the Conservative movement

[cellio]

Our local Jewish newspaper had an article this week on the Conservative movement's recent big conference. Now mind, this newspaper also covered the Reform movement's biennial a few weeks back and, I'm told, blew things rather out of proportion, fixating on one small part of the plenary speech as if it was the whole thing. So maybe that's what's going on here. I hope.

This article said, essentially, that there is serious debate within the Conservative movement about whether it should be, or view itself as, a halachic movement. WTF? I thought that was part of the core definition of the movement. From this article, it sounds like there are some in the movement (who are big enough to rate mike time at the convention) who feel that, say, keeping kosher or Shabbat isn't as important as making people feel comfortable (as if that dichotomy actually exists).

I'm kind of curious about what was actually discussed and what has mainstream backing as opposed to being out on the fringes.

Comments

[cahwyguy.livejournal.com]

There was a reference to this in the latest issue of the MLJ Digest. I also provided some pointers to some equally interesting articles from the Jewish Journal. Of course, you can find it at http://www.mljewish.org; I think it is v15n11.

[cellio]

Thanks. I'm behind in some of my mailing lists, including MLJ, so it's still sitting in my inbox.