Like Reform Judaism, the Conservative movement developed in Europe and the United States in the 19th century, as Jews reacted to the changes brought about by the Enlightenment and Jewish emancipation, a confluence of events that lead to Haskalah, or the Jewish Enlightenment.

In 2000, the NJPS showed that only 33 percent of synagogue-affiliated American Jews belonged to a Conservative synagogue.

Conservative Jews hold a wide array of views on the subject of revelation.

Many Conservative Jews reject the traditional Jewish idea that God literally dictated the words of the Torah to Moses at Mount Sinai in a verbal revelation, but they hold the traditional Jewish belief that God inspired the later prophets to write the rest of the Tanakh.

Many Conservative Jews believe that Moses was inspired by God in the same manner as the later prophets.

Conservative Jews who reject the concept of verbal revelation believe that God revealed his will to Moses and other prophets in a non-verbal form — that is, God's revelation did not include the particular words of the divine texts.

Conservative Jews believe that movements to its left, such as Reform and Reconstructionist Judaism, have erred by rejecting the traditional authority of Jewish law and tradition.

The Conservative movement is committed to Jewish pluralism and respects the religious practices of Reform and Reconstructionist Jews.

For instance, if two men and a woman were to eat a meal together, a Conservative Jew would believe that the presence of three adult Jews would obligate the group to say a communal form of the Grace After Meals, while an Orthodox Jew would believe that, lacking three adult Jewish males, the group would not be able to do such.

Conservative Rabbis are not allowed to perform intermarriages ( marriages between Jews and non-Jews ).

Orthodox Jewish leaders vary considerably in their dealings with the Conservative movement and with individual Conservative Jews.

Some Modern Orthodox leaders cooperate and work with the Conservative movement, while haredi (" Ultra-Orthodox ") Jews often eschew formal contact with Conservative Judaism, or at least its rabbinate.

From the Orthodox perspective, Conservative Jews are considered just as Jewish as Orthodox Jews, but they are viewed as misguided, consistent violators of halakha.

* Jews in the Center: Conservative Synagogues and Their Members.

The three largest Jewish denominations — Orthodox Judaism, Conservative Judaism and Reform Judaism — maintain the belief that the Jews have been chosen by God for a purpose.

" On August 13, 2002 American Catholic bishops issued a joint statement with leaders of Reform and Conservative Judaism, called " Reflections on Covenant and Mission ", which affirmed that Christians should not target Jews for conversion.

While Conservative Jews have varied views regarding the origin of the Torah and its authority today, and believe it can be continuously reinterpreted.

In nearly all Orthodox and a few Conservative circles, only male Jews are counted toward a minyan ; most Conservative Jews and members of other Jewish denominations count female Jews as well.

Because of this potential for confusion, a number of Conservative Rabbis have proposed renaming the movement, and outside of the United States and Canada, in many countries including Israel and the UK, it is today known as Masorti Judaism ( Hebrew for " Traditional ").

The dissenters were discontented with the general leftward trend in USCJ policies over the previous decades, such as " prayer book revision, egalitarianism, redefining halakhic boundaries of sexual relationships, and advocacy of Israel accepting conversions that are non-halakhic even by Conservative standards "., and the Union suggests that " The Conservative Movement thus appears to endorse the notion that changing societal norms can supersede the proper application of halakhic sources ".

The movement is supported by the Masorti Foundation for Conservative Judaism in Israel, an American organization that provides funding to Masorti programs, which are disadvantaged by the Israeli government's practice of funding only Orthodox institutions.

In matters of marriage and divorce, the State of Israel relies on its Chief Rabbinate to determine who is Jewish ; the Chief Rabbinate, following Orthodox practice, does not recognize the validity of conversions performed by Conservative rabbis and will require a Jew who was converted by a Conservative rabbi to undergo a second, Orthodox conversion to be regarded as a Jew for marriage and other purposes.

The main denominations today outside Israel ( where the situation is rather different ) are Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform.

Today ’ s leading Conservative posek in Israel, Rabbi David Golinkin, has written profusely on Louis Ginzberg.

The Masorti Movement is the name given to Conservative Judaism in Israel and other countries outside Canada and U. S. Masorti means " traditional " in Hebrew.

Conservative Judaism had begun to make its presence known in Israel before the 1960s.

