Who can be considered Jewish? That’s what a symposium unity in 1986 sought to determine via a panel of four rabbis, each representing a denomination of Judaism, according to an article in the Jan. 9, 1986, issue of Washington Jewish Week.
Forty years later, the same question remains. It’s what attorney David J. Butler explored in his recent op-ed, “The Conservative Movement’s Crisis of Meaning.”
A 1986 advertisement for the D.C. symposium claims that the Jewish people are growing “increasingly divided” due to differences in denomination: Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist.
The rabbis discussed halacha, the validity of conversion and mamzerin — halachically illegitimate children.
Walter Wurzburger, the former head of the Orthodox Rabbinical Council, called for an end to “political parties” in Judaism. He noted that Jews are united by common belief, such as the sanctity of life and religious vocation of the Jewish people. The dividing factor is halacha — Jewish religious law.
Butler’s op-ed navigates the question of whether Conservative Judaism follows halacha. The movement recently released the Joint Intermarriage Working Group Report and apologized for its past “hurtful” policies, but simultaneously prohibits Conservative rabbis from officiating at interfaith weddings.
“This pattern has played out for decades,” Butler wrote in December 2025.
Wurzburger called halacha the “overriding authority” for Orthodox Jews, going so far as to say that other Jewish denominations that conflict with it “don’t meet [his] religious requirements.”
These issues and questions cause divides within the Jewish community, and we have yet to find answers four decades later.
