Wikipedia
Conservative Judaism (known as Masorti Judaism outside North America) is a major confessional division within Judaism, which views Jewish religious law, or Halakha, as both binding and subject to historical development. The movement considers its approach to Law as the authentic and most appropriate continuation of halakhic discourse, maintaining both fealty to received forms and flexibility in their interpretation.
While regarding itself as the heir of Rabbi Zecharias Frankel's 19th-century Positive-Historical School in Europe, Conservative Judaism became a wholly independent denomination only in the United States during the mid-20th century. Its largest center today is in North America, where its main congregational arm is the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism and the New York-based Jewish Theological Seminary of America operates as rabbinic seminary. Worldwide, affiliated communities are united within the umbrella organization Masorti Olami. Conservative Judaism represents close to 1,100,000 people, both more than 600,000 registered congregants and many non-member identifiers.
The term "conservative" was meant to signify that Jews should attempt to conserve Jewish tradition, rather than reform or abandon it, and does not imply the movement's adherents are politically conservative.
Conservative Judaism was a peer-reviewed scholarly journal published by the Rabbinical Assembly and the Jewish Theological Seminary of America from 1945 until 2014.
The journal was founded in 1945 under the editorship of Rabbi Leon S. Lang as a publication of the Rabbinical Assembly (RA). In 1968, the journal became a joint project of the RA and the Jewish Theological Seminary. According to Pamela Nadell, "the quarterly was designed for the elite--Conservative leaders and readers learned in Judaica," and it "remained influential chiefly among the leadership of the Conservative movement."
Its editors were:
- Leon S. Lang, 1945–1952
- Samuel Dresner, 1955–1964
- Jack Riemer, 1964–1965
- S. Gershon Levi, 1965–1969
- Mordecai Waxman, 1969–1974
- Stephen C. Lerner, 1974–1977
- Myron Fenster, 1977–1979
- Arthur A. Chiel, 1979–1980
- Harold S. Kushner, 1980–1984
- David Wolf Silverman, 1984–1989
- Shamai Kanter, 1989–1993
- Benjamin Edidin Scolnic, 1993–2000
- Martin Samuel Cohen, 2000-2014
- Benjamin Kramer, 2014
Members of the editorial board included:
- Ben Zion Bokser
- Max Kadushin (scholar of rabbinics)
- Robert Gordis (biblical scholar)
- Simon Greenberg (former vice-chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America)
- Judith Hauptman (Talmudist)
- Neil Gillman (theologian)
- Alan Cooper (biblical scholar)
- Jack Wertheimer (historian)
- David G. Dalin (historian)
- Ira F. Stone ( Musar scholar)