This path-breaking and provocative volume challenges Conservative Judaism's founding myth and rewrites its subsequent history. The most important study of early Conservative Judaism in more than half-a-century, it should be required reading for all students of American Judaism and for anyone who cares about the Conservative movement's past, present, and future.
Jonathan D. Sarna, Brandeis University, author of American ... Read moreJudaism: A History An insightful work of social history grounded in diligent archival research. Michael R. Cohen explores the mission, trials, achievements, and frustrations of the rabbis who gave birth to the Conservative Movement in American Judaism. He exposes the challenges a Jewish religious group faced in molding a faith community, respectful of tradition yet attuned to the demands of modern society.
Jeffrey S. Gurock, Yeshiva University Conservative Judaism has found its historian for the twenty-first century. In The Birth of Conservative Judaism, Michael R. Cohen has written a boldly argued, lucid history of the origins of what he rightly calls a new American religious movement. Repudiating earlier historians who retrojected Conservatism's origins to nineteenth-century Europe or to acculturating immigrants, Cohen turns our gaze to where it should have been all along-to the charismatic teacher Solomon Schechter and the generation of rabbis he trained to perpetuate his vision and forge a new path into the future of American Judaism.
Pamela S. Nadell, American University A fascinating new history
Lawrence Grossman Jewish Ideas Daily ...should quickly become the standard work on the emergence of the movement.
Matthew Lagrone H-Judaic In this first book, Cohen distinguishes himself as an innovative and significant young scholar of American Judaism.
Jonathan B. Krasner American Historical Review Cohen's arguments are complex, subtle, and based on a careful reading of the sources. Religious Studies Review Show Less