The Branches of Judaism

How the movements arose is told on the History page.

What are the main branches of Judaism?

The main movements are Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist. Historians date their formation to the 19th century and after, in debates over the status of Jewish law, the nature of revelation, and the role of the Jewish people; Orthodox Judaism holds that it continues the Judaism received at Sinai.¹² The figures below cannot be added together: each source counts one country, and each counts something different (self-identified adults, member households, self-described groups). Pew's 2020 shares are of all U.S. Jewish adults, counting Jews by religion and Jews of no religion, and 32 percent named no movement.³

Nearly all Israeli Jews place themselves in one of four self-described groups. In Pew's survey of 2014 to 2015, 9 percent of Israeli Jews called themselves Haredi, 13 percent Dati (religious), 29 percent Masorti (traditional), and 49 percent Hiloni (secular). Pew describes Masortim as a broad middle ground between Orthodoxy and secularism.⁴

Movement	Size, by country	Where concentrated	What sets it apart
Orthodox (Haredi, Hasidic, Modern Orthodox)	United States: 9 percent of Jewish adults (Pew, 2020).3 Israel: 9 percent of Jews Haredi and 13 percent Dati, groups Pew describes as generally considered Orthodox (2014 to 2015).4 United Kingdom: 53 percent central Orthodox and 13 percent strictly Orthodox, of synagogue-member households (JPR, 2016).5	Mainly the United States and Israel6	Holds that God gave the Torah at Sinai, and that Jewish law binds as traditionally interpreted2
Conservative (Masorti)	United States: 17 percent of Jewish adults (Pew, 2020).3 United Kingdom: Masorti, 3 percent of member households (JPR, 2016).5	The United States, with a smaller presence in Israel and elsewhere7	Holds Jewish law at the center, with change guided by scholarship1
Reform (Progressive, Liberal)	United States: 37 percent of Jewish adults (Pew, 2020).3 United Kingdom: Reform 19 percent and Liberal 8 percent of member households (JPR, 2016).5	Mainly the United States and Canada, with congregations in Europe, Latin America, South Africa, Australia, and Israel8	Teaches that Torah is ongoing revelation, with mitzvot studied and kept where they address the individual and community9
Reconstructionist	No separate count cited; in the United States, part of the 4 percent in smaller branches or several streams (Pew, 2020)3	The United States and Canada10	Teaches Judaism as the evolving religious civilization of the Jewish people11
Other movements: Renewal, Humanistic, Karaite	No count cited	Renewal and Humanistic Judaism began in North America1213	Described below

What is Orthodox Judaism?

Orthodox Judaism is the most traditional of the modern movements, and it sees itself as the authentic carrier of Jewish tradition since ancient times. Orthodox Jews hold the principle of Torah Min HaShamayim (Torah from heaven): the Torah is the word of God, revealed to Moses at Sinai together with the oral law. They live by Jewish law (halakhah) as traditionally interpreted and accept the authority of Orthodox rabbis to apply it.²

Orthodox life centers on observance of the Sabbath, holidays, and dietary laws, and many Orthodox Jews engage in daily worship and intensive study of sacred texts.² Historians describe Orthodoxy as taking shape as a movement in the early 19th century, in response to Reform.¹²

Haredi Judaism

The Hebrew word Haredi literally means trembling or fearing God, and Pew notes that it is commonly translated as ultra-Orthodox.⁴ Samuel Heilman writes that Haredim hold that they have made no compromises with contemporary secular culture.⁶ Haredi Jews include the Hasidim, their historic opponents the Mitnaggedim, and Haredim of Sephardi and Middle Eastern descent.² This section relies on scholars and survey organizations; no Haredi institution's own account is cited.

Hasidic groups

Hasidism began with the Baal Shem Tov in 18th-century eastern Europe. It teaches that every action, from study and prayer to eating and song, can raise a person to devequt, attachment to God, the Hasid's constant goal.¹ Its groups are organized in courts, or houses, each led by a tsaddiq, or rebbe, with leadership usually passing from father to son or son-in-law.¹⁴

Modern Orthodox Judaism

Modern Orthodoxy took as its motto Torah Im Derekh Eretz (Torah in harmony with secular culture), and Zion Zohar names Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808 to 1888) as its founder. It embraces some modern culture while keeping the traditional liturgy, divine revelation, and binding Jewish law.² Heilman describes the centrist Orthodox in America as valuing a general education alongside an intensive Jewish one, and as accepting modern Zionism.⁶

What is Conservative Judaism?