Its goals include pressing for religious pluralism, working for an equitable distribution of funding from the World Zionist Organization and the Jewish Agency for Conservative Zionist programs in Israel and America, promoting civil rights in Israel for all people, encouraging electoral reform in Israel, and opposing any change in " Who Is a Jew?

The Masorti movement in Israel adopts positions on subjects of Jewish Law independent of the Conservative movement in the United States, and the two movements sometimes take different positions.

For example, the Masorti movement in Israel rejected a decision by the Conservative movement in the United States permitting Jews living far from synagogues to drive to synagogue on Shabbat.

All of its activities are conducted within the context of the overall Conservative / Masorti movement, in close cooperation with its affiliated organizations in North America and Israel.

Outside Israel, in Orthodox and Conservative communities, the holiday lasts for eight days with the first two days and last two days being major holidays.

As such, Haredi authorities have strongly fought attempts by the Reform and Conservative movements to gain official recognition and denominational legitimacy in Israel.

The Conservative movement, however, has clashed with Orthodoxy over its refusal to recognize the Conservative and Reform movements as legitimate, and in February 1997 Rabbi Ismar Schorsch, the Chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, claimed that Orthodox organizations in Israel politically discriminate against non-Orthodox Jews, and called on Reform and Conservative Jews, as well as the Jewish Federations throughout the United States, to stop funding Orthodox organizations and institutions that disagree with the Conservative view of pluralism.

In light of the gathering of Jews of all ethnic groups back in the land of Israel, Masorti Jews, the Conservative movement in Israel, hold that all Jews living in Israel may safely abandon the minhag of refraining from kitniyot.

Perhaps as a direct result of this scandal, the Conservative party fell in the eyes of the public and was relegated to being the Official Opposition in the federal election of 1874.

* Official Opposition Shadow Cabinet of the 40th Legislative Assembly of Ontario ( Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario ) ( Tim Hudak )

* Official Shadow Cabinet ( National Assembly for Wales ) ( Welsh Conservative Party ) ( Andrew RT Davies )

The Official Opposition was the Conservative Party, led by Stephen Harper.

She defeated Davison by 2, 804 votes, and joined thirty-three other Liberals in forming the Official Opposition to Premier William Davis's Progressive Conservative government.

The two groups agreed to refuse the position of Official Opposition, normally accorded to the party with the second largest number of seats, and this was passed on to the third-largest party, the Conservative Party.

After being sworn in as the MP for Calgary Centre North on July 16, Conservative Party Leader Stephen Harper named Prentice to the Shadow Cabinet as the Official Opposition Critic for Indian and Northern Affairs.

The Conservative Party won a minority government in the 2008 election, and Trudeau entered parliament as a member of the Official Opposition.

Though the United Farmers of Ontario remained the second largest party in the legislature, they were denied Official Opposition status by Conservative premier Howard Ferguson.

Knight was for over 20 years an active member of the Conservative Monday Club and was an outspoken opponent of the Official Irish Republican Army ( OIRA ).

This enabled the party to displace the New Democrats to become the Official Opposition to the Progressive Conservative government of Ralph Klein.

The third-place Conservative Party, led by Arthur Meighen, thus became the Official Opposition.

From 1993 to 2003, the Official Opposition in the Senate was the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, even though the Bloc Québécois from the Official Opposition in the House from 1993 to 1997, followed by the Reform Party of Canada, and then the Canadian Alliance from 1997 to 2003.

He was the deputy whip of the Official Opposition from 2004 until the 2006 election, and had served as the Conservative critic of Transport, International Trade, National Revenue, and Foreign Affairs in the past.

The Conservative government reacted by tightening up UK secrets legislation, introducing the Official Secrets Act 1989.

* Official Conservative Future site

* Official Conservative Future Scotland site

* Conservative Party: Official biography

From 1993 until 2003 the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate was a Progressive Conservative despite the fact the Progressive Conservatives were not the Official Opposition in the House of Commons.

The Progressive Conservative Party of Mike Harris won a majority government in this election, and Bartolucci entered the legislature as a member of the Official Opposition.

This is not without contention, and was disputed by the Conservative Party, who were then the Official Opposition.

The party once again became the Official Opposition after the 1948 Ontario general election, even defeating the Conservative premier George Drew in his own seat, when Bill Temple unexpectedly won in the High Park constituency.

Duncan was the Conservative Party's Official Opposition Critic for Natural Resources.