22 Friday, November 26, 1982
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Seminary Leader Sees New Role for Conservative Jews
By GERSON D. COHEN
(Copyright 1982, JTA, Inc.)
been the pacesetter both
in the form and content of
Jewish education. He-
brew camping in this
country and the cultiva-
tion of Hebrew arts are
products of Conservative
Jewish educators. The
increase of ritual obser-
vance in Reform circles
— kashrut, the covering
of the head at synagogal
services, the increased
use of Hebrew, and the
conquest of Reform by
Zionist ideology — are in
no small measure prod-
ucts of Conservative
influence.
Since its emergence, Con-
servative Judaism has been
pluralistic. It has numbered
among its adherents people
whose conservatism in
ideology and practice has
been oriented so far to the
"right" that many have
questioned whether they
are not really orthodox.
Similarly, Conservative
Judaism has had within its
membership a sizeable
proportion of lay people —
and on occasion, even some
professionals — whose "lef-
tist" orientation has made
them appear very close to, if
not even indistinguishable
from, Reform. And yet, the
fact is that these people
have chosen to identify
themselves as Conservative
Jews.
This pluralism is crucial
to an understanding of Con-
servative Judaism. There
never has been one ideology
or system of practice that
can properly be char-
acterized as the position of
authentic Conservative
Judiasm. And this diversity
has been one of the move-
ment's distinguishing and, I
believe, healthy features.
Regardless of the actual
religious level of any par-
ticular group, Conservative
Judiasm has always in-
sisted on, and continues to
insist on, the centrality and
solidarity of the Jewish
people. The secularist and
Editor's note: Gerson
D. Cohen is chancellor of
the Jewish Theological
Seminary of America.
In the first 525 years of its
activity, Conservative
Judaism has exerted a
major influence even in cir-
cles that have denied any
ideological identification
with it. To exercise once
again such a seminal role, it
will have to articulate af-
resh, in ideology and in in-
stitutional activity, those
principles that motivated
and oriented it from its be-
ginnings to the present. Its
ideology and activity made
it the single most spiritu-
ally and culturally influen-
tial force in the Jewish
spiritual renewal of the past
century in Western Europe
and North America.
This spiritual and cul-
tural renewal, which in-
eluded the rebirth of the
Hebrew language, the qual-
itative and quantitative
leaps ofJewish scholarship,
new syntheses and formula-
tions of Jewish faith, phi-
losophy, and religious prac-
tice, and, above all, the
growth of Zionism as a un-
fiying ideology and political
force, constitutes the salient
feature ofJewish life in the
past 125 years.
For many quarters of
Jewish life, from Israel as
well as from the diaspora,
from secularists and from
adherents of various shades
of religious commitment, I
hear echoed my own convic-
tion that Conservative
Judaism must once again
exercise an aggressive
spiritual influence. This is
necessary if the Jewish
people as a whole is to re-
gain the spiritual vitality
and sense of national pur-
pose which underlay its col-
lective activity during this
period and which gave a
spiritual dimension to the
growing determination of
Jewish communal leader-
ship to take Jewish physical
and political destiny into
To what gulfs a single de-
their own hands.
viation from the path of
Conservative Judaism human duties leads!
has in many respects
—Byron
-
the unobservant are as
Jewish as the observant.
They are part of the com-
munity of Israel (k'lal Yis-
rael) and since all Israel is
responsible for each of its
members, the destiny and
welfare of all Jews remain
our concern.
As a group committed
to democracy within
Jewish life, Conser-
vatism has tolerated di-
versity in its own camp
and outside of it, while
constantly on the need
for religious ideology and
for religious practice that
are both authentically
traditional and in conso-
nance with the basic be-
liefs and values of people
sensitive and committed
to progress in every walk
of life.
Despite the wide dispar-
ity among the various ele-
ments of the Conservative
movement, each of its
groups has conceded and re-
spected the communal
legitimacy of the others and
has refused to dissociate it-
self from the movement as a
whole.
Of no less importance,
within Conservative
Judaism each group has ac-
cepted an unoffial — but
nonetheless real — hierar-
chy of values and institu-
tions as well as acknow-
ledgments of areas of juris-
diction shaping the articu-
lation and governing the
values and general direc-
tion of the movement. At
the apex of this hierarchy of
values stand Torah and
scholarship.
From its earliest days in
every country where Con-
servative Judaism has had
any significant impact, the
study of Torah by the most
advanced critical methods
of scholarship has been a
hallmark of the Conserva-
tive religious commitment.
The centrality of The
Jewish Theological Semi-
nary of America and its
satellite schools and of the
academic foundation they
give to Conservative
Judaism is by no means for-
tuitous. It is reflected in the
veneration that Conserva
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Kahane Says
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Rabbi Meir Kahane,
founder of the militant
Jewish Defense League in
the U.S. and the Kach
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Southfield's Parks and Rec-
reation Building after he
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City officials canceled the
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lishment" of causing the
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referred to Jewish leaders
as "pygmies and dwarfs,"
terms he has used on a
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