Since most of the major studies of Jewish liturgical history were written in the first half of the twentieth century and later treatments very much based themselves on these and even nineteenth-century sources, much remains to be done in analysing developments in the middle and latter parts of the century now drawing to a close. It would totally unbalance both this chapter and the book of which it is a part to offer a fully detailed examination of such developments and such a piece of research will have to be undertaken, like so much else in this field, independently, at a later date, and in a different context. It is, however, essential to break the earlier habit of seeing the twentieth century simply as a continuation of the nineteenth and to point out the need for students of Jewish liturgy to follow general Jewish historians and sociologists in stressing the unique features of both the first and second halves of the century and how they deserve to be independently assessed. To that end, a summary of the liturgical situation of the last eight or nine decades, with an occasional background glance at the nineteenth century when necessary, will be a suitable way of bringing this volume to a close.

Since the Jewish religious world now tends to be regarded as pluralistic, with three main forms of expression – Orthodoxy, Conservatism and Reform – dominating at least the most powerful centre of Jewish communal life outside Israel, namely, the United States of America, it will help us to identify changing trends in Jewish attitudes to worship if we pay brief attention to what has occurred in each of these three groupings.