Inter-branch criticisms Criticism of Conservative Judaism from other branches Conservative Judaism is criticized by some leaders of
Orthodox Judaism for not properly following
Halakha (Jewish religious law). It is also criticized by some leaders of Reform Judaism for being at odds with the principles of its young adult members on issues such as
intermarriage,
patrilineal descent, and the ordination of homosexuals—all issues that Conservative Judaism opposes and Reform Judaism supports. (The Conservative movement has since moved in the direction of allowing for gay rabbis and the "celebration of same-sex commitment ceremonies".)
Criticism of traditional Judaism by reform movement The
reform movement grew out of dissatisfaction with several aspects of
traditional Judaism or Rabbinic Judaism, as documented in
polemics and other 19th- and early-20th-century writings.
Louis Jacobs, a prominent
Masorti Rabbi, described the polemics between the Orthodox and the Reform movements as follows:
David Einhorn, an American Reform rabbi, calls Reform Judaism a "liberation" of Judaism : The criticisms of traditional Judaism included criticisms asserting that the Torah's laws are not strictly binding; criticisms asserting that many ceremonies and rituals are not necessary; criticisms asserting that Rabbinical leadership is too authoritarian; criticisms asserting that there was too much superstition; criticisms asserting that traditional Judaism leads to isolation from other communities; and criticisms asserting that traditional Judaism overemphasized the exile. Some of these criticisms were anticipated in a much earlier time, by philosopher
Uriel da Costa (1585–1640) who criticized the Rabbinic authorities and the Talmud for lack of authenticity and spirituality. In Romans 7–12, one criticism of Judaism made by Paul is that it is a religion based in law instead of faith. In many interpretations of this criticism made prior to the mid 20th century, Judaism was held to be fundamentally flawed by the sin of self-righteousness. rather than
Rabbinic Judaism, which eschewed the militant line of Judaism which Paul embraced prior to his conversion. There is also the question as to whom Paul was addressing. Paul saw himself as an apostle to the Gentiles, and it is unclear as to whether the text of Romans was directed to Jewish followers of Jesus (as was Paul), to Gentiles, or to both. Some scholars argue that the fundamental issue underlying Paul's criticism of Judaism hinges on his understanding of Judaism's relationship to Jewish law. E. P. Sanders, for example, argues that the view held by many New Testament scholars from
Christian Friedrich Weber on, Sanders' interpretation asserts Judaism is instead best understood as a "covenantal nominism", in which God's grace is given and affirmed in the covenant, to which the appropriate response is to live within the bounds established in order to preserve the relationship.
Regarding the death of Jesus The idea that Judaism, and the Jewish people collectively, are responsible for the
death of Jesus, often represented in the claim that "Jews killed Jesus", figures prominently in antisemitic writings. It was initially stated by
Paul in the
New Testament (). The
Roman Catholic church formally disavowed its long complicity in antisemitism by issuing a proclamation entitled
Nostra aetate in 1965, which repudiated the notion that the Jewish people bore any guilt for Jesus' death.
Criticism from Islam A prominent place in the Qur'anic polemic against the Jews is given to the conception of the religion of
Abraham. The Qur'an presents Muslims as neither Jews nor Christians but followers of Abraham who was in a physical sense the father of the Jews and the Arabs and lived before the revelation of
Torah. In order to show that the religion practiced by the Jews is not the pure religion of Abraham, the Qur'an mentions the incident of worshiping of the calf, argues that Jews do not believe in part of the revelation given to them, and that their taking of
usury shows their worldliness and disobedience of God. Furthermore, the Quran claims they attribute to God what he has not revealed. According to the
Qur'an, the Jews exalted a figure named
Uzair as the "son of God" (see the
Quranic statements about perceived Jewish exaltation). The character of
Ezra, who was presumed to be the figure mentioned by the Qur'an (albeit with no corroborative evidence to suggest Ezra and Uzair to be the same person) became important in the works of the later Andalusian Muslim scholar
Ibn Hazm, who explicitly accused Ezra of being a liar and a heretic who falsified and added interpolations into the Biblical text. In his polemic against Judaism, Ibn Hazm provided a list of what he said were chronological and geographical inaccuracies and contradictions; theological impossibilities (anthropomorphic expressions, stories of fornication and whoredom, and the attributing of sins to prophets), as well as lack of reliable transmission (
tawatur) of the text. Heribert Busse writes "The only explanation is the presumption that Muhammad, in the heat of debate, wanted to accuse the Jews of heretical doctrine on a par with the heresy of the Christian doctrine that teaches the divine nature of Jesus. In doing so, he could take advantage of the high esteem granted Ezra in Judaism." ==Philosophical criticism==