Conservative Judaism is Over, and That's Fine

But we must still act for our self-preservation

The Jewish Theological Seminary: the flagship seminary for conservative Judaism, located in Morningside Heights, NYC

I recently read an outstanding article by

Z.E. Silver

titled “Why the Conservative (Jewish) Community is Dying and How to Save it.” He makes several interesting points, and as I began to type up a comment on it, I realized that my thoughts on the issue might be better-expressed via a long-form article. So, here it is.

I grew up in the conservative movement. It began in the United States, and my great-grandfather was one of the founding members of the synagogue that my family still attends. I attended Hebrew school and had my Bat Mitzvah there. From a young age, I internalized the knowledge that “conservative” in the context of Jewish practice meant something very different from the “conservative” of FOX News. The main reason that my grandparents and great-grandparents embraced the conservative moment was to distance themselves from the rigidity of the Orthodox communities in which they had grown up. In short: get rid of the parts that don’t make sense in modern times, but keep the traditions going for the generations to come. I think that when the movement started, it had to do with its founders wanting to get rid of the mechitza so they could sit next to their wives during services, and the rest of it evolved from there.

But the heyday of conservative Judaism was a different time. My great-grandfather went to services daily and was an active member of the congregation’s Men’s Club. My great-grandmother and grandmother hosted family Shabbat dinners at their homes every Friday night. When my grandparents retired and moved out-of-state, they still remained loyal members at the same synagogue that they lived 1200 miles away from for 20 years. My Boomer parents may not have been as religious as my (great-) grandparents were, but they had two kids to put through the Hebrew-school-to-Bat-Mitzvah pipeline. In short, my ancestors had far more good reasons to stay active and engaged in conservative synagogue life (and pay the expensive dues for it).

I believe the following must be stated in no uncertain terms:

The problems plaguing today’s conservative movement are self-inflicted.

The clergy can whine all they want about how no one wants to enroll their kids in Hebrew school or how empty the sanctuary is during regular services (and half of those who do show are just trying to watch something unrelated to religion on their phones without getting caught) or how people would rather pay for NFL tickets over synagogue membership dues. But the things that its leaders must address are staring them right in the face, and have been for years (maybe decades).

Z.E. Silver argues that the conservative movement should start behaving more like Chabad. I, on the other hand, view it differently. He’s looking right, I’m looking left. Here are a few basic ideas:

Drop the term “conservative”

“But that’s the name of the entire movement!” Exactly. The name needs to change. For better or worse, “conservative” means something very different today in western culture than it did when the movement was founded. And most of us don’t want to be party to it.

Even if we regard the movement as relatively liberal, it still has its own challenges with embracing change. I’ll use my own synagogue as an example: mine was one of the first conservative congregations in the United States to embrace gay marriage—and that was well before it was legal in all 50 states. At the time, this decision went against the conservative movement’s “official” stance on the issue, but we did it anyway. Shortly after that, the congregation quietly removed the term “conservative” from its letterhead. In other words, my congregation no longer officially identifies as “conservative” (and hasn’t for years), despite the clergy all being graduates of conservative seminaries and officially affiliated with USCJ.

We are Jews of the liberal/secular/progressive (whichever term you wish to sub for it) community. That is who we are. It would be far more efficient, in my opinion, for all of us—reform, conservative, reconstructionist, whatever—to combine under one umbrella. We can of course still argue with one another about every religious and political issue; that’s a given. But a larger umbrella containing us all will protect us more from the elements.

Cut the length of religious services

My mom grew up reform, and switched over to our conservative synagogue after she married my dad. One of the things that she would bring up repeatedly is the unnecessarily long length of the conservative services compared to the reform ones of her childhood. Is the musaf service, which basically just repeats everything already stated at the beginning, really necessary? To quote my mom, “God heard it the first time, and it was more than enough.”

Beyond that, the synagogue funding model must change. Paying exorbitant amounts for yearly membership is no longer a good investment for most, because let’s face it, few of us go to synagogue enough for the cost to be worth it—if we even have that kind of money to spare in the first place. I envision more of an “a-la-carte” model: you want to go to High Holiday services, you pay for that. You want a rabbi for a wedding, you pay for that. You want to join a class, you pay for that. You get the idea. I have no idea if what I’m suggesting here would be sustainable for most congregations, but it’s better than people opting out entirely because they don’t want to pay exorbitant yearly dues for a facility they’re hardly using.

Demolish the current religious education model and start over

The Hebrew school model of my youth is basically done, and for good reason: it sucked. I went through years of multi-day weekly Hebrew instruction without actually learning any Hebrew. Why the hell would any parent my age want to put their kid through that? Well, they shouldn’t, and they’re not—and then the clergy have the chutzpah to complain that they aren’t!

It baffles me how any Boomers and Gen Xers are surprised at the preponderance of Millennials and Gen Zers out chanting “from the river to the sea” without being able to identify the actual names of the river or the sea. For the young Jews doing that and similar, it’s an astounding display of historical illiteracy that betrays a perfunctory educational background. Let’s face it: their parents made them that way, whether they intended to or not.

With anti-Israel/antisemitic garbage being thrown everywhere we turn, conspiracy theories going as far as to suggest that Jeffrey Epstein worked for the Mossad, the “mainstream WWII narrative” being “reframed” with Churchill as the bad guy while the last generation of living Holocaust survivors are well into their 80s and 90s, the educational needs of our community are dire. I believe that the primary emphasis in Jewish education today needs to be not on learning the aleph-bet or repeating prayers over and over, but rather teaching kids and adolescents how to confront misinformation about their history and their people. That skill is crucial today for anyone regardless of how they lean politically.

The liberal/secular Jewish community must acknowledge certain truths: the vast majority of secular Jews are intermarrying or leaving Judaism entirely. The Millennial and Gen Z generations have fewer children, little desire to show up to in-person services most of the time, and lack the same spending power as their parents. These may not be “good” trends for the Jews, but they are what currently drives participation (or lack thereof) in religious life.

I don’t wish to say that the conservative movement is dead—but the one that my great-grandfather’s generation founded is effectively over. It’s time for a rebrand. The Jewish people all around the world need better messaging and better PR.

We are no longer “conservative” Jews. And that is precisely the point.

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