Conservative Judaism holds Jewish law at the center, but allows it to change under controlled conditions, guided by textual scholarship and history.¹ It looks to Zacharias Frankel's positive-historical Judaism in 19th-century Germany as its source. It grew in the United States around the Jewish Theological Seminary, founded in 1886, and in Israel it is called Masorti.⁷

The Rabbinical Assembly describes its approach as fidelity to inherited tradition and the courage to integrate necessary change¹⁵, and its Committee on Jewish Law and Standards sets halakhic policy for the movement.¹⁵¹⁶ Its 1988 statement of principles, Emet Ve-Emunah, describes a range of views on revelation, from God speaking in actual words to an ongoing discovery of truths about God through nature and history.¹⁷

What is Reform Judaism?

Reform Judaism, also called Progressive or Liberal Judaism,⁸ affirms the central tenets of God, Torah, and Israel, according to the Union for Reform Judaism. It describes the Torah as a living, God-inspired document¹⁸ and calls tikkun olam, the repair of the world, a hallmark of the movement.¹⁸ The Reform rabbis' 1999 statement of principles calls Torah God's ongoing revelation to our people and the record of our people's ongoing relationship with God⁹. It commits Reform Jews to study the whole range of mitzvot (sacred obligations) and to fulfill those that address them as individuals and as a community.⁹

What is Reconstructionist Judaism?

Reconstructionist Judaism grew from the thought of Mordecai Kaplan (1881 to 1983). In Judaism as a Civilization (1934), he described the Jews as a people, bound together even when they disagree about belief and practice.¹⁰ The movement founded its own rabbinical college in 1968, the last step in becoming a separate movement.⁷ Today it calls Judaism the evolving religious civilization of the Jewish people, in Kaplan's phrase, and teaches: God is not an external being that acts upon us, but a power that works through us.¹¹¹¹

What other movements are there?

Jewish Renewal, an American movement now spreading abroad, draws on Hasidic and mystical teaching and challenges the denominational structure itself.¹² Secular Humanistic Judaism began in 1963, when Sherwin Wine founded a congregation near Detroit. It celebrates human knowledge, power, and responsibility, and its liturgy centers on human experience rather than on God.¹³

The website Karaite Korner calls Karaite Judaism the original form of Judaism, as God prescribed it in the Torah. It says Karaites reject the oral law and place the responsibility for interpreting the Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible) on each individual.¹⁹ Swartz dates the Karaite movement from the eighth century CE.¹

Are Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Mizrahi Jews branches?

No: Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Mizrahi Jews are heritage communities, not branches. Pew's Israel survey treats them as ethnic groups, separate from its religious categories.⁴ Haredi Judaism, for example, includes Jews of Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Middle Eastern descent.² Ashkenazi Jews trace their roots to northern, central, and eastern Europe.¹ Sephardi means, strictly, a descendant of Jews who lived in Spain or Portugal before the expulsion of 1492, though the word is often used for other non-Ashkenazi Jews.²⁰

Which groups' Jewish status is debated?

Messianic Jews are one group whose place in Judaism is disputed. The Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations describes Messianic Judaism as Jewish congregations committed to Yeshua (Jesus) as the Messiah, living a Jewish life rooted in the Torah. It holds that Messianic Jewish groups must be fully part of the Jewish people²¹, while keeping ties with the Christian Church.²¹

The Jewish movements take a different view. Because of its belief in Jesus, the Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist movements have all rejected Messianic Judaism as a form of Judaism, according to My Jewish Learning, a Jewish educational site.²² In 1989, Israel's High Court of Justice ruled unanimously that a Messianic couple born to Jewish parents were not entitled to citizenship as immigrants under the Law of Return, as members of a different faith. The couple denied that they had converted to another religion.²³²²

What divides the branches?

The movements differ over Jewish law, the nature of revelation, and the role of the Jewish people.¹ Orthodox Judaism holds that the Torah and the oral law came from God at Sinai and that Jewish law binds as traditionally interpreted.² Conservative Judaism holds Jewish law at the center but open to change, while Reform Judaism commits its members to study the mitzvot and to fulfill those that address them.¹⁹

They also differ over who is a Jew. Orthodox and Conservative Judaism count the child of a Jewish mother, or a convert. Reform and Reconstructionist Judaism also accept the child of a Jewish father who is raised as a Jew.¹ The Reform standard, set by the Central Conference of American Rabbis in 1983, presumes the child of one Jewish parent to be Jewish if raised as a Jew. The presumption is established through public acts of Jewish identification.²⁴

Yet Michael Swartz writes that the covenant between Israel and God stands at the center of almost all major religious expressions of Judaism, though some modern movements have challenged what it asks of Jews.¹ In Israel, Orthodox institutions are part of the political and legal structure, and the non-Orthodox movements are far smaller there.¹