Conservative Judaism Research Articles

“Not Just a Symbol”: Neil Gillman’s Theological Method and Critical Realism

In my fourth year of rabbinical school at the Jewish Theological Seminary, I finally had the opportunity to study with Neil Gillman. For the three previous years, Neil had been the Dean of The Rabbinical School and was considered “The Man.” Having him as a teacher changed my theology and, consequently, my life. I had come into JTS with a strong background in Jewish history and Bible, but not much philosophy or theology. The class Neil taught was, in the curriculum at the time, a “Level 3 Methodology Class” in which we were to learn advanced Jewish theology. It was a class unlike any other I had taken at JTS. The final assignment was to write our own theology in some form, so I reformulated Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles of Faith. Neil urged me to try to have it published in Conservative Judaism and, when it was, my subsequent theological writing and deep interest in theology began.1 During the class, we were studying what has since been called “Gillman on Gillman”: a method for recreating Jewish theology between the Scylla of literalism and the Charybdis of secular humanism. One particular topic we discussed was Paul Tillich’s concepts of symbols and myths from his book Dynamics of Faith. I made a comment about how something was “just a symbol,” expressing the idea that, if a ritual or a term for God or a theological concept was “just a symbol” or a myth or a metaphor, it does not hold any deep meaning or truth. Neil whacked me on the shoulder and shouted at me, “Not just a symbol!”2 It was like being in a Zen koan and, if enlighten-

Navigating Rough Waters: Alexander Kohut and the Hungarian Roots of Conservative Judaism

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The Unfolding Tradition: Jewish Law After Sinai (review)

Reviewed by: The Unfolding Tradition: Jewish Law After Sinai Peter Zaas The Unfolding Tradition: Jewish Law After Sinai, by Elliot N. Dorff. NewYork: Aviv Press, 2005. 566 pp. $19.95. To some extent, those of us who bear no particular relationship to Conservative Judaism might feel vaguely misled by the promise of the title. It promises an exploration into the jurisprudence and philosophy of Jewish law generally, but delivers instead an exquisitely thorough analysis of the spectrum of philosophical positions that characterize the history of Conservative Judaism from [End Page 102] Frankel and Schechter to the contemporary figures Alana Suskin, Raymond Scheindlin, Gordon Tucker, and, of course, the dean of contemporary Conservative legal thought, the author himself. What we are presented with is a superior sourcebook for the study of Conservative legal thought, but not an exposition of Jewish law after Sinai, unless “Conservative legal thought” and “Jewish law” are the same thing. But this is a minor quibble about a significant contribution by a scholar whose thoughts about Jewish law resonate well beyond the boundaries of Conservative Judaism. Elliott Dorff is a clear thinker and a graceful writer, and, if the area he has demarcated in this volume is not quite as large as the area promised by the title, it is large enough, and important. He has specifically attempted to survey the boundaries of Jewish law as it is understood by the Conservative thinkers he considers, to present a working model of what Conservative Jewish law can be. Although his approach is not essentially comparative, Dorff is genuinely concerned to remove Conservative Judaism’s reputation for vagueness as regards the law (he quotes the familiar “Orthodox, lazy; Reform, crazy; Conservative, hazy” generalization [p. 427]). For Dorff, Conservative Judaism is anything but vague in this matter: To depict Conservative Judaism as simply some ambiguous, noncommittal, and nonconfrontational form of Judaism describes it falsely, for from its inception Conservative Judaism has made some serious assertions about the nature of Judaism in general and of Jewish law in particular (p. 427). To fill in the part of Judaism’s map that delineates the Conservative movement, Dorff surveys a small variety of non-Conservative legal theorists to the right and to the left of that movement, from the modern Orthodox Yeshayahu Leibowitz to the even-more-modern Orthodox David Hartmann, to the 1999 Statement of Principles of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the umbrella organization for the rabbinate of the Reform movement, to some legal theorists on the farther left, Arthur Waskow, Arthur Green, and, finally, a brief discussion of Eugene Borowitz, whom Dorff characterizes as “on the left border of Conservative Judaism” (p. 463.) This latter discussion serves as the introduction to Dorff ’s reprinting his own essay, “Autonomy vs. Community,” which he wrote in response to Borowitz, and originally published in Conservative Judaism (Vol. 48, No. 2 [Winter, 1996]: 64–68). He accompanies this essay with Borowitz’s response and his response to Borowitz’s response, also from Conservative Judaism (Vol. 50, No. 1 [Fall 1997]: 61–65). This lively discussion of the border between Reform and Conservative Judaism from each movement’s most thoughtful modern theorist provides the most creative moments in this volume. [End Page 103] Jewish legal theory is one of those fields whose most passionate theorists are also among its most passionate practitioners. Eliott Dorff has a more-than-theoretical interest in the geography he is attempting to survey. One measure of the value of this book is the extent to which Dorff ’s own understanding of the Torah underpins his work on the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the Rabbinical Assembly, although only his last chapter describes how this understanding affects practically legal decisions within the Conservative movement. Although the author accomplishes his main purpose in producing this volume in its theoretical exploration of the boundaries of Conservative territory, many readers (including the present one) will find this latter discussion most stimulating. Peter Zaas Siena College Copyright © 2008 Purdue University

Navigating Rough Waters: Alexander Kohut and the Hungarian Roots of Conservative Judaism

With these words, Alexander Kohut engaged the radical Reform stance of Kaufman Kohler in the spring of 1885. The exchange with Kohler crystallized Kohut's raison d'être for Conservative Judaism: an authentic alternative to what he termed “stupid Orthodoxy and insane Reform.” Kohut articulated a fully developed version of this view in Ethics of the Fathers, a compilation of his polemics against Kohler that he published a few months later. This earned Kohut a place among the Conservative movement's pantheon of nineteenth-century founders, along with Sabato Morais, Benjamin Szold, and Marcus Jastrow.

