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The Orthodoxy exchange, Part 1: American Orthodox Judaism is changing

[additional-authors]
April 6, 2016

Adam S. Ferziger is a professor and holds the S.R. Hirsch Chair for Research of the Torah and Derekh Erez Movement in the Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry at Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel, and is co-convener of the Oxford Summer Institute for Modern and Contemporary Judaism, Oxford, UK. He is the author of Exclusion and Hierarchy: Orthodoxy, Nonobservance and the Emergence of Modern Jewish Identity and Jewish Denominations: Addressing the Challenges of Modernity.

This exchanges will focus on Professor Ferziger's new book, Beyond Sectarianism: The Realignment of American Orthodox Judaism

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Dear Professor Ferziger,

Your new book provides some very interesting food for thought, especially if you happen to be an Orthodox Jew in America. According to the book, the group commonly referred to as Modern Orthodox Jews seems to be retreating “into survival mode,” while it is the traditionally sectarian ultra-orthodox elements (no longer restricted to cloistered secluded sects) that appear to be taking over Jewish Orthodox America, who are doing all the growing and all the effective outreach.

My introductory question: is your book a story about how the different elements in the orthodox world are influencing each other and organically coalescing, or is it actually a story about how the ultra-orthodox are winning the battle for the future of Jewish orthodoxy?

Yours,

Shmuel.

***

Dear Shmuel,

Thank you for your kind words and thoughtful question. I will begin my response with a clarification. Although the main subject of Beyond Sectarianism is American Orthodox Judaism, it addresses issues that are relevant and germane to all those interested in gaining a deeper understanding of the history, contemporary condition, and future trajectory of American Judaism. For starters, much of the volume focuses on changes in the relationship between Orthodox and non-Orthodox or non-observant Jews throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. The discussion concentrates on the evolution of Orthodox attitudes and behaviors, but in the process explores both sides of this dynamic. Moreover, as by now familiar to many readers, the statistics highlighted in the 2013 Pew Report on American Jewry demonstrate that Orthodoxy is the only Jewish religious denomination that has a high rate of retention of its younger generation. The result is that unless there is a major rupture, the next few decades will witness considerable growth in the number of American Orthodox Jews and as such a rise in the role and impact of this sector within the broader American Jewish community.

Regarding the underlying “story” of my book, I think that the first option that you raise is closer to the mark although not completely accurate. Beyond Sectarianism presents a picture of American Orthodoxy that diverges from the long-held assumption that there are two absolutely distinct sub-groups: on one side the sectarian-oriented Haredim (in your words “ultra-orthodox”) who mimic an idealized vision of Eastern European religious life prior to World War II, and live in homogeneous enclaves where they seek to protect themselves from the rest of American Jewry who have been polluted by the surrounding envirnment. On the other side, the Modern Orthodox who are not only open to non-Jewish culture but are dedicated to engaging with their non-Orthodox counterparts on a variety of levels. My research has led me to understand that today there is a large spectrum at the center of American Orthodoxy for which the sharp distinctions that were evident in the past are a far less accurate description. Rather, the mainstream Modern Orthodox and the non-Hasidic Haredim, as well as to a great extent Chabad Hasidim, share a great deal in common and lead lives that are quite similar. Most get college degrees (and increasingly advanced ones as well), eventually enter the white collar work force, support the State of Israel, actively interface with American popular culture, and acknowledge the need to include women in various facets of religious life and leadership. At the same time, the Modern Orthodox have adopted standards of religious and social behavior that were once associated almost exclusively with the Haredi sector, including stricter guidelines regarding religious law, separation of the sexes, and social patterns. Most strikingly, today it is the Haredim who invest considerable efforts to engage the non-Orthodox population – including traversing previously sacrosanct boundaries such as entering Reform and Conservative synagogues and working in concert with their religious leaders. The Modern Orthodox meanwhile, have to a great measure retreated from these endeavors, as they are primarily concerned with preventing their own offspring from leaving the fold. No doubt there are vocal backlashes to these phenomena at the edges of both sub-sectors. All the same, the overall picture is one of a more cohesive American Orthodoxy that defies the divisions of the past. To be clear, this is not to say that differences no longer exist, but that they are often more issues of aesthetics or style than reflective of fundamental debates over perceptions of the ideal Jewish life and how Orthodox Jews should function within the American environment.

The changed social and religious ambience that Beyond Sectarianism describes can certainly be portrayed as American Orthodoxy “organically coalescing.” I do not, however, attribute this primarily to direct reciprocal influences. No doubt the various Orthodox constituencies interact with each other and even seek to steer one another in various directions. That said, there are a range of social, economic and intellectual forces particular to each sub-sector that have facilitated the respective changes that have taken place. Indeed, when I began to research American Orthodoxy, the aim was to produce a series of studies in which I dealt with each group separately in their own contexts. My goal was less to grasp the “big picture” of American Orthodoxy than to explore specific historical episodes and novel phenomena that I observed. Only after dedicating a few years to these “micro” examinations did an overarching pattern materialize that ran through them. It was at this point that I decided that a broader transition had taken place and that this deserved to be presented in a full-length monograph.

All the best,

Adam Ferziger

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