimate when it is imposed on it by reformers with a programme.

In America the movement took institutional shape around the Jewish Theological Seminary, refounded in 1902 under Solomon Schechter, and it grew enormously in the mid-twentieth century among immigrant families who wanted a Judaism that was recognisably traditional and comfortably American. For a period after the Second World War it was the largest Jewish denomination in the United States.

The characteristic move is to accept the findings of critical scholarship about the composition and history of the biblical text while continuing to treat the law derived from it as commanded. Orthodoxy holds that the first position destroys the ground of the second. Reform holds that the second is an unnecessary burden once the first is granted. Conservative Judaism holds that the covenant obliges the people whether or not the text descended in one piece at Sinai, and that the argument from history is precisely what licenses careful development.

Whether that position is coherent is the single most argued question about the movement, and it is argued inside it as much as outside.

Rulings, and the Ones That Mattered

Conservative Judaism is unusual in having an actual legislature for halakha, which is what its theory requires: if the law develops, someone must be authorised to develop it.

That body is the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, attached to the Rabbinical Assembly. It considers formal responsa and adopts them by vote, and, crucially, it may adopt more than one position on a question, leaving individual rabbis to choose which to follow for their congregations. Very few things are declared standards binding on all. The result is a movement with real legal machinery and deliberate internal pluralism, which critics on both sides read as either rigour or as a way of avoiding decisions.

Three rulings define it in practice. In 1950 the committee permitted driving to synagogue on the Sabbath, on the reasoning that suburban Jews who could not walk would otherwise not attend at all; it is the most criticised decision the movement has made, held by its own later scholars to have accelerated the decline of walkable Jewish neighbourhoods. In 1983 the Jewish Theological Seminary voted to ordain women as rabbis, after years of dispute that led a traditionalist minority to leave and found the Union for Traditional Judaism. And in 2006 the committee adopted contradictory opinions on homosexuality, one retaining the traditional prohibition and one permitting the ordination and marriage of gay and lesbian Jews, with individual institutions free to follow either; the seminaries moved to ordain.

On patrilineal descent the movement went the other way. Reform recognised the child of a Jewish father as Jewish in 1983; Conservative Judaism did not, and continues to require matrilineal descent or conversion, which keeps its conversions and marriages closer to Orthodox recognition without securing it.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

This source names Conservative Judaism directly: "Its limit is scope: it documents one recognized position within Conservative Judaism specifically, adopted alongside other responsa the same committee approved that year, and it carries no authority..."

Source Homosexuality, Human Dignity and Halakhah: A Combined Responsum for the Committee on Jewish Law and StandardsElliot N. Dorff, Daniel S. Nevins and Avram I. Reisnerthe holders' own account
Source The Babylonian TalmudAnonymous (multiple authors)

This source names Conservative Judaism directly: "Historical Judaism and forerunner of Conservative Judaism, maintained through Wikipedia's ordinary community editing process rather than a fixed editorial board."

Source Zacharias Frankel (reference article)Wikipedia contributors

Belongs to Tradition

Judaism, Religions

Branch Of

Judaism, Religions

Held Differently

Amidah, Hymns & Liturgical Texts

Kept in Hebrew and at full length, with the petitions for the restoration of the sacrifices recast so that they recall the offerings rather than ask for their return.

Source Jewish Liturgy: A Comprehensive HistoryIsmar Elbogen, translated by Raymond P. Scheindlin
Beit Din, Religious Organization & Structure

Conservative Judaism maintains its own courts applying halakhah through its own law committee, and their conversions and divorces are not recognised by the Orthodox rabbinate.

Minyan, Religious Organization & Structure

Conservative practice counts adults of either sex, a change made by its law committee and adopted congregation by congregation rather than imposed.

Mishneh Torah, Other Writings

The Mishneh Torah is consulted as an authoritative reference, read through this stream's own halakhic process rather than treated as final.

Source Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd editionMichael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik (eds.)
Shulchan Aruch, Other Writings

The Shulchan Aruch is consulted as an authoritative reference, read through this stream's own halakhic process rather than treated as final.

