Conservative Judaism Research Articles

Jam Every Other Day: Reflections on Twenty Years as a Conservative Jewish Feminist

Twenty-five years ago, a group known as Ezrat Nashim challenged the Conservative movement to provide women with equal access to the religious and educational institutions of Conservative Judaism. While most of the demands made by Ezrat Nashim have now been met, the Conservative movement has by no means achieved the full integration of women into religious life. Moreover, it is unclear how Conservative Judaism has responded to feminism; has the Movement become "engendered" or has it merely allowed women to do those things previously restricted to men? This article explores the impact of feminism on Conservative Judaism from the personal perspective of the author, a graduate of the Jewish Theological Seminary and an active Conservative Jew.

Judaism, Business and Privacy

Abstract:This article first describes some of the chief contrasts between Judaism and American secularism in their underlying convictions about the business environment and the expectations which all involved in business can have of each other—namely, duties vs. rights, communitarianism vs. individualism, and ties to God and to the environment based on our inherent status as God’s creatures rather than on our pragmatic choice. Conservative Judaism’s methodology for plumbing the Jewish tradition for guidance is described and contrasted to those of Orthodox and Reform Judaism.One example of how Conservative Judaism can inform us on a current matter is developed at some length—namely, privacy in the workplace. That section discusses (1) the reasons for protecting privacy; (2) protection from intrusion, including employer spying; (3) protection from disclosure of that intended to remain private; (4) individualistic vs. communitarian approaches to grounding the concern for privacy; and (5) contemporary implications for insuring privacy in business.

Heightening Ideology, Diminishing Community: A Review Essay

100 SHOFAR Winter 1994 Vol. 12, No.2 HEIGHTENING IDEOLOGY, DIMINISHING COMMUNI1Y: A REVIEW ESSAY by Chaim 1. Waxman Professor of Sociology Rutgers University The Coming Cataclysm: The Orthodox-Reform Rift and the Future of theJewish People,.by Reuven P. Bulka. Brooklyn, NY: Mosaic Press, 1984. 126 pp. One People? Tradition, Modernity, andJewish Unity, byJonathan Sacks. London: Uttman Ubrary ofJewish Civilization, 1993. 254 pp. A People Divided: Judaism in Contemporary America, by Jack Wertheimer. New York: Basic Books, 1993. 267 pp. Until recently, it seemed that American Judaism was essentially consensus-oriented, that the lines between its denominations or "branches " were more or less established organizationally, and that the ideological distinctions among them were of decreasing social significance. Within the past decade, however, the significance of religious ideology reasserted itself. One of the first to elaborate on the growing significance of the ideological divides was the Canadian Orthodox rabbi and psychologist, Reuven P. Bulka, who titled his book on the subject The Coming Cataclysm : The Orthodox-Reform Rift and the Future of the JeWish People. Bulka's brief tract presented the problem as entirely ofReform making and emphasized their deviation from tradition, especially with respect to divorce and conversion procedures. He was so disturbed that he predicted that"if present trends remain unchecked, the policies which prevail within Reform Judaism ... can very likely result in a cataclysmic split within the North American Jewish community ... and the separation-cum-divorce" of Orthodox and Reform Judaism "into a mainstream and a,new reli- Heightening Ideology, Diminishing Community 101 gion...." Bulka's work was largely regarded as an exaggerated jeremiad which could safely be ignored, especially since it was published by a house which caters almost exclusively to the sectarian Orthodox community. Earlier this year, the erudite Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Commonwealth,Jonathan Sacks, wrote a book with essentially the same theme, One People? Tradition, Modernity, and Jewish Unity. In a much less combative style, Sacks undertakes an exhaustive exploration of approaches for, both Orthodox and Reform to adopt in order to stave off the ideological chasm which threatens the unity of the Jewish people. Even if his solutions are less than ideal, he provides penetrating analyses which are informed by incisive perspectives from the sociology of religion as well as modern Jewish thought. Most recently, Jack Wertheimer, a professor of history at the Jewish Theological Seminary ofAmerica, wrote A People Divided:Judaism in ContemporaryAmerica , a penetrating, even ifsomewhat skewed, detailed analysis of developments within American Judaism, especially during the past two decades. Wertheimer, too, sees American Judaism beset by deep strife and, although he disclaims long-term forecasts, implies that the issues are very deep and do not leave much room for optimism in terms of their resolution. One of the most fascinating aspects of the three analyses is how each of the authors sees the same issue from his own unique perspective. All see the same rift. However, Bulka sees Reform as the villain. Sacks is much less combative but asserts that on certain matters, all Orthodox are fundamentalists , implying that liberalism is the problem. Wertheimer, from the vantage point of his position at Jewish Theological Seminary, sees Conservative Judaism as "centrism," the implication being that it is "the golden median" and the Orthodox and Reform are the extremes whose mutual reactions are polarizing. Indeed, Wertheimer spends a considerable amount of time on what he perceives as the extremist tendencies in both Orthodoxy and Reform, while suggesting that Conservatism has succeeded in bridging the gap in its midst which the late Marshall Sklare analyzed, namely, that between its rabbinic seminary and its community-at-large. When I read Bulka, in 1984, I thought he was exaggerating the conflict and its implications. Just a year earlier, I had published a book on America's Jews in which I pointed to numerous signs of strength and growth. In my concluding chapter, I was critical of the sociologist Herbert Gans, who had described American Judaism as "symbolic Judaism." As a self-described "survivalist," that is, one who is committed to Jewish survival, who saw signs of strength and growth, I had difficulty accepting 102 SHOFAR Winter 1994 Vol...

