VALUES: Our culture, our beliefs, our responsibilities. : New Day for Old Ways : As more Reform congregations return to tradition, some members say they feel more spiritually connected, while others resent the change.

What’s wrong with this picture, you might ask, if you see a member of Temple Emanuel wearing a yarmulke and prayer shawl at a Shabbat service? As Jews enter the holiest week of their calendar year starting with Rosh Hashana on Friday evening, you would be far more likely to see members of the Orthodox and Conservative branches of Judaism in religious dress.

Or would you?

Temple Emanuel, in Beverly Hills, is neither Orthodox nor Conservative. It is part of the Reform movement, the most liberal branch of the faith whose leaders decided against religious dress more than 100 years ago to encourage a largely immigrant congregation to adopt American ways.

In recent years, however, Reform Jews are going back to practices their grandparents put aside. Some are learning to keep a kosher kitchen, with dietary rules that can seem foreign and complex by American standards. Meats and milk-based foods, for example, must be kept separate.

Others--women as well as men--are wearing the kipah and tallit (Hebrew for the yarmulke and prayer shawl) worn by men in Orthodox synagogues, and men and women in Conservative synagogues. And the use of Hebrew, a small part of Reform services in the past, will be a more familiar sound at Reform services. Many of the adult congregants are studying the ancient language for the first time. Some parents are learning to blow the shofar, a ram’s horn, so they can start each morning with that wake-up call to their children during the month before Rosh Hashana, as was done in ancient Israel.

All of these practices, comparatively new to Reform Jews, are being met with mixed reactions by members of the movement. Those in favor of embracing the old traditions are experiencing a deeper commitment to their faith and a heightened awareness of God in their daily lives, while those opposed are feeling pressured to accept what are, to them, alien and outmoded customs.

Ancient Jewish traditions have been more welcome among Reform Jews during the last 20 years or so. In part, this openness reflects a national trend toward reclaiming time-tested things. The Reform community received an added incentive in June when the Central Conference of American Rabbis published a new statement, the “Ten Principles of Reform Judaism,” drafted by Rabbi Richard Levy, who at the time was president of the conference and is now director of the Rabbinic School at Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles.

“We wanted the statement to reflect the fact that all of Jewish tradition is open to Reform Judaism,” Levy says of the largest Jewish denomination in the country. It accounts for more than 40% of U.S. Jews. (There are about 1.5 million affiliated with congregations.)

So now, what was banned in the past is being encouraged.

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Shari Altura, who is in her 50s, has always loved cooking sophisticated dishes for her husband and 16-year-old son. Recently, though, she phoned an Orthodox rabbi and asked him to teach her the basic rules of a kosher kitchen. Now that she is past the trauma of telling her family what she plans to do (they seem to be taking to it) and has put away the porcelain tableware she loved because it is not up to kosher standards, she is feeling the benefits of her decision.

“It elevates your awareness of the spiritual aspects of preparing food,” she says. “I feel very proud to be able to say I have a kosher home.”

Emotions run high for many, like Altura, who never practiced any of the traditional rituals of their faith. She cannot bring herself to wear religious garments.

“All my life I thought prayer shawls and yarmulkes were for men,” Altura says.

But some Reform Jewish women now wear the garments for exactly that reason. Esther Swerdloff, 75, has been a feminist since her youngest years in Argentina, dreaming of her future as a doctor. Retired now, she finds herself living out her faith in ways she had not imagined. On some Saturday mornings, she carries the Torah--the sacred scrolls that contain the first five books of the Bible--during an “alternative” Sabbath service at Temple Emanuel, one of the Reform synagogues at which the rabbi is encouraging members to take the 10 principles to heart.

Most of that service is spoken and sung in Hebrew. The community chants together rather than listening to the rabbi or a cantor, which was more typical in the past. Instead of a sermon, the group breaks into small circles to discuss the day’s Torah reading. Most heads and shoulders are covered in yarmulkes and prayer shawls. All of these features are more commonly associated with conservative branches of the faith.

“I feel I was deprived of certain things until now,” says Swerdloff, who saw only men carrying the Torah when she was a girl. “The changes let everyone increase their religious involvement. I can act out my religious commitment.”

The fact that disagreement exists concerning the newly declared principles can, at times, be very apparent. During a Temple Emanuel alternative service, called a minyan, the Hebrew term for a gathering of 10 or more, a young man came forward to read from the Torah in practiced Hebrew.

He was not wearing any religious garment, and an older man in the community tried to wrap a prayer shawl around him before he touched the Torah. The young man refused three times before the dispute was quietly settled when the older man sat down. An undercurrent of tension passed, and the young man read aloud.

“It bothers me that we are adopting Orthodox ways,” says Paul Samek, 76, a member of Temple Emanuel. “I am a man first, then a husband, then an American, then a Jew.” Like many other Reform Jews, he is in favor of some changes, but not all of them. He has given up reading from the Torah at services, for example, because he refuses to wear religious garments and feels pressured to do so when he reads. Yet he has no problem with others wearing them.

Certain other practices trouble him more.

“It bothers me to encourage the use of Hebrew, as the principles do, and to encourage Jews to live in Israel if they want, as the principles do. Being identified as Jews first and Americans second is against all that I believe.”

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Holding a congregation together has become a more complex matter since the principles were published, even though the changes encouraged in them have been underway for some time.

“It’s been interesting to see how complicated change is,” says Rabbi Laura Geller, who has led Temple Emanuel for six years. “People become very conservative about their religious institutions, because religion is about memory.”

New music, more praying in Hebrew, a new meditation service and other practices at Emanuel are jarring, at first, she says. But every new practice is researched, introduced and monitored by lay members of the temple, not by the staff rabbis alone.

Geller considers the newly stated principles as teaching tools that help clarify what distinguishes Reform Judaism. She has opened them to discussion during congregation retreats, confirmation classes and adult education programs as well as in a newsletter.

The Saturday morning alternative service was started two years ago as a sort of test laboratory. At the most recent minyan, associate Rabbi Jonathan Aaron wore religious garb but also played a guitar to accompany the Hebrew songs.

At first this “New Emanuel Minyan” was held once a month and about 30 people attended. Now it is weekly with about 75 people. Some practices introduced there have since been added to the temple’s main services.

“To respond to the challenge of the principles, you need to present alternatives,” says Geller. “It is important to go slowly, carefully and with conviction. If change is going to work, a lot of people in the congregation have to own it. Lay people are my partners. They teach and lead. All of us are changed.”

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Mary Rourke can be reached by e-mail at mary.rourke@latimes.com.