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 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.

* Conservative Jews in Israel: Official Masorti Movement website

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.

This act was unpopular with the right wing of the Conservative Party, most notably Lord Cranborne ( later the Marquess of Salisbury ), who resigned from the government and spoke against the bill, accusing Disraeli of " a political betrayal which has no parallel in our Parliamentary annals.

In 1841 the Liberals lost office to the Conservative Party under Sir Robert Peel, but their period in opposition was short, because the Conservatives split over the repeal of the Corn Laws, a free trade issue, and a faction known as the Peelites ( but not Peel himself, who died soon after ), defected to the Liberal side.

Lloyd George offered a degree of support to the Labour government in the hope of winning concessions, including a degree of electoral reform to introduce the alternative vote, but this support was to prove bitterly divisive as the Liberals increasingly divided between those seeking to gain what Liberal goals they could achieve, those who preferred a Conservative government to a Labour one and vice-versa.

Under Grimond ( who retired in 1967 ) and his successor, Jeremy Thorpe, the Liberals regained the status of a serious third force in British politics, polling up to 20 % of the vote but unable to break the duopoly of Labour and Conservative and win more than fourteen seats in the Commons.

Conservative Party MP found to have reclaimed salaries he had paid to his two sons who had in fact not carried out the work to the extent claimed.

One firm, Scammell and Nephew Ltd, took a civil action against Attlee and the other Labour members of the committee ( although not against the Conservative members who had also supported this ).

This was largely blamed on post-war austerity denting Labour's appeal to wealthier voters who felt they would be more prosperous under a Conservative government.

Bolívar's supporters, who later formed the nucleus of the Conservative Party, sought strong centralized government, alliance with the Roman Catholic Church, and a limited franchise.

Citizen exhaustion due to the conflict's newfound intensity led to the election of president Belisario Betancur ( 1982 – 1986 ), a Conservative who won 47 % of the popular vote, directed peace feelers at all the insurgents, and negotiated a 1984 cease-fire with the FARC and M-19 after a 1982 release of many guerrillas imprisoned during the previous effort to overpower them.

Thus, Conservative Judaism rejects patrilineal descent and would hold that a child of a non-Jewish mother who was raised as a Reform or Reconstructionist Jew is not legally Jewish and would have to undergo conversion to become a Jew.

Conservative Judaism maintains the Rabbinic understanding of Jewish identity: A Jew is someone who was born to a Jewish mother, or who converts to Judaism in accordance with Jewish law and tradition.

The rosh yeshivas at Yeshivat Hadar in New York, New York include rabbis Elie Kaunfer and Shai Held who were ordained by the Conservative movement ( at Jewish Theological Seminary ).

* Conservative Traditionalists who criticize the Halakhic process when dealing with issues such as women in Judaism as well as homosexuality.

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.

" Other notable writers who have explored regional and ethnic communities in their detective novels are Harry Kemelman, whose Rabbi Small series were set the Conservative Jewish community of Massachusetts ; Walter Mosley, whose Easy Rawlins books are set in the African American community of 1950s Los Angeles ; and Sara Paretsky, whose V. I. Warshawski books have explored the various subcultures of Chicago.

In 1978, Hayek came into conflict with the Liberal Party leader, David Steel, who claimed that liberty was possible only with " social justice and an equitable distribution of wealth and power, which in turn require a degree of active government intervention " and that the Conservative Party were more concerned with the connection between liberty and private enterprise than between liberty and democracy.

George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen ( 28 January 1784 – 14 December 1860 ), styled Lord Haddo from 1791 to 1801, was a British politician and landowner, successively a Tory, Conservative and Peelite, who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1852 until 1855.

These left-wing Orthodox rabbis were joined by right-wing Reform rabbis who felt that Jewish law should not be entirely abandoned, to form the Conservative movement.

Sir John Major, ( born 29 March 1943 ) is a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1990 to 1997.

Following his resignation as Prime Minister, Major briefly became Leader of the Opposition, and Shadow Foreign Secretary ( as Sir Malcolm Rifkind, who was Foreign Secretary prior to the election, had lost his seat ), and remained in this post until the election of William Hague as leader of the Conservative Party in June 1997.

As such, most Conservative rabbis outside the USA are exercising their authority as local rabbinic authorities ( mara d ' atra ) to reject the more liberal responsa.

Some Conservative authorities reject altogether the arguments for prohibiting the use of electricity.

Conservative think tanks frequently cite the Heidelberg Appeal as proof that scientists reject the theory of global warming as well as a host of other environmental health risks associated with modern science and industry.

Many Conservative Rabbis embrace the term theistic evolution, and reject the term intelligent design.

Even after the federal Tories won the 2006 general election, a prominent Alberta Progressive Conservative and a candidate for the Tory leadership also refused to reject secession under all circumstances.