Toward the Documentation of Conservative Judaism

The Ratner Center for the Study of Conservative Judaism at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America has embarked on a program to collect and accession the historical records of the Conservative movement, the largest religious movement of synagogue attenders in the United States. With funding from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, the center has completed a first phase of accessioning the records of synagogues, rabbis, and the central educational institution of the movement. It has also developed a documentation strategy that will shape its programs into the next century.

Jews by Choice: A Study of Converts to Reform and Conservative Judaism

Jews by Choice: A Study of Converts to Reform and Conservative Judaism

Divided Passions: Jewish Intellectuals and the Experience of Modernity (review)

112 SHOFAR Spring 1993 Vol. 11, No.3 church which still does not officially recognize it) that most Jews now demand of non-Jewish interlocutors. I am especially responsive to his challenge to Jews to develop "the universal horizon ofIsraelite faith" (pp. 31,460) because he asks us to do so from our own singularJewish experience of faith and not some a priori Enlightenment-style universalism that inevitably swallows up our singularity in a Hegelian type AU/bebut1:g. However , in conclusion I must say that Kling is rather disappointing in the way he constitutes the shift to postmodernism. Other than his condemnation of the excesses of modernism, he mostly accepts its premises, particularly its emphasis on autonomy (p. 467). Along these lines, most of what he advocates for Judaism is the sort of tepid liberalism ofAmerican Conservative Judaism, whose theoretical emptiness and practical impotence he either is unaware of or chooses to gloss over. But Kling's book is too rich and suggestive to be dismissed on anyone point. Indeed, it cannot be dismissed at all, but must be engaged on many levels. David Novak Department of Religious Studies University of Virginia Divided Passions:]ewish Intellectuals and the Experience ofModernity , by Paul Mendes-Flohr. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1991. 449 pp. $39.95. This collection of essays by Hebrew University professor Paul MendesFlohr bears a somewhat misleading title. Readers who pick up the book looking for a broad consideration ofJewish intellectuals' reactions to the challenges of the past century may be disappointed: for the most part, the pieces assembled here, originally published in various journals and collections between 1978 and 1988, deal exclusively with religious thought, primarily that of Martin Buber, the subject of Mendes-Flohr's earlier book, Martin Buber's Transformation of German Social Thought. These dense and complex essays offer important insights, however, and even if they do not provide a completely new way of looking at the place of the jewish intellectual in the modern world, they certainly deepen our understanding of Buber, Franz Rosenzweig, and several other German-Jewish philosophers . In his introductory essay, Mendes-Flohr asserts that the most influential approaches to the problem of the modern Jewish intellectual, such as those of Isaac Deutscher, Peter Gay, and John Cuddihy, have limited Book Reviews 113 themselves to thinkers "who have a negative, or at best an ambivalent, attitude toward Judaism and Jewish identity." He proposes to broaden his scope to take in those "for whom Judaism and Jewishness remain a source of pride and a salient dimension of their lives," among whom he considers Buber an "emblematic" figure (pp. 15, 17). His introductory essays promise a sociological approach to the problem of the Jewish intellectual, but in fact his methodology is that of the German historian Friedrich Meinecke's Ideengeschichte, "the treatment of ideas as inseparable from the lives in/which they take shape and the institutions which they affect" (p. 313), in which Franz Rosenzweig, one of his main subjects, was formed. Mendes-Flohr's main theme, skillfully developed in a series of detailed essays on such themes as "Fin de Sj(~cle Orientalism, the Ostjuden, and the Aesthetics of Jewish Self-Affirmation," "Martin Buber and the Metaphysicians ofContempt," and "Franz Rosenzweig and the Crisis of Historicism," is the complicated interplay ofJewish and non-Jewish intellectual traditions in the development of his subjects' thought. Even in rejecting such aspects ofGerman philosophy as Kant's negative definition ofJudaism as a religion of arbitrary rules, Mendes-Flohr shows, Buber and Rosenzweig, each in different ways, remained influenced by Kant's definition of what true religious faith should be and incorporated elements of it, consciously or unconsciously, into their own thinking. Although their ideas had a distinctively Jewish cast, they responded to the same crises as their non-Jewish contemporaries: the breakdown of liberalism at the beginning of the century , the trauma of the First World War, and, in Buber's case, the rise of Nazism. As Mendes-Flohr concludes, citing R. J. Zwi Werblowsky, the modern Jew, no matter how loyal to the religious tradition, lives in an intellectual world shaped by the great secular thinkers of the past three centuries, and has...

