Conservative Judaism keeps Jewish law while studying how it grew and changed over time.
The Jewish Theological Seminary was founded in New York in 1886 and began classes in 1887. It became a major institution of Conservative Judaism, which combines commitment to Jewish law with historical study of its development. The movement is also known as Masorti, especially outside North America.
The tree's references for this branch: Britannica: Conservative Judaism · United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism · Wikipedia: Conservative Judaism · JTS: History of the Seminary.
Lineage: Israel and Judah: the First Temple›Second Temple Judaism›Rabbinic Judaism›Conservative Judaism
Branches that grew from it: Reconstructionist Judaism (1922).
Conservative Jews keep Jewish law and also study how that law grew and changed over the centuries. The movement took shape in America around the Jewish Theological Seminary, which was founded in New York in 1886 and began classes in 1887 22. Outside North America it is called Masorti, the Hebrew word for traditional.
Its way of thinking came from Zacharias Frankel, who led a rabbinical seminary at Breslau from 1854 and called his approach positive-historical: positive in that Jewish law binds, historical in that it plainly has a history and was shaped by the people who kept it 11,8,10. Frankel had walked out of a rabbinical conference in 1845 when it voted that Hebrew was not necessary for Jewish worship, which marked the line between his school and Reform 11,8.
In America the seminary was founded in 1886 and began classes in 1887 22 to train rabbis for Jews who wanted neither the Reform of the day nor the Orthodoxy of eastern Europe 3,9,10. It was reorganised in 1902 under Solomon Schechter, the Cambridge scholar who had recovered a room full of medieval Jewish manuscripts in Cairo, and he gathered a faculty of first-rate scholars and gave the movement its watchword, that authority in Judaism rests with the practice of the whole community over time 12,3,8. The Rabbinical Assembly organised its rabbis, and in 1913 Schechter founded the United Synagogue to link the congregations 4,1,10. For most of the twentieth century this was the largest Jewish movement in the United States, and it built the suburban synagogues, the summer camps and the day schools that shaped a generation 8,7.
See it on the family treeConservative Judaism holds that Jewish law is binding and that it has always developed, so it can develop now. It takes modern scholarship about the Bible and the Talmud seriously, and it holds the whole Jewish people, not any one authority, to be where tradition finally lives.
The movement's statement of principles, Emet Ve-Emunah, published in 1988, sets out that God is real and revelation is real, that the commandments bind, and that Jews may hold more than one view about how revelation happened, a deliberate breadth that the statement names rather than hides 15,10,8. Schechter's phrase for the final authority was Catholic Israel, meaning the practice of the whole community across the generations rather than the ruling of any one court 12,8. The text behind that instinct is the covenant in Deuteronomy, sworn with those standing there and with those not yet born 17.
Law is decided by the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, which sets halakhic policy for the Rabbinical Assembly's rabbis and for the movement, and whose approved responsa are its official positions 5,4. The committee can adopt more than one position on a question, which is why Conservative congregations differ from one another and why a rabbi has real latitude 5,10. That method has produced decisions others would not reach: driving to synagogue on the Sabbath permitted in 1950 where a congregation was otherwise out of reach, the ordination of women agreed in 1983 with the first woman ordained in 1985, and the ordination of gay and lesbian rabbis and rites for same-sex marriage in the years after 2006 10,13,8.
A Conservative service is mostly in Hebrew, follows the traditional order, and takes about as long as an Orthodox one. Men and women sit together and, in nearly all congregations, share equally in leading it.
The prayer book, Siddur Sim Shalom, keeps the classical liturgy with modest changes and English translations facing the Hebrew, so a congregation can follow what it is saying 18,10. The Torah is read on the traditional cycle, the Sabbath and festivals are kept, and the dietary laws are taught as binding, though surveys show members keep them unevenly 1,7. Mixed seating was the movement's early visible mark, and equal participation followed: women count in the quorum and read from the Torah in most congregations today 10,13. Synagogue life leans heavily on education, from day schools to the Ramah camps, which the movement treats as the place where the next generation actually learns to pray 1,2,3.
Conservative Jews read the Hebrew Bible with the tools of modern scholarship and with the traditional commentaries side by side. The movement's own edition of the Torah, Etz Hayim, was published in 2001 and prints both together.