I Did It My Way: Women Remaking American Judaism (review)

Reviewed by: I Did It My Way: Women Remaking American Judaism Ronit Irshai (Naamat) (bio) I Did It My Way: Women Remaking American Judaism. Edited by Riv-Ellen Prell. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2007. xii + 331 pp. The editor of this collection of essays, Riv-Ellen Prell, characterizes the volume as a product of the “thirty-five-year gestation of American Jewish feminism” (1). The feminist movement has brought about profound changes of form and content in religious life, and the book aims to portray those changes on several planes, treated in its three sections. Part one of the book, “Reenvisioning Judaism,” deals with the new feminist theology—an enterprise that boldly exposed the intense patriarchal biases of the biblical and rabbinic traditions but also found novel ways of understanding the lives of women by reading between the lines of the Bible and expounding on its omissions. More broadly, it has proposed a fundamental revision of Jewish theology, including its concept of God and its understanding of revelation. Part two, “Redefining Judaism,” examines feminism’s influence at the local, practical level, and considers its effects on various Jewish denominations. Taking an historical-cultural approach, the article on Reform Judaism examines how that movement’s communal practice has been affected by changes in the general culture that have afforded women more nearly equal standing. The article on Reconstructionism emphasizes Mordecai Kaplan’s religious philosophy and how the concept of Judaism as a civilization—or, more precisely, of Jewish “folkways”—paved the way to gender equality. The article on Conservative Judaism shows how efforts to find “local” halachic solutions to gender issues evolved into a broader transformation of moral consciousness itself. That transformation allowed for changes in synagogue ritual and, eventually, for the ordination of women as rabbis. Change within Orthodoxy proceeds more gradually, and the article on that denomination therefore focuses on the revolution in Torah study by women and on women’s prayer groups. The article comes to a dead end, however, when it turns to the issue of mesoravot get—women whose husbands refuse to grant them a desired divorce (and thereby prevent them from remarrying according to Jewish law). Sounding a pessimistic note, Norma Baumel Joseph writes that “the transformations listed above [with respect to Torah study and prayer groups] emanate from the Jewish desire for increased knowledge and involvement. But with divorce the basic claims of justice in Judaism are most severely challenged . . . ” (203). Still, she believes that the new generation of female halachic scholars will pose a radical challenge to rabbinic authority, and I think it fair to conclude that the situation may well change, albeit slowly. [End Page 126] While the other writers in this part consider specific movements within Judaism, Pamela Nadell, in her essay on the first generation of women rabbis, assesses the revolution wrought by the ordination of women as rabbis from a cross-denominational perspective. That step, in her view, provides one of the answers to the question posed by the book as a whole, namely, how it was possible for so many feminist innovations to enter the Jewish mainstream so quickly. Women rabbis, she argues, served in the front lines and were the first to adopt these changes and make them acceptable within communal life. Part three of the book, “Reframing Judaism,” is devoted to distinctively feminine rituals that developed over the years, both within the synagogue and without. These include Rosh Chodesh (New Moon) celebrations; ritualization of the figure of Miriam through the addition of “Miriam’s cup” to the Passover Seder and the adoption of “Miriam’s Tambourine” as an element of the Seder and of Rosh Chodesh; bat-mitzvah celebrations; and the introduction of the adult bat mitzvah with its attendant effects on older women’s Jewish and community identity. The publication of this retrospective on thirty-five years of Jewish feminism in America is an exciting and meaningful event, for as recently as one hundred years ago—a short interval in historical time—most of the religious expressions and values associated with feminism could hardly be imagined. Taking a more critical perspective, however, I believe that the book would have benefited from an effort to...

'Talking About Sexual Orientation, Teaching About Homophobia' Negotiating the Divide between Religious Belief and Tolerance for LGBT Rights in the Classroom

INTRODUCTION--SEXUALITY POLITICS, RELIGIOUS BELIEF AND THE CLASSROOM The question of whether or not people in the LGBT (2) community should be able to enjoy certain fundamental rights taken for granted by most Americans is a contentious issue. While a large number of people agree that same sex sexuality should no longer be criminalized (3) and that gay men and lesbians should be allowed to participate in civil unions, (4) a significant number believe that homosexuality is immoral (5) and that it should be illegal for gay men and lesbians to marry. (6) Greater or lesser tolerance for LGBT rights in the U.S., especially gay marriage, is directly tied to age, religious belief and political affiliation. A 2005 nation-wide survey conducted by the Boston Globe found that people thirty-five years old and younger are more pro-gay in their attitudes than plus sixty-five year olds. (7) The same survey revealed that Republicans, Protestants, regular churchgoers, and Southerners were most likely to oppose gay marriage. It was more likely to be favored by ... Democrats, and people who do not attend worship services or who attend a few times a year. (8) There are many explanations for why some people are against LGBT rights. For instance, some scholars argue that animus against gay men and lesbians, or homophobia, (9) stems from repressed feelings of attraction for people of the same sex, feelings that the holder finds repugnant. This in turn can sometimes cause the holder to lash out at gay men and lesbians. (10) Others contend that homophobia is rooted in sexist attitudes about proper gender roles, with lesbians and gay men being viewed as traitors to nature because of their same sex affiliations. (11) People who hold the kinds of views just explained, often find support for their ideas in interpretations of the teachings of some of the more conservative strains of the world's major religions. For example, in 2003, the same year that the Massachusetts Supreme Court's endorsed the legality of same sex marriage, the Vatican announced that exists solely between a man and woman ... while homosexual acts go against the natural moral law. (12) The Southern Baptist Convention, America's largest Protestant denomination with 14 million members, (13) has said that Homosexuality is not a 'valid alternative lifestyle.' The Bible condemns it as sin. (14) Furthermore, the African Methodist Episcopal Church, one of the oldest African American Christian denominations, has announced that it considers same sex marriage and the ordination of gay clergy contrary to church doctrine. (15) This is not to say that all religious denominations are against LGBT rights. The Unitarian Universalist Association endorses the ordination of openly lesbian, gay and bisexual ministers, (16) as does the United Church of Christ. (17) In an official pronouncement, the latter stated: We recognize the presence of ignorance, fear and hatred in the church and in our culture, and covenant to not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation ..., and we seek to include and support those who, because of this fear and prejudice, find themselves in exile from a spiritual community. (18) It should not be forgotten that America, a majority Christian country, is a land of multiple religions. The following is only an imperfect sampling of the official views on homosexuality held by several non-christian religious groups with sizeable followings in the United States. Reform Judaism, the biggest Jewish denomination in the United States with 1.7 million members, welcomes openly gay rabbis and members and endorses same sex commitment ceremonies. (19) However, such ceremonies are not considered the same as heterosexual marriage ceremonies. (20) On the other hand, the Conservative Judaism movement, which has 1.4 million members in the United States, officially prohibits same sex weddings and openly lesbian or gay rabbis. …

Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays (review)

Reviewed by: Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays Aaron Gross Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays, by Abraham Joshua Heschel, edited by Susannah Heschel. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1996. Susannah Heschel’s edited collection of forty short essays and two interviews spanning the full range of A. J. Heschel’s career does much more than bring together previously difficult-to-find material with a fine biographically oriented and detail-rich introduction; Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity has itself become a major work. No other volume conveys the breadth of A. J. Heschel’s work so fully—both his writings and his activism—or provides so many powerful and pithy summaries of concepts elaborated elsewhere in his corpus. The volume’s main demerit is technical: the lack of an index. Here we find Heschel standing on one foot speaking to German Jews in 1936 as Hitler hosted the first televised Olympics (pp. 68–70) and to the American people in a nationally televised interview more than 35 years later as the country reflected and reeled in response to the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement (pp. 395–412). Heschel speaks to seekers—Jewish, Christian, and secular—as well as scholars and to the leaders of Reform, Reconstructionist, Orthodox, and, especially, Conservative Judaism. One of the volumes great merits is its presentation of some of Heschel’s most recurrent themes—God is in search of the human being (pp. 16, 158–63, 185–90, 260, 293, and especially 396) and the need to be more than human to avoid being less than human (pp. 7, 60, 92)—from multiple vantages as Heschel speaks in different contexts. Susannah Heschel, A. J. Heschel’s daughter and one of his foremost expositors, has admirably organized these essays under five headings: I. Existence and Celebration; II. No Time for Neutrality; III. Toward a Just Society; IV. No Religion is an Island; and V. The Holy Dimension. The bookend sections, one and five, contain especially wide-ranging material marked by Heschel’s sustained effort to reformulate the basic questions and assumptions that propel inquiry about and into religion. Encapsulating the broad arc of Heschel’s work, the first section emphasizes the Jewish context, while the fifth and final section emphasizes the religious situation more generally. In the first section, the essays speak to such issues as what it means to be a Jew (pp. 3–11, 47); the theological primacy of events over ideas (pp. 12–17); the Hasidic message of “hope and exultation” (pp. 39; 33–9); “Israel as memory” (pp. 40–43); a critique of Reform, secular, and Orthodox Judaism (pp. 48–52); the meaning of tshuvah (pp. 68–70); and a poetic meditation on Nazi anti-Semitism (pp. 71–2). Ranging over wide terrain, Heschel argues [End Page 221] that “[t]he very existence of a Jew is a spiritual act” (p. 55); blasts Jewish demographers with his insistence that “[t]here are two words I should like to strike from our vocabulary: ‘surveys’ and ‘survival’” (p. 29); and offers a phenomenology of Talmud study, suggesting that pilpul “represented a desire to sublimate feelings into thoughts, to transpose dreams into syllogisms” (p. 36). The final section is of special interest to the historian and philosopher of religion, for here themes such as piety (pp. 305–17), holiness (pp. 318–27), faith (pp. 328–39), prayer (pp. 340–53), and death (pp. 366–79) are approached as basic human phenomena. In “An Analysis of Piety,” Heschel summarizes a fundamental aspect of his analysis of religion: “man’s affinity with God is his persistent aspiration to go beyond himself . . . to live for an ideal” (p. 316). Religion is imagined here as a vehicle to actualize this aspiration that may manifest in devotion to “the family, a friend, a group, the nation . . . art, science, or social service. . .” (p. 316). The second essay in the final section, The Holy Dimension, contains the volume’s most pointed critique of religious studies, which is also touched on elsewhere in the volume through Heschel’s critique of symbolism “as the supreme category in understanding religious truth” (pp. 88, 128; see also 92). Heschel laments, Modern man seldom faces things...