The historical continuity motif in Conservative Judaism's concept of Israel

The historical continuity motif in Conservative Judaism's concept of Israel

Teachers, Preachers, and Feminists in America: Women Rabbis

2 SHOFAR TEACHERS, PREACHERS, AND FEMINISTS IN AMERICA: WOMEN RABBIS Rita J. Simon and Pamela Nadell Rita J. Simon, University Professor of Justice, Law, and Society, American University, received her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Chicago in 1957. She has authored works on immigration , women and crime, the jury system, and transracial adoption . Her most recent book is Women's Movements in America: Their Successes, Disappointment and Aspirations (with Gloria Danziger) (Praeger, 1991). Pamela S. Nadell, Associate Professor of Jewish Studies and History , American University, earned her Ph.D. in History from the Ohio State Universtiy in 1982. She is the author of Conservative Judaism in America: A Biographical Dictionary and Sourcebook (Greenwood Press, 1988). In 1972 Sally Preisand, the first woman rabbi, was ordained in the United States. She was a graduate of Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio. As of today, there are close to 200 women rabbis who have been ordained by the Reform, Reconstructionist, and Conservative movements. This article describes the findings we have obtained thus far in our study ofwomen in the rabbinate. The larger study compares the motivations, performances, and experiences of women in the rabbinate as opposed to women in various Protestant ministries and as opposed to men in the rabbinate and the ministry . The larger study also has a historical component. In it, we explore the changing patterns of women's participation in the American synagogue. We consider first how middle-class Jewish women in synagogue sisterhoods and congregational schools brought their traditional private nurturing skills to bear on the public setting. Then we discern how, over the course of the twentieth century, women in the largest American Jewish denominations both gained access to lay leadership (outside the sisterhoods) and won, or were given, opportunities for enhanced ritual participation. These striking changes in the status and public roles of synagogue women paved the way for what became the capstone marking Jewish women's religious emancipation, the ordination ofwomen as rabbis. Volume 10, No.1 Fall1991 3 The larger study also explores the stances that organized synagogue women have taken on the issue of female ordination. It examines the ways concomitant European developments, especially in England and Germany, might have affected the American movement for the ordination of women rabbis, and the connections between the woman's movement in the United States and the movement for ordination. As part of this history, we trace the careers of women who tried to become rabbis before 1972 and all the institutional and cultural barriers they encountered. We also view the careers of those few women who, in fact, lead congregations without benefit of ordination . The data reported in this article are based on 35 in-depth personal interviews with women rabbis in different parts of the country who have been ordained since 1976. Each interview has three major sections. The first part asks the respondent to tell her story: why and how she chose to become a rabbi. In the course of the narrative she describes when she decided to become a rabbi, the persons who helped her make that decision, who had the strongest influence on her arriving at that decision, and the steps she took to pursue her choice of profession. The narrative includes her personal background and family environment with particular emphasis on her early Jewish education and experience; parents' occupations; siblings' age, sex, and occupations ; and marital status.. The second part focuses on her training for the rabbinate and on positions she has held since ordination. For each position she describes the institution with which she was associated, her title or position, her major responsibilities , salary, how she obtained the position, and her reactions to the experience. The third section provides the respondent with an opportunity to explain how she performs and interprets her role as a rabbi. For example, how she officiates at such rites of passage ceremonies as bar and bat mitzvahs, weddings, funerals, and baby namings. What kinds of issues and topics does she usually discuss in her sermons? How does she relate to various groups (youngsters, the elderly, the members of the Board, etc.) of her congregation ? This section also has a comparative focus...

