Orthodox Judaism: from decline to renewal

Posted on August 27th, 2007

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Judaism’s High Holy Days are a 10-day period of prayer and atonement that starts this year at sundown on Sept. 12 with Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, and ends at sundown on Sept. 22, the close of Yom Kippur. Throughout this observance, Jews across the denominational spectrum, including many who are nonobservant, will attend synagogue, recite ancient prayers (often in Hebrew), and fast during certain times.

This sacred period also provides an opportunity for reporters to reflect on the religious forces shaping Judaism. One of the most important trends, many experts argue, is the way Jewish spirituality and religiosity is being influenced by the relatively small but growing Orthodox Jewish community. Surveys show that Orthodox Jews account for about 10 percent of the 5.2 million Jews in the United States and about 20 percent of synagogue-affiliated Jews. (There are ongoing debates about the exact figures). But scholars generally agree that Orthodox Jewry has become more visible in recent years, and as a result its adherents have come to define Jewish practice for many both inside and outside the Jewish world. Moreover, demographic factors – high birthrates, regular religious observance, a low exit rate – all contribute to what some believe will be a more Orthodox future for American Judaism.

Journalists will find many entry points into stories about Orthodox Jews (see “How to find an Orthodox congregation“). How are teens and young adults practicing their faith? What is drawing individuals and families back into observance, particularly after they have fallen away from it? In areas where few Orthodox Jews live, how do they maintain community and connect with others? What varieties of Orthodox practice exist in one area? How do Jews observe Orthodox traditions in a modern world, from kosher food laws to eruvs (See an Aug. 25, 2007, Dallas Morning News story about eruvs, the nearly invisible boundaries that allow Orthodox Jews to carry items on the Sabbath and that exist in nearly every major U.S. city.)

Why it matters

The Jewish community is viewed as a bellwether for trends affecting other religious groups. Issues involving religious identity, assimilation, intermarriage, worship practices, gender roles and the like have roiled Judaism in America since the first Jewish community was established here more than 350 years ago. Judaism also has a high profile in American culture despite its relatively small size. In the public square, the growth of Orthodox Judaism and its influence is important because there is evidence that Orthodox Jews tend to vote Republican, which is in marked contrast to the historically strong Jewish preference for the Democratic Party.

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Trends

Until recent decades, the story of Orthodox Judaism in America was largely one of decline. Most Jews who arrived during the great wave of Jewish immigration in the 19th and early 20th centuries were leaving a Europe where traditional Jewish practice often governed religious life. The new arrivals sought to assimilate and often rejected what were considered outmoded, Old World customs of “shtetl” life. Surveys show that by a wide margin, older American Jews who were raised Orthodox left for another, more liberal movement, such as Conservative or Reform Judaism. In addition, World War II and the Holocaust brought the virtual destruction of European Jewry, including the Orthodox communities that predominated in Eastern Europe.

Yet there were seeds for an Orthodox revival. The establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 was largely the work of secular Zionists. But with so many dangers pressing in on the reborn nation, Israeli leaders had little time for debating matters of Jewish religious practice. So they effectively granted authority over religious matters – undergirded by government funding – to the small Orthodox segment of the Israeli population. Today, the Orthodox population in Israel has grown enormously in size and influence, and its monopoly – as secular and non-Orthodox Jews would call it – on religious life gives the movement an even higher profile.

Yet there were seeds for an Orthodox revival. The establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 was largely the work of secular Zionists. But Israeli leaders effectively granted authority over religious matters-undergirded by government funding-to what was then a tiny Orthodox segment of the largely Israeli population. Today, while Israelis remain largely secular (up to 80 percent, by some estimates), the Orthodox population in Israel has grown to include almost all of the religiously observant Jews. Unlike the United States, the Reform and Conservative movements are tiny. The Orthodox oversight of religious life in Israel gives the movement an even higher profile.

In the United States, meanwhile, Orthodox Judaism benefited from the nationwide interest in traditional religion that began in the 1970s as a reaction to cultural and societal upheavals. Even non-Orthodox Jewish movements, like liberal wings of other religions, have seen many of their members embrace traditional practices that would have once been unheard of. Many Reform synagogues, for example, once banned the use of ritual skullcaps (kippot) and prayer shawls (tallit). Now they are commonplace. The mystical teachings of Kabbalah and traditions such as the yearlong grieving ritual of kaddish, the ritual purification baths called mikvot, not to mention kosher products of all kinds, are growing in popularity, both inside and outside Judaism.

The compactness of the Orthodox community may also augur a demographic turnaround, according to experts and surveys. Orthodox households, on average, have many more children than other Jewish families, and while the older generation of Jews left Orthodoxy, the Orthodox movement today is much younger on average than other movements. The Orthodox resurgence is so successful that Brandeis University historian Jonathan Sarna has called it the “great success story of late 20th-century American Judaism.”

