Conservative Judaism

Conservative Judaism, religious movement that seeks to conserve essential elements of traditional Judaism but allows for the modernization of religious practices in a less radical sense than that espoused by Reform Judaism. Zacharias Frankel (1801–75), whose ideology inspired early Conservative ideas, broke with modernizing extremists after a series of Reform conferences in Germany (1844–46). Holding fast to the notion that the Jewish religion is inextricably bound up with Jewish culture and a national identity, he...