Integrating Gender Studies into Jewish Studies

92 SHOFAR INTEGRATING GENDER STUDIES INTO JEWISH STUDIES1 Judith R. Baskin Judith R. Baskin is the Chair of the Department of Judaic Studies at the State University of New York at Albany, and the editor of Jewish Women in Historical Perspective, a collection of twelve essays on Jewish women's lives in different epochs (Wayne State University Press, 1991). She is the author of Pharaoh's Counsellors: Job, Jethro and Balaam in Rabbinic and Patristic Tradition (Chico, CA, 1983), and she has also written on Jewish women in rabbinic tradition , and in the context of medieval civilization. The perception that women's lives and experiences in any particular historical epoch may differ from men's has profoundly affected the ways in which many scholars approach and interpret their subjects of study.2 In fact, introducing gender as a factor in the study of human societies, endeavors, and achievements has revealed a persistent pattern of limiting women's access to public activities and the status they confer, and has highlighted the ways in which women have been excluded from the education and empowerment 1This paper was presented as part of a panel entitled "Towards an Inclusive Curriculum: Gender and Jewish Studies," co-sponsored with the AJS Women's Caucus at the December 1989 meeting of the Association for Jewish Studies in Boston,MA. ~at historical change may affect men and women differently is an important insight. See Joan Kelly, "The Social Relations of the Sexes," reprinted in idem, Women, History and Theory: The Essays ofJoan Kelly (Chicago and London, 1984), p. 3. Volume 9, No.4 Summer 1991 93 which would allow them to function and achieve in the cultural sphere.3 Indeed , gender studies have shown that historical transformations in many eras affect men and women quite differently.4 Moreover, while women have rarely been a part of the events and cultural accomplishments that have been valued and taught in Western intellectual traditions, investigation can sometimes reveal contemporaneous and alternative women's histories and cultures. When women were excluded from "sanctioned" male cultural activities or religious observances, for example, they often created their own rituals and artifacts. In the Jewish realm one can point to such phenomena as women's prayer groups and other activities in the medieval synagogue,S the development of devotional literature intended for women and sometimes written by women,6 and women's needlework or other donations to the synagogue as forms of communal participation? And interestingly, in times of rapid social change 3For discussions of the distinctions between public and private domains, and the realms of nature and culture and how they pertain to women, see Michelle Zimbalist Rosaldo, "Woman, Culture, and Society: A Theoretical Overview"; and Sherry Ortner, "Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture?" both in Women, Culture and Society, ed. Michelle Zimbalist Rosaldo and Louise Lamphere (Stanford, CA, 1974). For applications of these insights to the Jewish realm, see Judith R. Baskin, "The Separation of Women in Rabbinic Judaism," in Women, Religion and Social Change, ed. Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad and Ellison Banks Findly (Albany, 1985); and Judith Romney Wegner, Chattel or Person? The Status of Women in the Mishnah (New York and Oxford, 1988). 4A classic exploration of this phenomenon is Joan Kelly, "Did Women Have a Renaissance?," reprinted in idem, Women, History and Theory, pp. 19-50. Explorations of the varying effects of historical events on Jewish men and Jewish women include Paula Hyman, "Gender and Jewish History," Tikkun 3:1 (Jan.lFeb. 1988); idem, "Gender and the Immigrant Experience in America," and Marion Kaplan, "Tradition and Transition: Jewish Women in Imperial Germany," both in Jewish Women in Historical Perspective, ed. Judith R. Baskin (Detroit, 1991). 5See Judith R. Baskin, "Jewish Women in the Middle Ages," in Baskin, Jewish Women; and Emily Taitz, '"Kol Ishah-The Voice of Woman: Where Was It Heard in Medieval Europe," Conservative Judaism 38 (1986), pp. 43-61. 6See Chava Weissler, "The Traditional Piety of Ashkenazic Women," in Jewish Spirituality: From the Sixteenth Century to the Present, ed. Arthur Green (New York, 1987); idem, "Prayers in Yiddish and the Religious World of Ashkenazic Women," and Ellen Umansky, "Spiritual Expressions: Jewish Women's Religious Lives...

