The Routledge Dictionary of Judaism
Reconstructionist Judaism
A twentieth-century North American Jewish movement inspired by the teachings of Mordecai Kaplan (1881–1983), an Orthodox ordained rabbi who taught from 1909–1963 at the Conservative movement’s Jewish Theological Seminary. Reconstructionism was formally organized in 1940 on the foundation of the Society for the Advancement of Judaism, which had been created by Kaplan in 1922. Its seminary, the Reconstructionst Rabbinical College, was founded in Philadelphia in 1968. Organized under the umbrella of the Federation of Reconstructionist Congregations and 
avurot, Reconstructionism is by far the smallest of North America’s several Jewish movements.
Reconstructionism advances Kaplan’s view that Judaism is a social rather than spiritual phenomenon. It rejects traditional theistic claims and notions of the supernatural, viewing God, rather, as a force that promotes justice, goodness, and truth. In line with this disavowal of the traditional notion of God, Reconstructionism also denies the concept of chosenness, so central in traditional Jewish theology.
In place of concepts of God and chosenness, Reconstructionism focuses upon community as the center of Jewish life. It holds that all Jewish activity, including adherence to the law, which Kaplan affirmed, should be designed to promote the community of Judaism, which Kaplan referred to as a civilization, the people of which are the source of authority and of their own salvation.
Rejecting the concept of God as a sovereign creator, Reconstructionism adjures contemporary Jews to follow the practices of Jewish tradition for reasons that make sense now. Jewish practice, that is, is to be “reconstructed” so as to express values and meanings appropriate within the lives of Jews today. Prayer and ritual, in particular, are to be rethought in order to maximize the impact they have on the individual, not because they affect God. In light of Kaplan’s understanding of the sociological nature of Judaism, he imagined the synagogue not just as a place of worship but as a community center, where study, art, drama, physical exercise, and a range of social activities could take their proper place as central aspects of the Jewish experience. This vision has been largely realized within the contemporary Reconstructionist movement.
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