NEW YORK, NY December 04, 2006 —The official decision-making body of one of the largest groups of American Jews meets this week in New York to vote on whether to ordain openly gay men and women as rabbis. WNYC’s Fred Mogul has more.

The Conservative movement’s Committee of Jewish Law and Standards is voting on several different proposals, and it is possible that more than one will be accepted. Either way, seminaries can decide whom they will ordain, and congregations, whom they will hire.

The proposals cover a wide range, from calling for complete acceptance of gay unions to recommending therapy to get homosexuals to change. About one-third of the three million synagogue-attending Jews in the U.S. are affiliated with the Conservative movement.

Conservative Judaism is officially governed by Biblical law, as interpreted by centuries of rabbinic authority, but is more open to modern adaptations than Orthodox Judaism. The largest group, Reform Judaism, accepts gay Jews as rabbis and allows same-sex marriage. For WNYC, I’m Fred Mogul.