What are any issues with serving a role in Conservative Shule?

Koffee, Not exactly true

Some conservative synagogues have glatt kosher caterers, with excellent Hashghas, so they obviously have Mashgiachs

Also some Conservative synangogues have Orthodox Minyanim with an orthodox rabbi

It is forbidden to even enter a Conservative or Reform temple.

Joseph, if you follow R’ Moshe’s psak that it’s assur to walk into a Conservative establishment, you also have to shave and eat cholov stam.

ZD, I think everyone says going into the actual sanctuary is a problem, some are meikil on other rooms in the building.

At least once I was at a wedding at one of them with Orthodox Hashghca and the wedding itself was in the sanctuary with seperate seating. if you didnt know beforehand that it was conservative you wouldnt have known it then except for the prayer books that were left in the Pews (They were not used for this wedding)

Motachah: DY was obviously joking.

ZD:
The OP clearly wasn’t about using a Conservative building for a wedding venue. That’s another discussion. It seemed like he was talking about actively participating in Conservative services, and which issurim are involved.

I would love to know what conservative shuls have an orthodox minyan as part of its membership–I don’t mean a minyan that rents out space. Maybe 50 years ago there were a number of Orthodox rabbis in Conservative shuls, but how can an Orthodox rabbi serve in a shul where women are counted to a minyan and given aliyos, or the chazzan is a woman, not to mention greater acceptance of intermarriage?

I grew up in an orthodox shul and have been davening in a conservative shul for more than 25 years and so far I have not been hit by lightning. BTW, I am one of many who lain and who are shlichei tzibur. It is a shul filled with folks who are yodeiah sefer.

Laughing: Why would you expect to be hit by lightning? Does every עברין get hit by lightning? It is indeed sad that יודעי ספר stray so far from the teachings of גדולי הפוסקים.

@Listenandthink
“There is no such thing as a conservative or reform “shul”….they are only referred to as “temples”

You are showing your ignorance, bias or a victim of self reference criteria reasoning.
‘Shul’ is a Yiddish word, not everyone speaks or uses Yiddish.

Temple is an English word.
My parents grew up in NYC. If they heard/read the word Temple associated with a synagogue name they assumed it was Reform, not Conservative.
In 1950 they moved to New England. In the Boston area many Orthodox synagogues has Temple as part of their name.
Typically Conservative and Orthodox synagogues here in CT use the word Congregation followed by a Hebrew word or two.
The oldest synagogue in NYC is Congregation Shearith Israel which is Orthodox, also Sephardic so the word shul does not apply.
I have been a member and/or president of 5 Orthodox synagogues in my adult life. One had 4 Hebrew words followed by the word Synagogue as its name. The other 4 were named Congregation XXXXX XXXXX.
There are Conservative synagogues I am aware of in New England that often the use the name Temple XXXXX, Some are old congregations (more than 100 years) that started as Orthodox and changed to Conservative in the mid 20th Century. An example is Temple B’Nai Abraham in Meriden, CT.

Please don’t label Jews and their synagogues based on your limited knowledge or how it is done in your neighborhood

The poskim who forbid entering a Conservative shul do so because they were raised in the period where Conservative Jewry was considered a threat to Orthodoxy. Since that is no longer the case, it should not surprise anyone that this once forbidden act is viewed today with greater leniency.

Rational: It’s not about the threat. A big consideration in their psakim was the fact that when an Orthodox Jew attends a C place, it makes the “Conservative Jews” feel like they are being validated, as somehow proof that they are doing nothing wrong by being C. That issue is still as valid as ever.

I think a more significant point than the status of R’ Laughing is to realize that this is not only being read by a bunch of Yeshivalite shmoozing in a Yeshiva coffee room. It is being read by everyone in the world. Imagine you had a brother that you were close with your whole life and then he joins a Conservative synagogue. Make comments with the love and sensitivity that this very brother is reading everything you say hear. What would you like him to hear?

Even insinuating that your brother is a kofer is not the smartest or kindest thing to do. It is also probably not true.

I think the OP was looking for a list of issurim (eg. kol isha, bracha l’vatalla, etc.) rather than inquiring whether or not it’s assur. The thread has taken a weird turn that’s probably a nightmare for the mods since we aren’t supposed to post kefira, but also don’t want to isolate not-yet-frum yidden.

You wouldn’t go up to a Conservative Jew and scream koifer like we do to each other on the CR all the time. There’s a reason not to bash them like they bash us. I don’t see where this thread goes that’s positive at this point.

Wow! So the great world renowned Posek Rational differs with the Igros Moshe. So kind of you to share your learned teshuva with us, chock full of maareh mekomos and raiyos.

What I think Rational is saying is that Orthodox Jews are joining Conservative shuls so that once they become the majority they can vote out the Conservatives and convert it to Orthodox.

Well well! I can actually agree with Katan Hadorah on a “Hashkafa” matter!
“but they are certainly the kofrim that some here like to claim.”
In additional news, you read it on YWN first. A new denomination has been declared; Bifurcated Judaism!

Abba:
That’s for sure not what he’s saying, and that would be obviously assur.

I’m going to be straight, unless someone can provide a clear, verifiable example, I do not believe that there are any Conservative shuls in America today that don’t count women and do have a mechitzah. Maybe, just maybe, that was true like 50 years ago.