Ethics as Law, Law as Religion: Reflections on the Problem of Law and Ethics in Judaism

Volume 9, No.1 Fall1990 ETHICS AS LAW, LAW AS RELIGION: REFLECTIONS ON THE PROBLEM OF LAW AND ETHICS IN JUDAISM Louis E. Newman Louis E. Newman is a professor at Carleton College. His recent work focuses on the hermeneutics of Jewish ethical discourse, such as "Woodchoppers and Respirators: The Problem of Interpretation in Contemporary Jewish Ethics," published in Modem Judaism (10:1) and The Problem ofInterpretation in Contemporary Jewish Ethics. 13 For some years now, scholars have been engaged in a lively debate concerning the relationship between law and ethics in Judaism.1 Numerous talmudic texts which appear to suggest that rabbinic authorities of the past in1See J. David Bleich, "Is There an Ethic Beyond Halakhah?" in ed. Norbert M. Samuelson, Studies in Jewish Philosophy (Lanham, MD, 1987), pp. 527-46; Eugene B. Borowitz, "The Authority of the Ethical Impulse in Halakhah," in ed. Samuelson, op. cit., pp. 489-505; Boaz Cohen, "Letter and Spirit in Jewish and Roman Law," in his Law and Tradition in Judaism (New York, 1969); Elliot N. Dorff, "The Interaction of Jewish Law with Morality," Judaism 26:455-66; Jose Faur, "Law and Justice in Rabbinic Jurisprudence," in ed. Gersion Appel, Morris Epstein and Hayim Leaf, Samuel K Mirsky Memorial Volume (New York, 1970); Simon Federbush, "AI hamusar v'hamishpat" [Hebrew], Ritzaron 6:525-32; Robert Gordis, "The Ethical Dimensions ofthe Halakhah," Conservative Judaism 26:70--74; Alexander Guttmann, "The Role of Equity in the History of the Halakhah," in his Studies in Rabbinic Judaism (New York, 1976); David Weiss Halivni, "Can a Religious Law be Immoral?" in ed. Arthur A. Chiel, Perspectives on Jews and Judaism: Essays in Honor of Wolfe Kelman (New York, 1978); Milton Konvitz, "Law and Morals: In the Hebrew Scriptures, Plato and Aristotle," Conservative Judaism 23:44-71; Eugene B. Korn, "Ethics and Jewish Law," Judaism 26:455-66; Leo Landman, "Law and Conscience: The Jewish View," Judaism 18:17-29; Jacob Lauterbach, "The Ethics of the Halakhah," in his Rabbinic Essays (Cincinnati, 1951); Aharon Lichtenstein, "Does Jewish Tradition Recognize an Ethic Independent of Halakha?" in ed. Marvin Fox, Modem Jewish Ethics (Columbus, 1975); Jacob J. Ross, "Morality and the Law," Tradition 10:5-16; Seymour Siegel, "Ethics and the Halakhah," Conservative Judaism 25:33-40; Moshe Silberg, "Law and Morals in Jewish Jurisprudence," Harvard Law Review 75:306--31; Shubert Spero, Morality, Halakha and the Jewish Tradition (New York, 1975), especially ch.6, "Morality and Halakhah." 14 SHOFAR deed recognized a distinction between law and ethics have occupied a central place in these debates. Much of this discussion accordingly turns on 1) how to understand certain key terms and the texts in which they appear, and 2) how to construe the difference between "law" and "ethics." Different answers to the question, "What is the relationship between law and ethics in Judaism ," then, rest on the ways in which scholars have addressed prior questions of both hermeneutics and conceptual definition. The thesis of this paper is that both the hermeneutical and conceptual dimensions of this issue have been muddled by those engaged in this debate. As a result, one finds that scholars invariably cite the same body of texts, but draw from them radically different conclusions about the relationship between law and ethics. Each claims simply to report what the tradition says on these matters, but none seems willing or able to explain why others, drawing on the very same evidence, have reached different positions. In order to clarify this confusing and, as yet, intractable problem, it will be necessary first to review briefly the sorts of evidence that playa central role in the debate about law and ethics, then to clarify the nature of the question itself, and finally to explain why the question cannot be answered, at least in the terms in which it has been framed by all those engaged in the debate. The Evidence The rabbinic sources that bear on the problem of law and ethics fall into two categories. First, there are texts which identify a type of moral behavior which is "extra-legal," that is, morally commendable, but (apparently) not legally required. Second, there are texts which suggest that in certain instances the...