Many saw the choice of Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, who identified as a Modern Orthodox Jew, as Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore’s running mate in 2000 as another boost for Orthodox Judaism; Lieberman was the first Jew on a presidential ticket. Others note the seemingly unlikely popularity of Hasidic stars of the rap, hip-hop and reggae scene, such as Matisyahu, a Jew from Brooklyn who converted to Orthodox Judaism.

At the same time, other forces are raising the profile of the Orthodox, experts say. One is that many American Jews, like many other Americans, are becoming less observant. That increases Orthodox Judaism’s weight among the remaining Jewish community because Orthodox Jews are more observant than other religious Jews. Also, there are indications that the “center” of American Judaism, long represented by the Conservative stream, is losing members. The effect of that shift is to leave the Jewish religious spectrum divided between a large Reform movement – Judaism’s most liberal stream – on one end and the Orthodox on the other.

Moreover, experts say there is a tendency among Jews and non-Jews alike to view Orthodox practice as the “default mode” of what it means to be Jewish. In that sense, Orthodox Judaism sets the bar for Jewish religious life.

Experts agree there are significant caveats to this scenario. Some question how accurately surveys have counted the number of American Jews, and whether Orthodox Jews have subsequently been overrepresented. Also, scholars note that there are many fissures within the Orthodox movement. Modern Orthodoxy was begun to help Orthodox Jews to find a way to live in the world rather than apart from it. Modern Orthodox constitute the largest number of Orthodox Jews, about two-thirds of the U.S. population of Orthodox Jews. The rest are often known as Haredi or “ultra-Orthodox.” These Jews are strictly observant and their various factions contend with each other for influence and the correct interpretation of Jewish law. Hasidic Jews are also included in the category of Haredi or ultra-Orthodox, but their movement has a particular history largely rooted in 17th-century Eastern Europe. The Hasids also have strong variants in beliefs among themselves and-with the notable exception of the Lubavitch-tend to stay to themselves in insular communities. Ultra-Orthodox Jews disagree sharply with Modern Orthodox on a range of issues. The strictest Orthodox Jews are often distinguished by their black garments, wide-brimmed hats, and peyas, or sidecurls of hair in front of the ear.

How to find an Orthodox community

The National Jewish Population Survey showed that although the Orthodox influence is felt nationally, Orthodox Jews are concentrated in urban Northeast areas to a greater degree than other Jews. In addition, the 15 percent of all Jews who live in small communities scattered around the United States tend to be less observant and less likely to be Orthodox. Journalists can locate Orthodox communities near them in two ways:

National sources

For more expert sources, see ReligionLink’s issues on:

Individuals

  • Allan L. Nadler is director of Jewish studies at Drew University in New Jersey. He was trained as an Orthodox rabbi but is now unaffiliated and writes and comments extensively on Orthodox Jewish life. Contact 973-408-3941, anadler@drew.edu.
  • Samuel C. Heilman is a sociologist at the City University of New York and frequent commentator on Jewish trends. He is author of the 2006 book Sliding to the Right: The Contest for the Future of American Jewish Orthodoxy, which argues that the ultra-Orthodox are gaining the upper hand against Modern Orthodox. Contact at his Queens office, 718-997-2832; at the CUNY Graduate Center in Manhattan, 212-817-8772; or heilman@qc.edu. He is also co-editor of the annual periodical Contemporary Jewry, produced by the Association for the Social Scientific Study of Jewry.
  • Jonathan D. Sarna is the Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass., and director of its Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership Program. He is author of American Judaism: A History, winner of the Jewish Book Council’s Jewish Book of the Year Award in 2004. Contact 781-736-2977, sarna@brandeis.edu.
  • Sylvia Barack Fishman is a professor of contemporary Jewish life in the Near Eastern and Judaic studies department at Brandeis University and co-director of the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute. Barack Fishman is the author of The Way Into the Varieties of Jewishness, which surveys the diverse Jewish movements throughout history. Contact 781-736-2065, fishman@brandeis.edu.
  • Marc H. Ellis is director of the Center for Jewish Studies at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. He wrote Practicing Exile: The Religious Odyssey of an American Jew. Contact 254-710-1510, Marc_Ellis@baylor.edu.
  • Norma Baumel Joseph is an associate professor of religion at Concordia University in Montreal. She writes about the experience of women in Orthodox Judaism. Contact 514-848-2424 ext. 2066, nojo@vax2.concordia.ca.
  • Eliezer Segal is a professor of religious studies at the University of Calgary. He has a Web page explaining the “Varieties of Orthodox Judaism.” The page sets out the many branches of the movement. Contact eliezer.segal@ucalgary.ca.
  • Lynn Davidman is a professor of Judaic studies at Brown University in Providence, R.I. She writes about the experiences of Jews who become Orthodox and those who leave. Contact 401-863-7564, Lynn_Davidman@Brown.EDU.
  • David A. Harris is executive director of the American Jewish Committee, a nonpartisan organization that conducts an annual survey of American Jews. Contact Kenneth Bandler at 212-891-6771, bandlerk@ajc.org; or Michael Geller at 212-891-1385, gellerm@ajc.org.
  • Lorraine Blass of the United Jewish Federation in New York served as project manager of the National Jewish Population Survey. Contact 212-284-6738, lorraine.blass@ujc.org.
  • Jack Wertheimer is provost and the Joseph and Martha Mendelson Professor of American Jewish History at New York’s Jewish Theological Seminary, the leading seminary of Conservative Judaism. He is the author of A People Divided: Judaism in Contemporary America, and he wrote an April 2005 monograph for the American Jewish Committee titled “All Quiet on the Religious Front? Jewish Unity, Denominationalism and Postdenominationalism in the United States.” Contact 212-678-8065.
  • Samuel G. Freedman is an author, a journalism professor at Columbia University and a highly regarded writer on Jewish life. He wrote the book Jew vs. Jew: The Struggle for the Soul of American Jewry. Contact press@samuelfreedman.com or sgf1@columbia.edu.
  • Deborah Dash Moore is director of The Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan. She specializes in 20th-century Jewish urban history. Contact 734-763-9047, ddmoore@umich.edu.
  • Daniel Frank is director of the Judaic studies program at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. Contact 859-257-7749, dfrank@uky.edu.
  • Tamar Ross is a professor of Jewish philosophy at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel. She writes about Orthodoxy and feminism. Contact 011-972 02 532 2857, ross@mail.biu.ac.il.