Etz Hayim gives the Hebrew text with a translation, a running traditional commentary, a second commentary drawing on archaeology and historical study, and essays at the back, so a reader meets the questions rather than having them kept away 14,10. That is the movement's characteristic move: the historical account of how a text came to be is not treated as a threat to its authority 8,15. Read here: the JPS translation of 1917, an earlier Jewish English translation, distinct from the later JPS TANAKH used in modern study editions 23, the pointed Hebrew of the Leningrad Codex, and the Modern Hebrew Bible. The versions guide sets out what each Jewish movement reads.
Free to read here: JPS TaNaKH 1917, תנ״ך, Leningrad Codex, the Modern Hebrew Bible. The full note on which Bible Conservative Judaism use, with sources ›
These passages illustrate themes discussed in this profile; they are not a survey of members' favorite verses. Each is quoted from the JPS TaNaKH 1917 and links to its chapter. You can explore the text for study or personal reflection; memorization is optional.
According to the law which they shall teach thee, and according to the judgment which they shall tell thee, thou shalt do; thou shalt not turn aside from the sentence which they shall declare unto thee, to the right hand, nor to the left.
According to the law which they shall teach thee. The verse the rabbis read as authorising each generation's judges, and which Conservative Judaism reads as authorising law that develops.
(29-13) Neither with you only do I make this covenant and this oath; (29-14) but with him that standeth here with us this day before the LORD our God, and also with him that is not here with us this day —
With him that standeth here with us this day, and with him that is not here. The covenant is made with generations not yet born, which is why the movement holds tradition to be something living.
Speak unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say unto them: Ye shall be holy; for I the LORD your God am holy.
Ye shall be holy. Addressed to the whole congregation rather than to priests, and read as the plain purpose of keeping the commandments.
Now therefore, if ye will hearken unto My voice indeed, and keep My covenant, then ye shall be Mine own treasure from among all peoples; for all the earth is Mine; and ye shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.'
A kingdom of priests and a holy nation. The covenant at Sinai, which Conservative Judaism affirms as real revelation while allowing more than one account of how it happened.
NUN. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.
A lamp unto my feet. Study is prayer in this movement, and the seminary was its first institution before any synagogue was.
About one in six American Jewish adults identifies as Conservative, and the share is much smaller among young adults. The movement is smaller than it was, and it is working out what follows from that.
Pew found in 2020 that 37 percent of American Jewish adults identify as Reform and 17 percent as Conservative, and that among Jewish adults under thirty the Conservative share falls to 8 percent 7. The United Synagogue links several hundred congregations across North America, and Masorti communities exist in Israel, Latin America, Europe and elsewhere, with the Masorti movement in Israel campaigning for recognition alongside the Orthodox rabbinate 1,6,10. The seminary in New York still trains rabbis and cantors, alongside the movement's schools in Los Angeles and Jerusalem 3,6. What the movement teaches and what its members practise have long differed, particularly over the dietary laws and the Sabbath, and that gap is discussed openly inside it 7,8.
Its decisions have moved people in both directions. After the seminary voted in 1983 to ordain women, a group of rabbis and congregations who held that halakhah did not permit it left and formed the Union for Traditional Judaism 16,10. After the law committee approved the ordination of gay and lesbian rabbis from 2006, some rabbis and congregations left in the other direction, and some communities in Israel and Latin America did not follow 10,8. It was the largest branch of American Judaism in the middle of the twentieth century and is now the second 7,8.
Both hold that Jewish law binds. Conservative Judaism also holds that the law has developed historically and may therefore be developed by rabbis today, applies modern historical scholarship to sacred texts, and has extended equal roles to women. Orthodox authorities do not accept those moves 10,8,9.
Reform holds that the ethical commandments bind and that ritual law is a matter of informed choice. Conservative Judaism holds that the whole of Jewish law binds, and changes it through a legal process rather than by leaving it to the individual. The practical difference shows in Hebrew liturgy, the Sabbath and the dietary laws 10,8,1.
Numbered references link the account above to its sources. These include the tradition's own documents and outside reference works. The review status below distinguishes source checking from completed member and scholarly review.
BibleVerse. “Conservative Judaism: where they came from, what they hold, and the Bible they read.” bibleverse.site, version 2026-09-09, https://bibleverse.site/denominations/conservj/
Awaiting review by a member of the tradition. First published 2026-09-07; last changed 2026-09-09. Years before the common era are written BCE, and after it CE, as Jewish readers write them.
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The covenant made with those who were not standing there. A movement built on the conviction that the tradition is still being handed on.
(29-13) Neither with you only do I make this covenant and this oath; (29-14) but with him that standeth here with us this day before the LORD our God, and also with him that is not here with us this day —