Gadol, even if these mythical traditional minyanim exist, they are still 100% koifers. They don’t believe that Hashem revealed the Torah to Moshe Rabbeinu, they still drive on Shabbos, they censor tefillos to exclude mention of the beis hamikdash and openly state that they don’t want it to return, they allow Kohanim to marry gerim, etc. This idea that Conservative kefira is a new thing and that they were still kosher at the initial split is a total fabrication. They are and always have been “Reform, but with Hebrew.”

Neville, you’re overgeneralizing. From my admittedly limited knowledge, there’s a wide range of practices in Conservative synagogues. I mentioned one that used the Artscroll siddur. I know of another that used the Birnbaum siddur. It’s highly unlikely that they censored prayers (though I suspect they skipped a lot). I use the past tense because these synagogues both closed a few years ago.

My guess is that there are no Conservative synagogues with mechitzas but there are still some that don’t count women for a minyan or give women aliyos.

I will try to address the OP: the reason is rooted in the dogfight between the Orthodox and Conservative which took place mostly in the 1940s and 1950s. In that decade, there was a real fight for the soul of the American Jew. Already then, there was a recognition that Reform Judaism was too far removed to be called Jewish and it was a real fight between Orthodox and Conservative for title as leaders of American Judaism. The fight on the Orthodox side was waged mostly by the modern Orthodoxy (as more right winged branches of Orthodoxy was neither threatened by Conservative nor large enough to matter) and YU versus JTS was fought in weekly sermons by the likes of Rabbi Norman Lamm and other Modern Orthodox pulpit Rabbis. JTS and YU fought over Rabbis and students alike and YU/Orthodoxy was losing. Unfortunately, the Conservative movement was slaughtering and shul after shul switched from Orthodox to Conservative. Most American Jews believed then that switching from Orthodox to Conservative still allowed you to remain within the umbrella of the Jewish people while many orthodox Jewish Rabbis prophetically envisioned that Conservative Judaism was going to turn out to be a giant farce that was going to lead to an abandonment of Halacha, intermarriage and soon thereafter the total destruction of the Jewish people in America. A line had to be drawn. As part of this war, YU decreed that any Rabbi receiving ordination in its Yeshiva who takes a job at a Conservative shul (where all the jobs were) is automatically stripped of his ordination. Recognizing that need to essentially place Conservative in complete cherem and niddui in order to save American Judaism, the Orthodox world agreed to take the harshest action against even the most innocent of Rabbis like Rabbis Shaul Lieberman, Louis Finkelstein and Jose Fauer – who were Orthodox but took jobs at JTS. They let it be known that you can be Jewish or Conservative but not both. They declared that just like Reformed was considered by all – not really Jewish – so too was Conservative. If not for those actions, who know how many other countless Jewish lives would have been lost to the fraud that Conservative Judaism turned out to be? It may have been harsh – especially to those like Rabbis Liberman, Finklestein and Fauer but, in my view, it was the only way to preserve what was not already lost.

Benny…..the original “topic” of the post was the scope of issues/prohibitions arising from a presumably frum chazan/baal koreh accepting employment from a “conservative” shul. The point that you and others refuse to recognize is that there is no single model of a “conservative” shul and their practices range across a wide spectrum. Obviously, some prefer to paint them all as kofrim so thats your option but many are true shomrei torah umitzvos.

Katanhadorah,

If a shomer Torah umitzvos calls himself conservative does that make him one

The same is for the opposite

Neville: You are entitled to your opinion. Other posters above note they have either davened at “conservative” shuls or know of others who have done so and do not consider their participation in such minyanin as kefirah. You obviously disagree and its your also your right to request the Mods to take down our dissenting viewpoints. I’m not in the business of labeling and trashing other yidden. No more comments on my end.

I agree with “Rational” which admittedly may not help Rational’s case. A few points. I grew up and was bar mitzvahed in a Conservative Synagogue – which for various reasons spawned a few well known people presently in the Orthodox/Charedi world. (For one, the Hebrew School and the Youth Programs were run by Orthodox people. This was in the 1960s, 70s and into the 80s).

1. If you ask the sheilah — there are poskim who permit attending a bar mitzvah, aufruf, etc in a conservative synagogue. These “heterim” are on a case by case basis. In other words, i am not sure i have seen anything in writing about it.

2. Back in the 1950s the C movement did present a threat to the O movement. But, now, the C movement is really in death throes. Thus, even though nothing has changed philosphically about the movement (other than it is much less halachic now than it was years ago) — i agree that it presents no threat. (Very few kids leave the orthodox movement to go to the C movement — or the R movement. They just drop out).

3. Someone raised an interesting question about a “C” synagogue with a mechitza versus an “O” shul without. Both may be dinosaurs at this point — but i heard a shiur about this around 30 years ago. The rav said in the shiur that he felt that you could daven in the O shul (off to the side) but probably not in the C shul because, as the poster above wrote, they were denying as a movement Torah MiSinai.

“Back in the 1950s the C movement did present a threat to the O movement. But, now, the C movement is really in death throes.”

It’s still probably upwards of 5 times the size of the Orthodoxy in America. You just don’t live in that world now and don’t realize it. Also, 90% of them only go to shul 3 times a year, so you wouldn’t realize it. This idea you apologists keep peddling that the poskim only had a problem with it because it “posed a threat” is completely insulting and shows that you probably don’t actually care about what rabbonim say because you’ll just inject your own “ulterior motive” theories when you don’t like their psaks.

This thread has taught me one thing that will make me sound 100% like Joseph, but it’s true: [Some] BT’s will steadfastly refuse to accept how the halachah views Conservative/Reform Jews probably on account of sentimentality for their families. It’s understandable, but I still don’t think it should be publicized.