The Conservative Movement in Judaism: Dilemmas and Opportunities

Notes

209 Notes INTRODUCTION 1. Marshall Sklare, Conservative Judaism—An American Religious Movement (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1955, 1972). 2. Jack Wertheimer, “Recent Trends in American Judaism,” American Jewish Year Book (New York and Philadelphia: American Jewish Committee and Jewish Publication Society, 1989), pp. 63–162. 3. Charles Liebman, The Ambivalent American Jew: Politics, Religion and Family in American Jewish Life (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1973). 4. Neil Gillman, Conservative Judaism: The New Century (West Orange, N.J.: Behrman House, 1993). 5. Rela Geffen Monson, “The Future of Conservative Judaism in the United States: A Rejoinder,” Conservative Judaism, Vol. XXXVII, No. 2 (Winter 1983–1984): 10–15. CHAPTER 1 1. On the history of the Conservative Movement, see Mordecai Waxman, ed., Tradition and Change: The Development of Conservative Judaism (New York: Burning Bush Press, 1958); Moshe Davis, The Emergence of Conservative Judaism (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1963); Neil Gillman, Conservative Judaism: The New Century (West Orange N. J.: Behrman House, 1993); Abraham Karp, “A Century of Conservative Judaism in the United States,” in American 210 THE CONSERVATIVE MOVEMENT IN JUDAISM Jewish Year Book (Philadelphia and New York: Jewish Publication Society and American Jewish Committee, 1986), pp. 3–61. 2. A Note on Terminology: Throughout this book, we use the terms party, faction, and camp, in addition to the more conventional terms movement, branch, and community, to describe organized Conservative Judaism and its development . We have adopted this terminology from political science to add precision to our analysis. The term party is perhaps the most easily understood as the institutionalized expression of a particular ideology or persuasion and the interests that surround it. For most of its history, within American religious life, the Conservative Movement could be viewed as one of two major parties, with the Reform Movement being the other, competing for the allegiance of American Jews. A faction is a group within a party that seeks control of the party’s ideology and institutions. Thus for many years the Reconstructionist Movement was a faction within Conservative Judaism, but more recently it has separated to become a party in its own right. A camp embraces a group of parties sharing a common ideology, with each having its own separate adherents, institutions, and interests, as well as sharing certain institutions and interests. These parties may cooperate or compete with each other, or do both at different times. Thus American Orthodoxy from the start was organized into different groupings such as the one around Yeshiva University, which became the Rabbinical Council of America and the Union of American Orthodox Jewish Congregations; those around the traditional yeshivot (institutions of religious study) that soon found their way to Agudat Israel; Young Israel, which although founded by Mordecai Kaplan by the 1920s was a bastion of modern Orthodoxy; and, as they found their way to the United States, the various Hassidic groups. In our terminology, each of these groupings was and is a party in its own right, but all are part of a common Orthodox camp. At the same time, within Agudat Israel, each of the yeshivot with its followers constituted a faction. While there is much competition within the Orthodox camp, some of which generates real animus among the groupings, there is mutual recognition of their common Orthodoxy, which is what keeps them a single camp. 3. Moshe Davis has chronicled the early years in his book The Emergence of Conservative Judaism, op. cit.; Charles S. Liebman has disputed Davis’ central thesis in “Orthodoxy in 19th Century America,” Tradition 6 (Spring–Summer 1964): 132–140. For a thorough analysis of the “historical school” in Europe and the history of the Reform Movement, see Michael Meyer, Responses to Modernity : A History of the Reform Movement in Judaism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), and Seftin D. Temkin, “A Century of Reform Judaism in America,” American Jewish Year Book 1974 (Philadelphia and New York: American Jewish Committee and Jewish Publication Society of America, 1975), pp. 3–75. 4. On the “historical school” in Europe, see Meyer, op. cit. Notes 211 5. Davis, op. cit. 6. Liebman, op. cit. 7. Rela Geffen Monson, “The Jewish Theological Seminary and Conservative Congregations: Limited Associates or Full Partners?” in The Seminary at 100—Reflections on the Jewish Theological Seminary and the Conservative Movement, eds. Nina Beth Cardin and David Wolf Silverman (New York: The Rabbinical Assembly and the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1987), pp. 63–72. 8...