Source Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd editionMichael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik (eds.)
The Western Wall, Sacred Sites

Conservative Judaism holds the wall while contesting the Orthodox monopoly over its prayer arrangements, and prays at the southern section by Robinson's arch where mixed prayer is permitted.

Covenant, Doctrines

The covenant is held as binding and as historically developing, which is the ground on which this stream both keeps halakha and revises it.

Holds Element

Head covering is expected at prayer and at study, and is worn by women as well as men in most Conservative congregations.

Nusach, Sacred Sound

Kept as the marker of which service is being prayed, and taught to cantors as a discipline in its own right.

The Conservative movement has ordained women since 1985, having debated the question at its seminary for more than a decade first.

The prayer shawl is worn at the morning service and the movement decided that women are obligated in it on the same terms as men.

Retained as an obligation, and the movement ruled that women who take it on are obligated in it on the same terms as men.

The scroll is read on the traditional cycle, and the movement permits a woman to be called up to it and to read from it.

Rejected Here

The Conservative movement began in reaction to this platform. Its founders held that the platform had cut the tradition loose from the practice of the Jewish people, and the Jewish Theological Seminary was established the following year in answer to it.

Source The Pittsburgh PlatformCentral Conference of American Rabbis (predecessor gathering)the holders' own account

Objects and Practices of This Tradition

The Amidah is said in full, in Hebrew.

This body admitted women to the Torah reading and to the rabbinate, and its Bat Mitzvah is identical in form to its Bar Mitzvah.

Brit Milah is performed on the eighth day.

Burial, Rituals

Burial is in the earth.

Conservative synagogues retain the professional cantorate, with cantorial ordination open to women since the 1980s.

Source Jewish Liturgy: A Comprehensive HistoryIsmar Elbogen, translated by Raymond P. Scheindlin
Source Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd editionMichael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik (eds.)
Chosenness, Doctrines

Israel's covenantal election is affirmed, read within this stream's broader commitment to holding tradition and modern scholarship together.

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)
Chuppah, Rituals

The canopy is used.

Conservative Judaism holds brit milah binding and keeps the eighth day, while its rabbinate has developed parallel covenant ceremonies for daughters and certifies mohalim through its own training programme.

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

The judge of a rabbinical court sits under the law of the Shulchan Aruch's Choshen Mishpat, which governs the constitution of a beit din, the competence required of those who sit on it and the procedure it follows.

Source Shulchan AruchJoseph Karo
Source Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd editionMichael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik (eds.)

Conservative synagogues retain the gabbai role for assigning Torah honours, open to women where the congregation has adopted egalitarian practice.

Source Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd editionMichael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik (eds.)

Acts of loving kindness are held as a standing obligation and are a principal expression of this stream's communal life.

Giyur, Rituals

Conversion requires circumcision, immersion and a rabbinic court, as in the halakhic bodies, and is nonetheless not recognised by them.

Halakha, Doctrines

Halakha is held binding and to be observed, understood as having always developed through history and open to considered change through this stream's own rabbinical law committee.

Source Homosexuality, Human Dignity and Halakhah: A Combined Responsum for the Committee on Jewish Law and StandardsElliot N. Dorff, Daniel S. Nevins and Avram I. Reisnerthe holders' own account

Conservative Judaism holds Jewish law binding while teaching that it has always developed, so its rabbinical assembly may issue rulings, on driving to synagogue or on the ordination of women, that alter received practice.

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

Kabbalat Shabbat is kept.

Conservative Judaism holds kashrut binding while permitting its rabbinate to rule on new questions, and it has issued decisions on such matters as domestic wine, cheeses and the treatment of animals that Orthodox authorities do not accept.

Source The Hebrew Bible (Tanakh)Anonymous (multiple authors)

Marriage follows the traditional form, with a clause added to the marriage contract to protect a wife whose husband refuses a divorce.

The Masoretic Text is held as the authoritative Hebrew text of the Tanakh.