The Americanization of Zionism, 1897-1948 (review)

The Americanization of Zionism, 1897-1948, by Naomi Cohen. Hanover and London: Brandeis University Press, 2003. 261 pp. $35.00. In The Americanization of Zionism, Naomi Cohen expands on a theme that has previously been explored both by herself and by scholars such as Ben Halpern and Melvin Urofsky: from its earliest years, has been shaped by uniquely factors that set it apart from traditional ideology of European Zionism. in United States was fashioned according to the needs of Jews in America, including their desire not to differ too much from the stand of government and the demands of public opinion (p. 1), she contends. This meant jettisoning such concepts as inevitability of massive antisemitism in diaspora and personal obligation of every Zionist to settle in Palestine. Most Jews have always regarded United States as their home, never believed that substantial antisemitism will erupt here, and never seriously considered relocating to Middle East. Nor would they want what Cohen calls American public opinion to suspect that they regard United States as a country that will eventually persecute them and drive them out. Cohen explains at start that The Americanization of does not purport to be a synthetic history of Zionism (p. 2). Rather, she presents eight separate episodes, some revolving around key events, others around key individuals, that illustrate her central theme. Every chapter features same crisp writing style and high level of scholarship that made her earlier books sparkle. It is impossible to finish any single section of book without gaining some fresh insight or new information. The book begins with a study of earliest U.S. Zionist monthly, The Maccabaean, exploring how it presented Zionist ideas to fledgling Zionist movement and how, in turn, it reflected perspective of emerging movement. Subsequent chapters deal with such disparate topics as unsuccessful attempt to build a Conservative synagogue in Jerusalem in 1930s, efforts by Jewish social worker Maurice Hexter to influence British policy in Palestine, conflicts between Zionists and State Department over immigration to Palestine during 1930s, ill-fated Jewish Conference, and 1940s debates over within Conservative Judaism's Jewish Theological Seminary. Her chapter on Reform Judaism's evolution from anti-Zionism to non-Zionism (that is, support for a Jewish refuge although not a sovereign state) brings into sharp focus multiplicity of factors at work in shaping that movement's attitude towards Palestine. England's Balfour Declaration, soon endorsed by U.S. government, legitimated Zionism in eyes of Reform rabbis (p. 62). If they did not have to fear dual loyalty accusations, Reform leaders could feel comfortable with idea of Palestine as a refuge for downtrodden European Jews, even if they were slow to embrace notion of Jewish territorial sovereignty. Later, rise of Nazism cemented Reform's acceptance of idea of Palestine as a haven for European masses. Self-preservation was also a factor: Reform rabbis had to face reality that by interwar years, most Jews were nationalist-minded eastern European immigrants (p. 62) (or their offspring) to whom a strongly anti-Zionist brand of Reform Judaism would not appeal. …

REVIEW: David L. Lieber, Jules Harlow, Rabbinical Assembly and the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. <strong>TEACHING TORAH IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY:</strong> THREE JEWISH BIBLE COMMENTARIES: <em>ETZ HAYIM: TORAH AND COMMENTARY. </em> Richard Elliott Friedman.<em>Commentary on the Torah.</em> Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler, Michael Fishbane. <em>THE JEWISH STUDY BIBLE.</em>

Teaching Torah in the Twenty-First Century:Three Jewish Bible Commentaries Elsie R. Stern Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary. David L. Lieber, senior editor; Jules Harlow, literary editor; sponsored by the Rabbinical Assembly and the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2001, xxiii + 1559 pp. Richard Elliott Friedman . Commentary on the Torah. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001, xvii + 681 pp. The Jewish Study Bible. Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler, editors; Michael Fishbane, consulting editor. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004, xxiii + 2181 pp. In recent years, there has been a boom in adult Jewish learning in general and text study in particular. Many Jewish adults, from a range of backgrounds and with a wide range of prior knowledge, are joining Torah study groups and Bible classes or are reading the Bible independently. Two recent commentaries, Etz Hayim:Torah and Commentary, which was produced by the Conservative movement, and Richard Elliott Friedman's Commentary on the Torah, are both geared toward this newly expanded audience of readers who are largely well educated but are often unfamiliar with the Torah text and its scholarly and traditional interpretations. A third commentary, The Jewish Study Bible, edited by Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler, is designed both for this audience and for use in academic classroom [End Page 376] settings. In very different ways, each of these volumes participates in a common project: the integration of academic biblical scholarship and Jewish interpretive traditions into the study of the biblical text. Each is an attempt to articulate biblical scholarship in a Jewish key. The Etz Hayim Torah commentary is a valuable and crucially important book. The commentary, which is the product of many years of labor by a large group of scholars and rabbis associated with the Conservative movement, is designed to be both a synagogue commentary and a commentary for private use. As a synagogue commentary, it will replace the Hertz Pentateuch, which has served as the standard synagogue commentary in most Conservative synagogues for nearly seventy years. The Hertz commentary was published by Joseph Herman Hertz, the chief rabbi of Great Britain and a graduate of the Jewish Theological Seminary, in 1936. When it was first issued, the Hertz commentary was an important innovation. It was the first Torah commentary written in English by Jews for Jewish laypeople. The goals of the commentary were explicitly pedagogical, homiletical, and devotional. Hertz wanted the commentary to "embody everything of lasting appeal in Rashi and the Jewish commentators, as well as to utilise modern scholarship, fully to bring out the moral and spiritual teaching of the text."1 The goal of the commentary was also apologetic. Hertz was concerned that the combined forces of biblical scholarship and liberal Judaism were contributing to the erosion of Judaism and the disaffection of modern Jews from their tradition. He hoped that his commentary would justify and vindicate Judaism and its spiritual authenticity.2 At its time of publication, the Hertz commentary made centuries of traditional Jewish commentary, as well as some of the new advances of critical biblical scholarship, accessible to English-speaking Jewish laypeople. However, in the decades since its initial publication, the Hertz commentary has become quite dated; its blatantly apologetic stance and its reliance on century-old scholarship have become increasingly problematic for the Conservative movement as a whole and for individual lay readers. A new Conservative Torah commentary was long overdue, and Etz Hayim is a vast improvement over the Hertz Pentateuch. The volume consists of: (1) the [End Page 377] Hebrew text of the Torah, accompanied by the JPS translation and a commentary, which is divided into three sections: peshat, derash, and halakhah lemaʿaseh; (2) the Hebrew text of the haftarot accompanied by the JPS translation, introductory comments, and a brief running commentary; and (3) a collection of forty essays, which are divided into four categories: Biblical Life and Perspectives; Biblical Religion and Law; Worship, Ritual, and Halakhah; and Text and Context. The peshat commentary was adapted by Chaim Potok from the five-volume JPS Torah commentary, and the commentary on the haftarot is an abridged version of Michael Fishbane's larger commentary on the haftarot. The derash and halakhah...

