n.
Movement that originated in U.S. Judaism in the 1920s.
It regards Judaism only as a specific human culture, rejects the tradition of a transcendent deity who made a covenant with his chosen people, and does not accept the Bible as the inspired word of God. Its principles, as enunciated by Mordecai Menahem Kaplan , are based on the belief that Jews can live a distinctively Jewish cultural life without being religiously observant. Reconstructionists today number about 60,000.