Historians who look back at the last two generations of American Jews may write that one of the great advances during this time was the spread of religious pluralism—within, not just among, different settings. From the spread of multiculturalism in the 1980s and beyond into the 2000s, American Jews have cultivated settings in which different Jewish religious communities have been able to negotiate coexistence without erasing devotional standards and commitments.
However much pluralism has become a shared value among many American Jews, its implementation in practice is far from simple or easy. My interest here is to examine the thornier nature of ritualistic pluralism, especially as it is manifest in denominational spaces where the desire to be inclusive can often require acts of exclusion.
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