Gender and Agency in the Feminist Historiography of Jewish Identity

Can women be Jews? When the Jewish Theological Seminary, the seat of Conservative Judaism, decided to ordain women as rabbis, it faced a dilemma: all students (until then, all men) were expected to observe Jewish religious law, observing the Sabbath and holidays strictly, praying three times a day, wearing a head covering, and so forth. Should the new women students follow the Jewish laws incumbent upon men, but from which women are exempt? For example, men are required to put on phylacteries for weekday morning prayers, whereas women are not only exempt, but, according to some authorities, forbidden to wear phylacteries. Men are expected to wear a head covering (yarmulke), whereas women are not (though married women, in Orthodox custom, wear a scarf, hat, or even a wig). Men wear ritual fringes under their clothes every day, donning a prayer shawl with fringes for morning prayer, whereas women, again, are exempt or forbidden. The legal niceties aside, the question goes to the heart of Jewish identity: if the new women rabbinic students are required to follow the laws incumbent upon men, it implies that only men are real Jews and that pious Jewish women, who have been exempt from those laws, are somehow less than fully Jewish. Why does becoming a rabbi require both women and men to follow the role of Jewish religious men, even when it forces women to violate the laws regulating women’s piety? For a woman to be a Jew, the rabbinical ruling insinuates, means becoming a male Jew, and the question of ordaining women rabbis is really a question of whether Jewish women can become Jewish men. Why not encourage or at least permit male rabbis the same exemptions from religious observance that have defined Jewish women’s piety—allowing men to become women? At the same time, if the role of rabbi is to be opened to women, should not all aspects of Jewish religious life, especially those heretofore limited to men, be opened to women? The gender inequalities of Judaism that have been overcome as a consequence of modernity have brought women opportunities—such as rabbinical ordination—that were closed to them for two thousand years. At the same time, opening men’s privileges to women has reified Judaism according to the normative rules applied to men, rather than

Retrospective: Neil Gillman's Conservative Judaism

Retrospective: Neil Gillman's Conservative Judaism

Daniel J. Elazar and Rela Mintz Geffen. The Conservative Movement in Judaism: Dilemmas and Opportunities. SUNY Series in American Jewish Society in the 1990s. Albany: SUNY Press, 2000. xiv, 238 pp.; Michael B. Greenbaum. Louis Finkelstein and the Conservative Movement: Conflict and Growth. Academic Studies in the History of Judaism. Binghamton, NY: Global Studies, 2001. xv, 308 pp.; Mordecai M.

Much has been, and continues to be, written about the Conservative movement and its impact upon both American Judaism and world Jewry. Such works differ widely in scope and emphasis. The three recently published volumes under review serve to exemplify such diversity. One examines the movement in its entirety, concentrating on the present, primarily from a sociological perspective; the others focus more on history, illuminating in different ways the roles of two of the most influential figures in Conservative Judaism in the past.

Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary (review)

Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, for Rabbinical Assembly and United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, 2001. 1560 pp. $72.50. For close to sixty years, Joseph Hertz's The Pentateuch and Haftorahs (London: Soncino Press, 1936) was a fixture in American synagogues, arguably serving as the for many, if not most, American Jews. However, Hertz has long been considered dated and its polemics against both Christianity and modern biblical scholarship out of touch with contemporary views. It is, therefore, not surprising that replacements have begun to appear. The first came from Reform movement, which published The Torah, A Modern Commentary in 1981. Although it drew on a wide range of thinkers, Jewish tradition was shortchanged, as symbolized by omission of biblical accent marks (trope), which are used for Bible's ritual chanting, and minimization of traditional Sabbath lections (parashot). Barely a decade later, Orthodox community produced an English commentary of its own. However, ArtScroll Humash (Brooklyn: Mesorah Publications, 1993) paid even less attention to modernity than Reform commentary had given to Jewish tradition. Now Conservative movement, out of which Hertz, first graduate of its Jewish Theological Seminary of America, emerged, has produced its own commentary for synagogue use. Drawing title from Proverbs 3:18, which is recited before Torah scroll during Jewish worship, its goal is to be reverential but not apologetic (p. xix) by embracing both tradition and modernity. It is also proudly Jewish. Although non-Jews are seldom mentioned by name, especially in commentary, it quotes a remarkable range of Jewish thinkers from almost every century and stream of Jewish history. Jewish practice is also regularly identified, typically as what we do, and there are frequent references to Conservative movement's Committee on Jewish Law and Standards. Both commentary and short essays which follow are fully conversant with findings of contemporary biblical scholarship. Biblical statements are not automatically accepted as true, and readings from ancient versions are pointed out along with instances in which translation deviates from Masoretic text it supposedly follows. There are also frequent references to relevant findings from ancient Near East, although Der Allah inscription goes strangely unmentioned as does generally accepted connection between book of Deuteronomy and Judah's King Josiah. Most striking is book's openness to diversity. The organizers of this project have gone out of their way to involve a broad range of movement's constituents, including important scholars who work outside of its own institutions. Following a format that recalls Daniel Bomberg's classic Rabbinic Bible (Mikra'ot Gedolot), each page includes both Hebrew text and 1985 Jewish Publication Society translation as well as three commentaries -- one, based on recent JPS commentary series, which presents text's straightforward meaning (peshat), a second that is more homiletical (derash), and a third that describes relationship between text and Jewish observance (halacha l'ma-aseh). …

