An Ethnographic Study of an American Conservative Synagogue

Description

Dr. Laskin has produced an eminently readable as well as thoughtful ethnographic analysis of a Conservative Jewish synagogue in a southern New England suburb. His work follows the participant-observer model of such other studies of American religious groups as Laurence Palinkas and Nancy Ammermans. At the same time it is a contribution to the field in that it is a study of a mainstream Jewish congregation with a pluralistic orientation. . . . Dr. Laskins account of the ways in which his congregation seeks to minister to members with a wide variety of interests and concerns indicates that Conservative Judaism faces the same set of pressures from the secular world as mainstream Christian bodies, and uses similar strategies of response. . . . will also be of interest to specialists in religious education and womens studies. . . traces the evolution of gender egalitarianism in Conservative Judaism from its early adoption of mixed seating during worship to his more recent admission of women to equal participation in public prayer and Scripture reading, not to mention ordination to the rabbinate. . . . identity issues are even more complicated for Conservative Jews because of their tendency to define themselves by what they are not i.e., neither Orthodox nor Reform. The task for members of the synagogue in this study, then, is to forge an understanding of Jewish identity that is positive and constructive. . . and then to affirm their Jewishness within the context of an increasingly secularized as well as pluralistic society. Rebecca J. Frey