Source Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd editionMichael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik (eds.)
Messiah, Doctrines

A messianic hope is retained in the traditional liturgy, generally without Orthodoxy's insistence on a literal, imminent personal Messiah.

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

Midrashic literature is held as authoritative rabbinic interpretation of scripture.

Source Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd editionMichael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik (eds.)

Immersion is required for conversion.

The Mishnah is held as authoritative rabbinic tradition, foundational to this stream's own halakhic process.

Source Homosexuality, Human Dignity and Halakhah: A Combined Responsum for the Committee on Jewish Law and StandardsElliot N. Dorff, Daniel S. Nevins and Avram I. Reisnerthe holders' own account

The Mishneh Torah is consulted as an authoritative reference, read through this stream's own halakhic process rather than treated as final.

Source Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd editionMichael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik (eds.)
Mitzvah, Doctrines

The commandments are held as binding, with the authority to adjust their application vested in this stream's own committee on law and standards.

Circumcision and the fitness of the one who performs it are governed by the Shulchan Aruch's Yoreh De'ah, which fixes the rite, its timing and the conditions under which it may be deferred.

Source Shulchan AruchJoseph Karo

Conservative Judaism retains the mohel for brit milah, with certification available to women through Conservative-affiliated training programs.

Source Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd editionMichael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik (eds.)

The Mourner's Kaddish is said, with a quorum in which women count.

Musaf, Practices

Musaf is retained, with the petition for the sacrifices recast in the past tense so that it recalls the offerings rather than asking for their return. That single grammatical change is the movement's theological position in miniature.

Conservative Judaism keeps the Sabbath as a day of rest and prayer while permitting some activities Orthodox law forbids, notably travel to synagogue where distance would otherwise prevent attendance.

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

Conservative Judaism holds Sabbath observance binding while its law committee has permitted driving to synagogue where no congregation is within walking distance, and the use of electricity, rulings the Orthodox reject.

Source The Hebrew Bible (Tanakh)Anonymous (multiple authors)
Omnipotence, Doctrines

God is addressed as almighty in the liturgy this stream retains, though its theologians have written at length on what the word can mean after the twentieth century.

The Oral Torah is held as authoritative and binding, understood as a living tradition that continues to develop.

Source Homosexuality, Human Dignity and Halakhah: A Combined Responsum for the Committee on Jewish Law and StandardsElliot N. Dorff, Daniel S. Nevins and Avram I. Reisnerthe holders' own account

The Seder is conducted from the Haggadah.

Conservative Judaism relocates the posek's function to the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, a collective body that can adopt more than one valid teshuvah on the same question, documented in its 2006 responsum on homosexuality and Jewish law.

Source Homosexuality, Human Dignity and Halakhah: A Combined Responsum for the Committee on Jewish Law and StandardsElliot N. Dorff, Daniel S. Nevins and Avram I. Reisnerthe holders' own account
Prayer, Practices

Prayer follows the traditional Hebrew liturgy with abbreviations, and men and women count equally in the quorum in most congregations of this body.

Prophecy, Doctrines

Prophecy is held as real, and this stream reads the prophetic books critically as historical documents without treating that reading as a denial.

Conservative Judaism has ordained women as rabbis since 1985, when the Jewish Theological Seminary ordained Amy Eilberg after reversing its prior policy.

Source Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd editionMichael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik (eds.)
Redemption, Doctrines

Redemption is held, with the emphasis falling on a process worked out in history rather than a single interrupting event.

Bodily resurrection language is retained in the traditional liturgy, unlike classical Reform's removal of it.

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

The Omer is counted.

Shabbat, Rituals

The Sabbath is observed halakhically, with the movement's own rulings on its boundaries.

Shacharit, Practices

Shacharit is prayed from the traditional text.

Shema Yisrael, Prayers

The Shema is said in Hebrew, morning and evening.

The slaughterer's qualification and practice are governed in detail by the Shulchan Aruch's Yoreh De'ah, which sets both the law of shechitah and the requirement that a shochet be examined and licensed before he may act for a community.

Source Shulchan AruchJoseph Karo

The Shulchan Aruch is consulted as an authoritative reference, read through this stream's own halakhic process rather than treated as final.