The Dilemmas of Moderate Reform. Some Reflections on the Development of Conservative Judaism in Germany 1840–1880

From a historical perspective, Conservative Judaism can be best comprehended as a response to the specific experience of American Jewry in the 19th and 20th century. However, Jewish religious Conservatism sprang from roots planted in Western Europe a number of decades earlier. Repeatedly and in various contexts, scholars have emphasized the considerable impact of GermanJewish religious thought on the early development of Jewish spiritual and congregational life in the United States.2 Yet unlike in the Old World, the Conservative current which emerged from the so-called Historical School across the Atlantic successfully created an increasingly complex organizational structure to communicate its outlook. In addition to a college to train teachers and rabbis (Jewish Theological Seminary) for an impressive number of synagogue congregations, an extensive network of associations and institutions was established providing an array of services and assistance for Conservative Jew of all ages, male and female. In this manner, Conservative Judaism transformed from a smaller current within North American Jewry into a highly successful mainstream movement. Although it is best understood as a sacred cluster of core values rather than a clearly defined set of dogmas and doctrine, it has indeed created a

Ultra-ortodoksi og pluralisme

One of the central characteristics of the thinking and political practice of Israeli Ultra-Orthodox or Haredim is their rejection of internal Jewish pluralism, an attitude connected to their confrontational strategy towards the cultural aspects of modernity and consequently of modern interpretations of Judaism as found in Reform and Conservative Judaism. The following article is a description and analysis of the treatment of subjects related to Reform and Conservative Judaism in the Haredi press in particular in the ‘Lithuanian’ daily newspaper Yated Neeman as well as in the publications of its founder, the late Rabbi Eliezer Menahem Shakh. The subject is often treated extensively in editorials and articles in the Haredi press, when special events in Reform or Conservative communities in or outside Israel are catching the attention of the editorial board or subjects related to these communities arrive at the political agenda of the State of Israel. Series of articles have e.g. been caused by High Court decisions ordering the authorities not to prevent Reform and Conservative representation in the local religious councils or to finance theirs institutions etc. The articles bear the imprint of a strikingly demonizing attitude towards the Non-Orthodox movements. This attitude is derived from the premodern Haredi view that the content of their belies constitutes an absolute truth which has only one legitimate interpretation and that only this particular interpretation rightfully can bear the name Judaism.

A New Key: Decorum and the Study of Jews and Judaism

The philosopher Susanne Langer wrote in 1942 that a new key had emerged in philosophy, the study of "the problem of meaning" over "the problem of observation." This new formulation did not happen all at once, according to Langer. Rather, scholars posed new questions and handled problems differently. As a result, and with time, it became apparent that a new "angle of perspective" had emerged. As these frameworks shifted, a whole series of new subject matters and approaches resulted. 1 I suggest that the 1970s were a critical decade in the emergence of a "new key" in the study of American Jews and Judaism. A growing number of scholars began focusing on the synagogue, prayer, and to some extent ritual. More importantly, these concerns drew scholars to questions about how Jewish identity was constituted, and to explore some of the cultural formulations of that identity. In fields as different as the social sciences and liturgical studies, scholars examined not simply Jewish norms but how Jews lived and prayed. Many of these scholars continued to find the distance between what was normative and what was lived most compelling. For others, documenting, contextualizing and explaining religious life became more pertinent. Though they unquestionably built on the work of a few scholars of the 1950s and 1960s, a more widespread shift was clearly in place by the 1970s. This same period is one in which American academic disciplinary boundaries became more porous. For example, anthropologists began to look at the study of culture over time and to historicize a subject matter once rooted in a timeless dimension called "the ethnographic present." Historians, in parallel fashion, became interested in culture, ritual, family, and folklore, concepts that for some time had been the terrain of anthropology. The subjects of history and anthropology changed as well. Women, the working classes, slaves, and ordinary people—all became not only a focus of study but subjects acting on their own agency within society. Overall, a more dynamic social and cultural reality occupied scholars, and that contributed to reshaping the study of American Jews. [End Page 13] Leon Jick's Americanization of the Synagogue was written within that new key in Jewish scholarship 2 . His book marked an important shift in the study of nineteenth-century German-American Jewry, reflecting changes within the field of American history. For example, he focused on what had often been the purview of the social sciences. He examined how aspirations for social mobility and Americanization shaped Jewish observance. Jick offered a unique perspective in the history of nineteenth-century Jews when he argued that the synagogue had become a site for creating identity, asserting Americanization and maintaining cultural continuity. Perhaps most importantly, Jick rooted the creation of an American Judaism and American Jewish culture in the lives of ordinary Jews. "In the American setting it was precisely these Jewishly 'ignorant' laymen who presided over the affairs of the synagogue. Increasingly the institutions that evolved reflected American social customs and Protestant patterns of religious expression." 3 His analysis of decorum provided an important foundation for the study of American Jews in relationship to Judaism. He linked worship to social experience in general and social class more specifically. In this sense, TheAmericanization of the Synagogue is profoundly indebted to the sociologist Marshall Sklare's Conservative Judaism, originally published in 1955 and revised in 1972. 4 This work in the sociology of religion was an analysis of the social characteristics of post-war American Jews and the ways in which Judaism's most popular denomination of the time reflected that reality in the synagogue, the rabbinate, and religious education. Jick acknowledged the work in his bibliography, but the book's narrative does not indicate the obvious significance of Sklare's framework for his own. Sklare asserted in italics on the first page of his study, "Changes in Judaism have their origins in the lives of Jews. Since these changes result from...

