Word: judaisms
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DIED. Mordecai Kaplan, 102, founder of the Jewish Reconstructionist movement, which sees Judaism as an evolving civilization and not just as a religion; in New York City. A professor at Manhattan's Jewish Theological Seminary (1909-63), Kaplan was Orthodox by upbringing, but came to believe that Judaism is a synthesis of religion, race and culture. The practical effect of this view was to see the synagogue as a center for Jewish communal life that stressed the humanistic rather than the solely religious aspects of heritage. Kaplan's ideas were viewed as a divisive force by many Orthodox...
...artifacts in their cases." Not so for Israelis who have the legacy of Zionism. Now that too is becoming a "museum piece." The kibbutzim--the fertile land where desert once was--and the passionate spirit which has characterized the Israeli existence are all creatures of "this new, nonreligious Judaism." Over time, Zionism has lost its creative spirit. It is time for a new experiment and new creations. The only way to assure perpetual creativity is continual debate grounded in the well-worn concept of pluralism...
...father was the legendary philosopher Abraham Joshua Heschel, who for 27 years was a professor at New York City's Jewish. Theological Seminary of America: J.T.S. is the only institution in North America that trains and ordains rabbis fdr the Conservative branch of Judaism. Shortly before he died in 1972, Heschel urged his daughter to apply to the seminary as a candidate for ordination as a rabbi. "I think things might change," he said. Though women had long studied and taught at J.T.S., none had ever tried to become a rabbi. Susannah's request was denied...
...Conservatives, however, still lag behind Judaism's Reform wing, which began ordaining women in 1972, and the tiny, liberal Reconstructionist movement, which first accepted women rabbis in 1974. Today there are 73 female rabbis in the U.S. and Canada, and a number of them, in fact, are serving in Conservative synagogues. Although the 1,200-member Rabbinical Assembly, the organization of Conservative rabbis, has favored the ordination of women for years, it left the final decision to J.T.S., the intellectual center of the 100-year-old Conservative movement. In 1979 the seminary's faculty put off making...
...prayers. J.T.S. Chancellor Gerson D. Cohen, who presided over the vote, left little doubt that he rejects the Orthodox view and believes that women should be allowed to perform these functions. Said Cohen: "I believe it is incumbent upon us to do away with discrimination against women in Judaism, especially when it is not mandated by Halakhah...