This is the Forward’s coverage of Conservative Judaism, one of the three major streams of U.S. Judaism. Conservative Jews are generally more observant than Reform Jews but less so than Orthodox Jews. The movement is led by the…
Conservative Judaism
The Latest
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Opinion The Conservative Movement Will Inevitably Cave On Intermarriage
Reading Rabbi Julie Schonfeld’s recent defense of Conservative Judaism’s ban on rabbis performing intermarriages, my primary sentiment was one of sadness. Why, though? It was not that I disagreed with her; on the contrary, I echo many of her sentiments and agree with her bottom line that performing mixed-faith marriages is a red line that…
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Opinion How Interfaith Weddings Got This Rabbi Kicked Out Of The Conservative Movement
In her article “A Wedding Invitation Like No Other,” Jane Eisner describes “intermarriage” as the “oozing story” among Conservative Jews, a story “found just below the surface.” I am one of the rabbis she describes as “not so quietly defying the restriction against officiating” at a marriage ceremony involving a Jewish person and a non-Jew….
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Opinion The Problem With Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie’s Intermarriage Proposal
In his recent proposal to marry Jews and non-Jews under certain circumstances, Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie explores a phenomenon of modern life in which non-Jews are inspired to participate in very positive ways in the life of the Jewish community out of their love of the Jews in their families. There is broad agreement that these…
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Letters USCJ Responds to Intermarriage Proposal
Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie’s research, analysis and essay on officiating at an interfaith wedding is interesting. It is clear that his proposal comes from a place of thoughtfulness and love of Judaism, the Jewish people and those connected to them. Rabbi Lau-Lavie, like all of us, is struggling with our generation’s most complex problem: how do…
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Opinion Why This Renegade Rabbi Says He Can Marry Jews — And The Jew-ish
Early in my career as a journalist, a brilliant editor encouraged me and other reporters to look for the stories that “oozed” — the ones that are found just below the surface — because day-to-day news can obscure deeper and more significant trends. Among Orthodox Jews, the oozing story of our day is the emergence…
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Community What It’s Like To Be A Queer Female Cantor
When you hear the word ‘Cantor’ or the Hebrew word chazzan, the image in your mind might be a man in a miter or top hat, wearing a tallit (prayer shawl), with a beard, or perhaps the iconic Yossele Rosenblatt, the famous tenor from the Golden Age of Cantors, or a clean-shaven Israeli man in…
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News How Rabbis Are Trying To Make The Conservative Movement More Gay-Friendly
The Jewish coming-of-age ceremony known as a bar mitzvah is always challenging. It happens at the awkward age of the early teen years, and requires the child to chant, before family, friends and congregation, from the archaic Hebrew of the Torah. For Amichai Lau-Lavie, the Israeli-born scion of an Eastern European rabbinical dynasty, it was…
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Community 5 Steps and an Unlikely Outsider Can ‘Save’ Conservative Judaism
Recently Dr. Roberta Kwall wrote an article entitled “Saving Conservative Judaism” for Commentary Magazine. Kwall writes “In short, the Conservative movement needs to return to [Solomon] Schechter’s mission of conserving Jewish tradition by focusing its educational and spiritual energies on enlarging and strengthening a root group of Conservative Jews who are drawn to tradition.” Kwall’s…
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