nt, the youngest group in modern Judaism, had no wish to create a new alignment in Judaism. They sought, rather, to unite all Jews who had a positive attitude toward Jewish tradition, in spite of variations in detail. Nonetheless, life itself led to the crystallization of Conservative Judaism, which is dedicated to the conservatism and development of traditional Judaism in the modern spirit.”(Gordis 216) Since the inception of Conservative Judaism in the late 19th century, it is committed to Judaism not only as a faith but also as a system of law, and to the norms of ritual behavior. Conservative Judaism formally involves strict Jewish religious practice of the laws of diet and Sabbath-observance. “ For many Jews in the Gilded Age of the late nineteenth century, Reform was traveling too fast and too far to the left. The Conservative movement long ago ruled that mixed seating was permitted in religious services and so was driving to the synagogue on the Sabbath. Unlike Orthodox, the Conservative allows women rabbis instead of the traditional service lead by men. “Of the three main Jewish sects in America, Reform Judaism has thus far been the prime force in getting things done, supplying thus far been the prime force in getting things done, supplying most of the ideas, money and leadership. Reform has remained in the vanguard of everything new in secular American Judaism. But it is no longer foremost Jewish religious sect. Nor is it any longer foremost in Jewish scholarship. Here the unaffiliated and Conservative have overtaken it.”(Rudavsky 338) In order to get a better understanding of how Conservative Jews felt about the sect that they identify themselves with, I asked them the question: “What do you mean when you say that you are Conservative”My friend Josh Schwartz from Brooklyn said “Well, I obey some laws and I’m not Orthodox, so I guess I’m somewhere in between the ...
