The Amish, Hutterites, Mennonites, Old Order Mennonites and Conservative Mennonites are direct descendants of the movement.

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 ").

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.

Conservative leaders agreed that these contrasting trends indicated that the movement has reached a crossroads as it headed into the 21st century.

The first split in the Conservative coalition occurred in 1963, when followers of Mordecai Kaplan seceded from the movement to form a distinct Reconstructionist Judaism.

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.

Other views of God affirmed by members of the Conservative movement include Kabbalistic mysticism ; Hasidic panentheism ( neo-Hasidism, Jewish Renewal ); limited theism ( as in Harold Kushner's When Bad Things Happen to Good People ); and organic thinking in the fashion of Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne, also known as process theology ( such as Rabbis Max Kaddushin, William E. Kaufman, or Bradley Shavit Artson ).

Jewish Usenet Newsgroup FAQ ) The Conservative movement makes a conscious effort to use historical sources to determine what kind of changes to Jewish tradition have occurred, how and why they occurred, and in what historical context.

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

For example, the Conservative movement recognizes their clergy as rabbis, even if it does not necessarily accept their specific decisions.

Some opponents of these decisions left the Conservative movement to form the Union for Traditional Judaism.

The Conservative movement maintains a number of Rabbinical seminaries:

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 ).

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.

Conservative liberalism is a variant of liberalism that combines liberal values and policies with conservative stances, or, more simply, the right wing of the liberal movement.

In Canada, a variety of conservative governments have been progressive conservative, with Canada's major conservative movement being officially named the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada from 1942 to 2003.

" The re-election of a Conservative government in 1983 and the defeat of left-wing parties in continental Europe " made the deployment of Cruise missiles inevitable and the movement again began to lose steam.

The introduction in 1989 by the Thatcher-led Conservative government of the Community Charge ( widely known as the Poll Tax ), one year before the rest of the United Kingdom, contributed to a growing movement for a return to direct Scottish control over domestic affairs.

In collaboration with the late Chaim Potok, Kushner co-edited Etz Hayim: A Torah Commentary, the new official Torah commentary of the Conservative movement, which was jointly published in 2001 by the Rabbinical Assembly and the Jewish Publication Society.

Klein was a leader of the right-wing of the Conservative movement.

This term, as commonly used, has nothing to do with the official Masorti ( Conservative ) movement.

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.

While none of the various protest parties ever succeeded in gaining significant power federally, they were damaging to the Progressive Conservative Party throughout its history, and allowed the federal Liberals to win election after election with strong urban support bases in Ontario and Quebec.

Another influential philosopher in the Conservative movement, Rabbi Elliot N. Dorff, also bases his views on existentialism, and the works of Franz Rosenzweig.

( Interestingly, one of his strongest bases of support was in northern Hastings County, which generally supported candidates of the Progressive Conservative Party and Reform Party at the federal level during this period.

She is a committed animal lover and one of the few Conservative MPs to have consistently voted for the ban on fox hunting.

The SDP favoured some Thatcherite reforms during the 1980s, such as legislation aimed at reforming the trade unions ( although the parliamentary SDP actually split three ways on Norman Tebbit's 1982 Industrial Relations bill, most voting for, some against, and others abstaining ), but took a more welfarist position than the Conservative Party, being more sceptical of Conservative welfare reforms ( particularly regarding the Health Service ).

John Major's Back to Basics campaign backfired because of media focus on its moral aspects, where they exposed " sleaze " within the Conservative Party and, most damagingly, within the Cabinet itself.

Conservative backbench MSP Brian Monteith has the whip withdrawn for briefing against his leader to the Scotland on Sunday newspaper.

Devlin punched Reginald Maudling, the Secretary of State for the Home Department in the Conservative government, when he made a statement to Parliament on the events of Bloody Sunday stating that the British Army had fired only in self-defence.

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.

During the 2008 Canadian parliamentary dispute, two of Canada's opposition parties signed an agreement to form what would become the country's second coalition government since Confederation if the minority Conservative government was defeated on a vote of non-confidence ; unseating Stephen Harper as Prime Minister.

Papers from a recent Rabbinical Assembly conference on theology were printed in a special issue of the journal Conservative Judaism ( Winter 1999 ); the editors note that Kaplan's naturalism seems to have dropped from the movement's radar screen.

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

When considering changes to halakha, Conservative Judaism's rabbinical authorities may rely on historical analysis as well as religious considerations.

They believe that the Orthodox Jewish movements, on the theological right, have erred by slowing down, or stopping, the historical development of Jewish law: " Conservative Judaism believes that scholarly study of Jewish texts indicates that Judaism has constantly been evolving to meet the needs of the Jewish people in varying circumstances, and that a central halakhic authority can continue the halakhic evolution today.

Many other " community day schools " that are not affiliated with the Solomon Schechter network take a generally Conservative approach, but unlike the Schechter schools, these schools generally have " no barriers to enrollment based on the faith of the parents or on religious practices in the home.

Due to halakhic disputes, such as the controversies over the role of women and homosexuality, some Conservative Talmudic scholars and experts in halakha have left the Jewish Theological Seminary and the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards.

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 Core Principles of Conservative Judaism, by Ismar Schorsch on behalf of the Jewish Theological Seminary

* Research and articles on Conservative Judaism on the Berman Jewish Policy Archive @ NYU Wagner

* Conservative Judaism on My Jewish Learning

* An intro to Conservative Judaism on Soc. Culture. Jewish Newsgroups

Conservative thought developed alongside nationalism in Germany, culminating in Germany's victory over France in the Franco-Prussian War, the creation of the unified German Empire in 1871, and the simultaneous rise of Otto von Bismarck on the European political stage.

" 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.

Conservative critics of DADT were disappointed that he failed to withdraw the " don't ask " directives and return the military to its earlier complete ban on service by gays and lesbians.