The Agunah in American Secular Law

One cannot fail to be deeply sympathetic to the sorrowful plight of the agunah (one who is tied) under Jewish religious law. An agunah is a woman who is no longer living with her husband but who cannot remarry because she has not been di vorced according to religious law. While the extent of the prob lem is not known, there are enough publicly reported incidents to permit the inference that there are many more unpublicized examples.1 Such at least is the view of significant elements of Orthodox (traditional) and Conservative (moderate) Judaism, who have looked to the state to resolve a problem that they can not deal with internally. However meritorious their motives, though, their proposed solutions cannot pass constitutional muster.

Conservative Judaism in America: a biographical dictionary and sourcebook

Preface Introduction Biographical Dictionary The Fountainhead of a Movement: The Jewish Theological Seminary of America Conservative Rabbis in America: The Rabbinical Assembly A Union of Conservative Congregations: The United Synagogue of America Appendices: Jewish Theological Seminary of America The Rabbinical Assembly The Cantors Assembly Jewish Educators Assembly The United Synagogue of America World Council of Synagogues Mercaz: The Movement to Reaffirm Conservative Zionism Foundation for Conservative (Masorti) Judaism in Israel Women's League for Conservative Judaism The Federation of Jewish Men's Clubs United Synagogue Youth Reconstructionist Organizations Glossary

God in the Teachings of Conservative Judaism. Seymour Siegel , Elliot Gertel

<i>God in the Teachings of Conservative Judaism</i>. Seymour Siegel , Elliot Gertel

Torah: From Scroll to Symbol in Formative Judaism. By Jacob Neusner. The Foundations of Judaism: Doctrine, 3. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985. xxi + 181 pages. $24.95. - God in the Teachings of Conservative Judaism. Edited by Seymour Siegel and Elliot Gertel. Studies in Conservative Jewish Thought, 3. New York: The Rabbinical Assembly, 1985. (Distributed by KTAV, Hoboken, NJ.) xi + 278

Torah: From Scroll to Symbol in Formative Judaism. By Jacob Neusner. The Foundations of Judaism: Doctrine, 3. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985. xxi + 181 pages. $24.95. - God in the Teachings of Conservative Judaism. Edited by Seymour Siegel and Elliot Gertel. Studies in Conservative Jewish Thought, 3. New York: The Rabbinical Assembly, 1985. (Distributed by KTAV, Hoboken, NJ.) xi + 278

Reaction to truth telling among Israeli physicians.

