recommended conservative Judaism books?

Hi, I would like to read more about Conservative Judaism, but am having difficulties finding titles. What do you all recommend?

Nice, thank you.

You could also visit a Conservative Congregation. They may have a class on Conservative Judaism.

What do you want to know? A few suggestions for different kinds of books and sources on Conservative Judaism:

A good 46 page summary of Conservative Judaism by the Jewish Theological Seminary (the oldest Conservative rabbinical school) and the Rabbinical Assembly, online:
Emet Ve'emunah

Another online source is excerpts of Elliott Dorff's book, "Conservative Judaism: Our Ancestors to Our Descendants":
http://www.adath-shalom.ca/dorff_fn.htm
Here is info about the complete book on Amazon:
Conservative Judaism: Our Ancestors to Our Descendants

A good book about the history of the Conservative movement:
Conservative Judaism: the New Century
by Neil Gilman
--Note I have not read this book cover to cover, but I skimmed over half of it through Googlebooks. It's on my list of to buy and read books.

Details on the ritual and observance of Conservative Judaism
A Guide to Jewish Religious Practice
by Isaac Klein
The standard reference, although a little old and does not include more recent developments since the 1970's. I own this book because my sponsoring rabbi recommended it when I was asking him a lot of very detailed and technical questions about kashrut. Not a book for beginners. It uses the academic transliteration, e.g. "miqweh", rather than "mikveh", and it assumes familiarity with Hebrew and rabbinical terminology. But very thorough---probably much more than most Jews would want to know about animal illnesses and deformities that would make the animal treif (but I'll have a source if I ever want to slaughter my animals for meat on my own). It describes the most traditional version of Conservative Judaism as ideally practiced, which is nearly the same as Modern Orthodox practice. In fact, a minority of Conservative Jews actually live even somewhat like this ideal. In many CJ communities, only the rabbi and his family are that observant. Although a majority of the members of my own Conservative lay-led minyan are traditionally observant, it's unusual. The major differences between Conservative and Orthodox Judaisms in theology and halachic process are not covered in this book. You can also read parts of this book online through Googlebooks.

Hope this helps.

--Debbie

Entering Jewish Prayer: A Guide to Personal Devotion and the Worship Service, by Reuven Hammer. As a traditional Reform Jew seeking guidance about the worship service that I didn't feel like I was finding from Reform sources, this book was amazing.

Mike,

I really like "Entering Jewish Prayer" too.

Did you know that many years ago Rabbi Hammer was the rabbi of Beth Hillel, the synagogue now called Beth Hillel Congregation Bnai Emunah in Wilmette that currently houses the mikveh you used for conversion? He left Beth Hillel, in the early 1970's (well before the mikveh was built) to make Aliyah. He was one of the founders of the Masorti movement in Israel.

Rabbi Hammer was back at BHCBE for the weekend before Rosh Hashanah 5770 (a couple of years ago) and gave various d'vrei Torah (which I missed due to being at my own minyan services) and a pre-Selichot service lecture that I attended because my own minyan was not doing a Selichot service that year. I actually brought the books I own that he has written ("Entering Jewish Prayer", "Or Hadash: A Commentary on Siddur Sim Shalom for Shabbat and Festivals", and "Entering the High Holy Days") to the lecture and got him to sign them for me. I was a bit embarrassed to be acting like a "groupie", but I really did love his books and I wanted to tell him that. He seemed quite flattered to be asked to sign the books.