Beyond reasonable doubt

More than forty years have passed since the author first put forward the argument that traditionally observant Jews have no reason to take issue with the results obtained by the historical critics in their investigation into the Bible and the other classical sources of Judaism. The author has argued that the traditional doctrine which claims that ‘the Torah is from Heaven’ can and should be maintained — provided that the word ‘from’ is understood in a non-fundamentalist way to denote that there is a human as well as a divine element in the Torah: God revealing His will not only to but through the Jewish people in their historical experiences as they reached out to Him. As a result of these views, which were first published in the still-controversial text <italic>We Have Reason to Believe</italic>, the Anglo-Jewish Orthodox hierarchy banned the author from serving as an Orthodox rabbi. This was the cause of the notorious ‘Jacobs affair’, which culminated in the creation of the New London Synagogue and, eventually, in the establishment of the Masorti movement in the UK with strong affinities with Conservative Judaism in the United States. This book examines afresh all the issues involved. It does so objectively, meeting the objections put forward by critics from the various trends within the Jewish world, both Orthodox and Reform, and inviting readers to follow the argument and make up their own minds.

A Vindication of Judaism: The Polemics of the Hertz Pentateuch (review)

Hebrew Studies 40 (1999) 383 Reviews A VINDICATION OF JUDAISM: THE POLEMICS OF THE HERTZ PENTATEUCH. By Harvey Warren Meirovich. pp. 304. New York: The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1998. Cloth. The intellectual challenge facing Judaism at the start of the now-closing century distressed Solomon Schechter, "the new century does not open under very favorable auspices for ludaism. Our Scriptures are the constant object of attack, our history is questioned, and its morality is declared to be an inferior sort." No prior generation could have assessed matters otherwise , given the millennial competition of Judaism and Christianity in the West, Judaism and Islam in the East. But what made acute a fonnerly chronic problem was, "that attitude of the younger generation, who if not directly hostile, are by dint of mere ignorance sadly indifferent to everything Jewish.... They are bound to end in that cold critical attitude toward Judaism terminating in drifting away from it altogether." When he became chief rabbi of the British Empire, reading the crisis as one of intellect and faith, Joseph Hertz detennined to meet the crisis by hitting head on the Protestant challenge to the Hebrew Scriptures and their historicity and morality. The liberal Protestant theologians maintained that the Scriptures are not (historically) true, and the religion they set forth is inferior. He also took as his task to answer Refonn and Liberal Judaism in its British fonnulation, arguing against its critique of ritual in the name of morality and its articulated policy of compromise and conciliation with (liberal) Christianity. The result was a commentary, the Hertz Pentateuch, with its polemics against liberal Protestant anti-Judaism and against Liberalludaic anti-Orthodox-Judaism. In this over-researched, under-reflected-upon, but enlightening dissertation , Harvey Meirovich, a Jewish Theological Seminary of America professor in Jerusalem, provides the defmitive account of a subject that, in retrospect, proves less interesting than it ought to have been. For the real problem of Hertz's Pentateuch is not addressed: why, in all, did it exercise so marginal an influence in synagogue life, despite its wide circulation, so that after three generations in the pews, one would do well to fmd a single position Hertz in particular argued that is broadly accepted as nonnative by the faithful, or as persuasive for that matter. Its early sales were trivial and, in the United States of America, scandalously sparse. Hertz thought a commentary would do, but it was the text that served in synagogue worship , along with the translation. Today the commentary and excurses are something of an intellectual joke, a museum of dead ideas and spent arguments . Contemporary Orthodoxy has produced its own media for the reception of the Torah, Refonn Judaism never gave way before Hertz's on- Hebrew Studies 40 (1999) 384 Reviews slaught, and so far as Conservative synagogues went, the Hertz Pentateuch, like much else, was a mere fonnality, not a focus and source of a living faith like Rashi's counterpart. Hertz fought over issues few today (outside of Protestant fundamentalism) find acute and crafted a Pentateuch of ephemeral points and trivial observations. Meirovich places Hertz solidly into Conservative Judaism as the Jewish Theological Seminary defined matters in its fonnative age: a literate and enlightened Orthodox Judaism of intellect, integrated into the religious world of the time and place, for Jews who rejected self-segregation but affumed Judaism in its classical system. Hertz not only was the Jewish Theological Seminary of America's first graduate but maintained a lifelong relationship with the school and asked for a job there when he held a pulpit in Johannesburg. In shaping his commentary, moreover, Hertz occupied that very ground that the Jewish Theological Seminary of America and Schechter's Conservative Judaism had taken for itself: [1] engagement with the scholarship of the age, and [2] apologetics in the face of attacks on the beliefs deemed normative. At what cost? Hertz bought into the Protestant framing of issues, so argued against much, but for very little. He obtusely engaged on the critics' own grounds, allowing the anti-Judaism of the liberal Protestants to define the tenns of debate. This was little short of Pickett's charge at Gettysburg and yielded the...