Source Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd editionMichael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik (eds.)
Source Siddur Sim Shalom and Jules Harlow (The Forward and JTA)The Forward and Jewish Telegraphic Agency obituary staff; the Rabbinical Assembly

The scribe's work is governed by the Shulchan Aruch's Yoreh De'ah, which sets the law for the writing of Torah scrolls, tefillin and mezuzot, down to the forming of the letters and the intention required while writing the divine name.

Source Shulchan AruchJoseph Karo

Conservative congregations use Torah scrolls written by a qualified sofer to the halakhic standard.

Source Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd editionMichael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik (eds.)

The Talmud is held as authoritative, applied and developed through this stream's own rabbinical law committee.

Source Homosexuality, Human Dignity and Halakhah: A Combined Responsum for the Committee on Jewish Law and StandardsElliot N. Dorff, Daniel S. Nevins and Avram I. Reisnerthe holders' own account

The Tanakh is held as scripture, read together with modern historical and critical scholarship.

Source Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd editionMichael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik (eds.)
Teshuvah, Doctrines

Repentance is held and the days of awe are kept in their traditional shape, with the liturgy largely retained.

Conservative Judaism understands the covenant as a lasting bond that carries real obligation, and it is this that grounds its insistence on observance against the more voluntary approach of Reform.

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)
Tikkun olam, Doctrines

Repair of the world is held in both senses, the liturgical phrase and the modern call to social responsibility, without either displacing the other.

The Torah is held as divinely revealed, its transmission and text read through modern critical scholarship.

Source Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd editionMichael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik (eds.)

Divine revelation is affirmed while the Torah's transmission and text are read through modern historical and critical scholarship, distinguishing this stream from Orthodoxy's literal Sinai dictation.

Source Homosexuality, Human Dignity and Halakhah: A Combined Responsum for the Committee on Jewish Law and StandardsElliot N. Dorff, Daniel S. Nevins and Avram I. Reisnerthe holders' own account
Yahrzeit, Practices

The Yahrzeit is kept.

Yizkor, Prayers

Yizkor is said on Yom Kippur and the festivals.

Originates in Language

Hebrew, Languages
Source Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd editionMichael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik (eds.)

Position On

Halakha, Doctrines

Halakha as binding but historically developing, so that scholarly conclusions may change the law.

Related To

Chalitzah, Rituals

The Conservative movement abolished the requirement of chalitzah in the twentieth century.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of World ReligionsJohn Bowker (ed.)
Sources
1. Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd edition
Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik (eds.), Macmillan Reference USA, 2007s.v. Conservative JudaismView the Source
2. Conservative Rabbis Approve Same-Sex Marriage Ceremony Guidelines (Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 2012the stated position on marriage and the 2012 supporting detail on the stated position on sexualityView the Source
3. Homosexuality, Human Dignity and Halakhah: A Combined Responsum for the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards
Elliot N. Dorff, Daniel S. Nevins and Avram I. Reisner, Rabbinical Assembly, 2006the holders' own accountView the Source
4. Alternative Dues Models and the Larger Paradigm Shift in Synagogue Life
Robert Evans and Bryan Schwartzman, eJewishPhilanthropy, 2015View the Source
5. Jewish Americans in 2020
Pew Research Center, 2021View the Source
Women Who Would Be Rabbis: A History of Women's Ordination, 1889-1985
Pamela S. Nadell, Beacon Press, 1998View the Source
Jewish Liturgy: A Comprehensive History
Ismar Elbogen, translated by Raymond P. Scheindlin, Jewish Publication Society and Jewish Theological Seminary, 1993View the Source
The Pittsburgh Platform
Central Conference of American Rabbis (predecessor gathering), 1885the holders' own accountView the Source
The Babylonian Talmud
Anonymous (multiple authors), Soncino Press, 1935Bava Metzia 59b
Quote, Bava Metzia 59b
The oven of Akhnai passage, on the law being decided by human argument rather than by heavenly voice, is central to the Conservative case for development.
View the Source
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