ABSTRACT
The term "Progressive Judaism" expresses an idea—apparently the only idea—upon which the advocates of the "modernist" movement who met in conference in London in July 1926 under the auspices of the "Jewish Religious Union" were able to agree. The difference between the "progressive" forces in Jewry and the conservative masses of the Jewish people itself is based on the discrepancy in the larger conceptions of the essence and value of religion as understood by the "Rabbinic" Jew, on the one hand, and the "Reform" or "Liberal" Jew, on the other. But there is the claim advanced on behalf of the new faith that it is a continuation of "Prophetic Judaism", and that it involves a return to ancient Hebrew idealism. "progressive faith" is, indeed, much less rationalistic than the old faith, and its exponents are less consistent in the adoption of principles, and in the recommendation of observances, than the most "hidebound "Rabbis of the Middle Ages.
