The Jewish Reformist Movement and its Challenges in Modern Time

The Jewish reformist effort is a modernist movement which began under the influence of Christian Enlightenment, the proponents of which asked for a series of reformation within the Judaism so that they could guarantee a modernist approach in Jewish thought and have new experiences.
Prior to that, the formation of Enlightenment in the eighteenth century Europe, along with the occurrence of the French Revolution, had caused the intellectualistic thoughts to spread. The scholars supporting intellectualism believed that the proving of everything even the religious propositions was applicable only through the intellect, they also emphasized on the motto of freedom and equality of all nations.
Such liberal ideas were the most inspiring for the Jews since by resorting to them; they could terminate a long period of hardship for the Jewish people. The Jewish modernist thinkers, following Moses Mendelsohn in the eighteenth century under the influence of Christian Enlightenment, announced that the admission of Jewish Doctrines should have intellectual bases and therefore rejected some of the traditional beliefs in their religion. Having modernist ideas, they asked for changes in some of the traditional beliefs such as Jewish Nationalistic ideas, and attributed the main cause of Jewish problems at that time to such ideas .
The present paper aims at introducing the Jewish reformist movement first and after mentioning its historical background, will elaborate on the significant views within the movement, then the most important challenges the movement faces in modern time will be explained. Here it will be mentioned that being totally different from traditional approach, these challenges are the outcomes of modern reformist commentaries toward religious sources. Some of the most important challenges mentioned here are:1- Women's religious and social functions
2- The homosexual problem
3- The Problem of Jewish and non-Jewish marriages
4- The problem of divorce
5- The admission ceremony
6- Circumcision
It will be concluded that, although some of these reformations in Judaism are helpful and influential and have helped the Jews to break the barriers of prejudice and to relate more freely with the world out of the Jewish circle, it has led to the spread of secularism among reformist Jews. Also, the influence of Christianity on the Jewish reformist views is undeniable in a way that in some cases, the modern beliefs have caused some of the recent Jewish generations to get attracted to Christian doctrines and practices and ignore their Jewish identity.