This inquiry centers on the issue of truth telling from a physician's perspective. Thirty-two doctors practicing in a large general hospital in Israel responded to a questionnaire on truth telling. Findings suggest that physicians who are Orthodox Jews are less likely to inform patients of their illness in contrast to doctors whose orientation is Conservative Judaism or nonreligious. The rationale for a number of these responses and teachings is based upon Jewish religious Halacha (Law). Findings indicate that doctors judge patients individually based on their physical and psychological state. We also suggest that physicians convey hope, involve the family, and view truth telling as their exclusive right. Tentative observations suggest that Israeli doctors tend to be more liberal in truth telling than their American counterparts.

The Ethical in the Jewish and American Heritage; Understanding Conservative JudaismGreenbergSimon The Ethical in the Jewish and American Heritage New YorkJewish Theological Seminary of America, 1977, xvi, 327, $15.00GordisRobertGelbMax Understanding Conservative Judaism New YorkThe Rabbinical Assembly, 1979, xiv, 235, $12.50

The Ethical in the Jewish and American Heritage; Understanding Conservative JudaismGreenbergSimon <i>The Ethical in the Jewish and American Heritage</i> New YorkJewish Theological Seminary of America, 1977, xvi, 327, $15.00GordisRobertGelbMax <i>Understanding Conservative Judaism</i> New YorkThe Rabbinical Assembly, 1979, xiv, 235, $12.50

The contemporary jewish studies of marshall sklare

By virtue of his first book, published more than 20 years ago, Marshall Sklare became the leading spokesman for the sociological study of contemporary American Jewry. He began that book—on Conservative Judaism—with the statement that much of the territory on contemporary Jewish religious movements constituted a terra incognita, though abundant material on historical aspects of the Jewish com munity existed (1955a: 15). More than any other individual, Sklare has been responsible for the development of the sociological study of Jewry. As another writer (Singer, 1975) has stated, "Sklare can be credited with almost single-handedly establishing 'contemporary Jewish studies.' " While not the field's only researcher —as Sklare himself notes in a recent essay—he has been the field's major researcher and teacher, as well as its leading spokesman. Further, he has published more prolifically and taught specifically in the area of contemporary Jewish studies (and especially the sociology of Jewry) longer than any other individual. As Sklare notes in his recent essay (1974d), there have been several approaches to the sociological study of Jewry: (1) the assimilationist approach, represented by pre-World War II Jewish sociologists who viewed American Jews "as a dying people whose existence is artificially prolonged by Gentile prejudice," and focused on ways of easing the Jews' redefinition of themselves from "Jew" to "secularist"; (2) the critical intellectual approach, represented by post-World War II, left-oriented, Jewish sociologists who viewed American Jews "as a reprehensible group which has succumbed to corruptions resulting from newly achieved class position," and praised the ghetto's "sense of community" and "left-orientation" while criticizing the current community; (3) the survivalist approach, represented by a 1950s-'70s group varying widely in Jewish commitment, being neither assimilationists nor critics per se, but focusing on identity problems of contemporary American Jewry from a pluralistic perspective (p. 165). The distinctions among these categories are not clear cut but, not adhering strictly to the suggested time sequence, are accurate overall categorizations. Sklare clearly falls into the survivalist category. Assimilationists are not interested in developing a sociology of Jewry; rather, they explain why such a sociology should not exist. The critical intellectuals, while committed to Jewish identity (but probably more universalistic than they recognize), are more concerned with criticizing than with comprehensively analyzing. On the

Conservative Judaism: An American Religious Movement.

Conservative Judaism: An American Religious Movement.

The Emergence of Conservative Judaism: The Historical School in 19 th Century AmericaDavisMoshe The Emergence of Conservative Judaism: The Historical School in 19 th Century America PhiladelphiaThe Jewish Publication Society of America, 1963, ix+527, $5.50

The Emergence of Conservative Judaism: The Historical School in 19 th Century AmericaDavisMoshe <i>The Emergence of Conservative Judaism: The Historical School in</i> 19 <i>th Century America</i> PhiladelphiaThe Jewish Publication Society of America, 1963, ix+527, $5.50

Conservative Judaism: An American Religious Movement

Conservative Judaism: An American Religious Movement