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Reform Judaism began with the
German Jews in the early 1800s. They felt that Orthodox Judaism was
not keeping in touch with the times. A grass roots movement begun
by lay people and later supported by the rabbis, it was felt that
the people could not follow the meanings of the scriptures in
Hebrew.
When the movement took hold in
the United States, Reform theology regarded the scripture as
inspired by God rather than revealed by God verbatim, thus allowing
for individual interpretation. Strict dietary regulations and
ancient ideas of priestly purity were done away with. Reform Jews
believe in the soul's immortality, but not in the resurrection of
the body. The largest community of Jews in the United States,
Reform Jews number about two million Jews located in about nine
hundred synagogues or temples.
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