The Conservative movement recently unveiled its new strategic plan. The Reform movement recently announced the identity of its new leader. The Conservative strategic plan’s original draft would have killed Koach, the Conservative college group. Thanks to the efforts of a group of Koach members, the new version preserves it. Two years ago, a round of restructuring completely de-funded Kesher, the Reform college group.
Given all of that and given your personal experiences before and during college, how strongly would you say that you currently identify with a particular stream or movement of Judaism?
Our bloggers’ answers are pretty telling. And I hope the respective leaderships of the movements are reading.
Harpo Jaeger: “Pluralistic to a fault”
I suppose I identify most with the Conservative movement, but I really don’t find denominational groupings to be that important to me in terms of practice. I find inspiration in a lot of different approaches to prayer, mostly when people think about how their individual choices affect a community. I’m also pluralistic to a fault–I prefer praying and studying with people from diverse backgrounds and of different levels of experience, knowledge, and engagement, and I tend to be wary of programs that exclude or favor people with a certain background over others. I guess I’ve been on both sides of that dichotomy enough to know that in the long run it doesn’t benefit anyone.
Max Elstein-Keisler: A man with simple needs
As long as there’s no mechitza and no English, I’m cool.
Carly Silver: “I still strongly identify with the Reform movement”
Given all of this, I still strongly identify with the Reform movement. I feel that, especially at Columbia, the Reform groups are both more welcoming and accepting than the Conservative movement and the Orthodox. Of course, I don’t know the ins and outs of those groups, so my judgment isn’t completely sound, but I do wish Kesher got more funding at CU’s campus to put on more events so I could meet more like-minded Jews.
Laura Cooper: A Reform bat mitzvah, a Conservative minyan and an application to YU
I don’t think I could get too involved with any branch. I mean, look at me: I’m having a Reform bat mitzvah while going to Conservative minyan while waiting for Yeshiva University to tell me they rejected me already so I can get on with my life.
You might be putting yourself in a box when you do that because as soon as some new responsum comes out or something, you’ll have to really defend yourself if you disagree with it. Particularly if you are more [halakhically stringent] than your branch lets you be—for example, you can totally drive on Shabbat in the Conservative movement, so if you decide not to, every day you might have to question yourself: “Why don’t I just do what everyone else is doing? It’s not like my branch has anything against it! Not my branch!”
I am fond of those halachic egalitarian minyanim they have going on in New York City, though—I think they are a good and logical progression from women’s tefillah groups. If that could be considered a stream—the independent minyan—I personally think that is a glittering future.
Alex Howie: After some searching, “strongly identify with the Conservative movement”
I was raised as a Reform Jew, went through a phase of Orthodox/non-denominational, and now strongly identify with the Conservative movement. I have found a home for myself within Conservative Judaism because I agree with its approach to the halachic process and progress, tradition and modernity. It allows for me to lead a lifestyle based on Torah while not excluding myself from many positive aspects of the secular world.
Alisha Kinman: “It is really important for Jews to be introduced to different movements”
I’d say that I identify more with Conservative Judaism. However, when I was growing up I experienced all different types of Judaism. I grew up going to a Reform congregation and then my mother decided to start attending the Conservative synagogue in town. However, during that same time, I also worked at an Orthodox Jewish kids’ camp in town, so I experienced different forms of Judaism throughout my life. I think that it is really important for Jews to be introduced to different movements before choosing the right one for them.
El Weiss: After swearing off Orthodoxy, “I’m a freelance Jew”
I grew up Orthodox but I remember from an early age not fitting in, refusing to robotically chant the Hebrew prayers that I found meaninglessly foreign. I hated being forced to stick to kosher food, dreaded Shabbat with its endless rules and detested the fact that I was denied a chance to study Talmud in my sleepy little yeshiva elementary school.
I realized that Orthodoxy had a habit of making me feel like I was second class, specifically because I was a woman. I watched jealously as my cousin went to the Torah for the bar mitzvah and I watched from behind a curtain. I knew I was smarter than said cousin (who really wasn’t exactly the future Vilna Gaon) but somehow, my lack of maleness made me unworthy to go up to the Torah. A year later, I killed God by turning the TV on Shabbos and realized that no one cared. I hadn’t ended the universe. A humiliating and bitter yeshiva high school experience made me swear off Orthodoxy.
Despite the attraction, I didn’t feel Reform Judaism worked me. The emphasis on Tikkun Olam was wonderful, but that wasn’t a Jewish value, it was a universal one. I wanted a spiritual life that was turned inwards to the Jewish community, instead of feeling like Jews for everything but Judaism. Even if I didn’t know what Judaism was, I knew it had to be something worth saving.
Currently, I’m a freelance Jew but I’d like to find a congregation that emphasizes scholarship and charity with a Jewish focus.
Leigh Cuen: “Squabbling over titles” isn’t helpful
I can’t honestly say that I associate myself with any particular stream or movement of Judaism. I definitely believe in God and am both fascinated and exhilarated by Jewish holy texts, by the resolution of life’s pragmatic issues through spiritual and ethical contemplation. I believe in the sacred nature of Jewish traditions and in the necessity of spiritual striving as a core component of personal development. But I’ve found that the minute that a name gets attached to these beliefs, as the daughter of a messianic Jewess who is herself the black sheep among a mixed family of reform and secular Jews, there seems to be a lot of volume and high blood pressure unnecessarily expended. I don’t see squabbling over titles to be something that improves my understanding of the divine, and thus I leave them be.
Gedalyah Reback: “Two Koach presidents in a row became Orthodox the year after they served,”
I got to college nominally affiliated with Conservative Judaism, merely because it was the affiliate movement to the synagogue I started frequenting when I became Jew-curious. I got involved in Koach, but later broke away and became Orthodox.
I stuck to Israel activism and watched Koach and Kesher face constant leadership crises. There were few people who wanted to volunteer to keep the two groups afloat. Two Koach presidents in a row became Orthodox the year after they served. When I became Education Coordinator for Hillel’s board, I reached out to them and asked if we could sit down and strategize, but got rebuffed because I was Orthodox.
It is a little difficult to assess what the priority should be for Koach or Kesher right now because they seem to reflect the missteps and failings of their larger movements. The ones who want to lead tend to either be die-hard and ideologically narrow, or on the edge of disillusionment with their peers.
But whatever faults Koach and Kesher–or the Conservative and Reform movements–have do not necessarily strengthen my ties to Orthodoxy. Their movements might arguably have something to do with their philosophies, but more importantly they reflect their policies. Orthodoxy is hardly immune to that, especially Modern Orthodoxy. Throughout college, I watched students who had been raised observant break away or become apathetic. Their attitudes toward religion were no less disconnected or cynical than someone who wasn’t brought up in a house of Jewish law.
The larger Reform movement had been extremely disconnected from activities in Kesher even before they cut off the money line. In effect, Reform admitted that they were not the people to lead the campus fight, much less anything to reconnect younger Jews with the religion. This generation can be led only by its own. Delegating authority strengthens Judaism on campus.
Do not get me wrong. I still disagree with Reform Judaism on a fundamental level, and do not accept the way Conservative Judaism adapted a new structure to Jewish life and loosely interpreted core concepts in Jewish law. But they have earned the responsibility to look after their flock.
As for the wider movements, plus Orthodoxy, I hope trends begin moving away from sectarianism and toward a sort of re-merger.
