I grew up big-C Conservative in a small-l liberal household and got confused when I read in the New York Times on Saturday, May 30, 1998 that Barry Goldwater, leader of the conservative movement, had died.
Because I was 12, and because the New York Times capitalizes most words in its headlines, I didn’t pick up on the difference between big-C Jews and small-c right-wing politicians. Plus, the name “Barry Goldwater” sounded like it should have belonged to the guy who read Torah at synagogue, so I assumed the father of American Conservative Judaism had died. So I was perplexed because I’d learned that Conservative Judaism was much older than Goldwater, and because the article’s first paragraph talked about how he was a huge Republican. And weren’t Conservative Jews all Democrats like us?
In a language column this week, The Forward picks up on this incongruence between the religious and political views of big-C Conservative Jews who vote blue and mentions that the movement is considering a name change. The three possibilities are Masorti (Hebrew for traditional and the name of the movement outside of America), Covenantal and Traditional. The column, called Philologos, favors “Traditional” because people know what it means:
“Traditional,†on the other hand, has a nice traditional sound. Everyone knows what it means, and everyone likes what they know. It’s latkes on Hanukkah and turkey on Thanksgiving and corn on the cob on the Fourth of July. Who, tofu eater or tea partier, could be against it?
The larger point that the author misses, though, is that the movement’s unfortunate name is not what’s holding it back, but rather its content. This topic merits a whole blog of its own, but I’ll try to (unjustly) summarize what I’ve seen and heard from concerned/disenchanted/cynical/formerly Conservative Jews:
The movement is too halakhic; the movement is not halakhic enough. The movement has become too egalitarian; the movement retains arcane gender roles. The clergy and congregation are too far removed from each other in terms of observance; the rabbis are not educated enough. The services are too cantorial and long; the services are unimaginative and dull. The movement is shifting too far to the left; the movement is clinging to irrelevant, right-wing notions of Judaism. Another way I’ve heard that split: Conservative Judaism is basically a halakhically dishonest and lazy form of Orthodoxy; Conservative Judaism is basically a more observant form of Reform Judaism.
Again, I could write a post on each of those problems. The point is that it seems Conservative Judaism has weakened some of its principles and lost its way. To regain the influence and numbers it once had, it will have to redefine itself–but that goes beyond the name.
