Gates of Prayer; an all inclusive guide to Judaism

The notion of modernity has been embedded into religion and has been discussed in our class in relation to Reform Judaism. I thought it was interesting to think about tradition and Judaism as something modern, when it dates back historically several of years ago. I got the impression that Reform Judaism seemed to be more of a trendy kind of thing, that remained open for the unique identities of people in our society. Reading more on Reform Judaism, I was fascinated that there was recently a new prayer book that came out to meet the needs of the tradition. I had never thought about Reform, Conservative and Orthodox having different prayer books, although they do have different practices and rituals. Going along with modernity, the new book, Gates of Prayer offers many different ways for someone to read it. This shows how they incorporate and support the different types of religious followers and beliefs. Instead of being exclusive, it seems to be rather inclusive. After taking these things into consideration, it got me wondering if the websites representational of Reform Judaism differed from those of Conservative Judaism. After looking at reformjudaism.org and uscj.org the USCJ seemed to have more information, with 7 different tabs of information like, Jewish Living & Learning, social action, leadership and administration, Israel, holidays and etc. The conservative website had what seemed like a more concrete path for taking Jewish journeys, where the Reform outlook is that it Judaism can be whatever will be beneficial to your life and yourself. The two websites did not differ as much as I had expected as far as the actual makeup of the site but uscj.com has a more extensive website. It included more information about finances, people with disabilities, programs in Israel, where Reform Judaism was more about learning, experience and the congregation. After finding this, I thought about the preconceived notion that Reform Judaism is less religious then the others. From personal experience, belonging to a Reform temple, I have heard people talk about Reform Judaism as some kind of a "joke" and how much shorter and more casual the services and overall environment of the temple was then those who belong to a conservative or orthodox temple. Looking at the way the websites are presented, I would think that the more serious presentation and information on uscj.com would lead one to agree with this assumption.