A MELUS Interview: Chaim Potok

Born in Bronx, New York, in 1929, Chaim Potok grew up in an Orthodox Jewish home and was educated at Orthodox Jewish parochial schools. His Polish immigrant parents were Hasidic Jews, who were not enthusiastic with his childhood talent in the visual arts, a secular talent on which Hasidism did not put a high value. Over a period of time Potok became disenchanted with Hasidism and became interested in Conservative Judaism. In 1954 he became a Conservative rabbi. The following year as a chaplain in the U. S. Army he served in Korea where he came very close to death on a number of occasions. His experience in Korea transformed him, and he began writing his first novel. Although this novel about his experience in Asia was never published, in 1967 he did publish his first novel, The Chosen, a National Book Award nominee that was immensely popular. The novel revealed the clash of cultures that in a variety of forms can be seen in all of his subsequent novels. In this novel Danny Saunders, at the heart of his Hasidic culture, finds his value system challenged by the psychoanalytic theories of Freud, a value system at the core of Western secular culture. With impressive verisimilitude and profound insight, Potok evokes his narrow and particular Jewish world, just as Joyce and Faulkner evoke their narrow and particular worlds. Potok is a master at portraying Jewish life and thought and the colliding of disparate cultures. This telephone interview occurred on August 8, 1995. Mr. Potok graciously responded to some follow-up questions on April 25, 1996 that the interviewer believed were needed to clarify some issues raised in the August interview. Interviewer: When did you decide to become a writer? Potok: When I was about sixteen years old. Interviewer: What did your family and friends think of your decision? Potok: My father wasn't very happy over it. He wanted me to teach Talmud at an academy of higher Jewish learning. My mother thought it might be a difficult way to make a living, and friends thought it was sort of odd, except for one friend who was very encouraging. Interviewer: When you first started writing, were there any writers who influenced your work? Perhaps even served as models? Potok: Well, the influence started with the work of Stephen Crane, whom I admired very much, and Ernest Hemingway and John Steinbeck. The most significant influences were James Joyce, Evelyn Waugh, and Thomas Mann. Interviewer: Which of their works did you read? I'd be particularly interested in hearing which of Mann's works influenced you. Potok: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce; Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh; Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann; Death in Venice by Thomas Mann. Interviewer: Do you write for yourself or family or friends or an ideal reader? Potok: I write for myself. The only people who read what I write during the writing process are my wife and my editor. Interviewer: Are any of your stories somewhat autobiographical? Potok: I think most serious writers, certainly in the modern period, use their own lives or the lives of people close to them or lives they have heard about as the raw material for their creativity. Interviewer: Is there a religious foundation for your work? Potok: To the extent that I come from a deeply religious tradition and have been contending with those beginnings all of my life--that constitutes the subject of much of my early fiction. There is in my work a very strong religious foreground and background. In the later work some of that tends to diminish, but it's certainly present in the early work. Interviewer: Why do you think some of that tends to diminish in your later work? Potok: The problems I deal with--in The Book of Lights, for example--are far more complex than those in the earlier books, and lead to resolutions that are mired in ambiguity. …

Israel

IN DEFERENCE TO HER HUSBAND'S NEW AND INCREASING RELIGIOUS devotion, Yifat Elharar decided to clear out her closets. Tossing out her miniskirts and shorts was a symbolic casting-off of a more provocative secular life in favour of the forced modesty of the extremely religious. But her cosmetic moves toward Ultra-Orthodox Judaism were far from complete: she refused to hide her long auburn hair under a wig or a hat or to wear long skirts, opting instead for trousers, saying she just didn't have the necessary religious passion for the full uniform. Even though she agreed to send her two oldest children to religious schools and to observe the religious ritual of the sabbath, her defiance over her clothing threatened her marriage to Ilan, a championship soccer player who gave up a lucrative career in sport to study in a yeshiva (religious school) and chauffeur a religious member of the Israeli knesset.His rabbis urged patience, confident she would become more accepting of his ways. A year and a half later they were still together she was slowly giving in and adapting her wardrobe - another young couple raising a family in the jumbled atmosphere of Jerusalem, where Ultra-Orthodox Jews live in separate neighbourhoods from less observant and secular Israelis, where weekend traffic is detoured to accommodate the religious, and where secular teenagers spend noisy sabbath nights at funky bars while their more reverent cousins pray at the Western (Wailing) Wall - Judaism's holiest shrine - a few blocks away.The difficulties of one couple are symbolic and resonate across the state of Israel, where the divide between secular and religious Jews has never been so deep. The secular - those Jews who do not observe religious ritual - are increasingly vocal, almost panic-stricken over the growing political clout of the Ultra-Orthodox, who gained an unprecedented amount of power in the May 1996 general election that propelled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into office. Outspoken secular activists warn of an eventual theocracy, not unlike that in Iran, where the rabbis would wield the same control as the ayatollahs. Key members of the most significant religious party, Shas, unapologetically flog their vision of a state where all civil law is replaced by Halachic rules - the law of the Torah.The hostility is already quite public, from physical confrontations over the closing of roads on the sabbath to proposed new religious laws that would give the Ultra-Orthodox supremacy over the followers of the more liberal Reform and Conservative Judaism. These divisions and how they play out will influence the very shape, nature, and future of the state of Israel. They have the potential to threaten Israel's stability in a manner that is no less serious than Israel's conflicts with the Arab nations, to the point where some of the stumbling blocks in ongoing efforts for an Israeli-Palestinian peace can be traced to the animosity between religious and secular Jews.FROM CLOSED MINORITY TO DOMINANT INFLUENCEThe 1996 Israeli general election for prime minister and knesset seats resulted in an overwhelming victory for Benjamin Netanyahu; it also signalled a significant reform of consciousness for the Ultra-Orthodox (Haredim) society in Israel. Indeed, the Ultra-Orthodox, who make up eight per cent of the population, have always had strong political power, far exceeding their numbers among the electorate, because traditionally they have acted as a balance between the two main parties when either establishes a coalition. However, until the last election any social influence they had was indirect, measured in amounts of government money allocated for education and housing. Otherwise, Ultra-Orthodox society tended to isolate itself and did not try to influence secular or Masorti (traditionalists who keep the main observances of Judaism) society.This social balance collapsed when, for the first time in Israel, elections for prime minister took place in addition to and parallel with elections for knesset seats. …