Leading Orthodox institutions

  • Yeshiva University, based in Manhattan, is the flagship school of higher education in Orthodox Judaism in the United States. Yeshiva is identified with the Modern Orthodox movement.
  • The main synagogue organization of Modern Orthodox Judaism is the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, known as the Orthodox Union or the “OU.” One page allows users to search for Orthodox synagogues by state. The rabbinical counterpart is the Rabbinical Council of America.
  • Chabad Lubavitch is probably the best-known of the many ultra-Orthodox Jewish groups, mainly because it rejects the insularity of most Haredi in favor of a vigorous outreach to non-Orthodox Jews. A Web page allows users to search for Chabad centers in cities or on campuses.
  • Agudath Israel of America is a traditional Orthodox group whose roots go back to 1912 in what is now Poland.
  • Edah is a movement of Modern Orthodox who seek greater openness to the world than traditional Orthodox. Edah was founded in 1997 and ceased formal operations in 2006, but its Web site continues to post useful contacts and information.

Background

  • The Association for the Social Scientific Study of Jewry describes itself as “a cross-disciplinary organization of individuals whose research concerns the Jewish people throughout the world.” The association is a valuable resource for experts and the latest research.
  • Eliezer Segal, a professor of religious studies at the University of Calgary, has a Web page explaining the “Varieties of Orthodox Judaism.” The page sets out the many branches of the movement.

SURVEYS

  • The National Jewish Population Survey is the most prominent canvas of the Jewish community. The survey is conducted almost every 10 years. The most recent one, which was delayed by controversy over methodology and how to determine who qualifies as Jewish, was conducted in 2000-01.
  • The survey showed that from 1990 to 2000, the percentage of America Jews identifying as Orthodox appeared to increase from nearly 7 percent to 10 percent. Moreover, the survey noted the lower median age of Orthodox Jews and concluded that “If Orthodoxy is able to retain these younger members as they become adults, the denomination is likely to grow in the future, both in absolute numbers as well as relative to other Jewish denominations.” Later, the researchers wrote: “Orthodoxy, which for much of the past fifty years had experienced numerical declines, seems to have stabilized as a denominational preference and appears demographically poised for future growth.” The survey showed lower rates of switching out among Orthodox, and a much higher rate of synagogue membership.
  • The NJPS also showed that although the Orthodox influence is felt nationally, Orthodox Jews are concentrated in urban Northeast areas to a greater degree than other Jews. Moreover, the 15 percent of all Jews who live in small communities scattered around the United States tend to be less observant and less likely to be Orthodox.
  • Not all researchers agree with the NJPS findings. A study from the Steinhardt Social Research Institute at Brandeis University titled “Reconsidering the Size and Characteristics of the American Jewish Population: New Estimates of a Larger and More Diverse Community,” offers different views.
  • Also, the North American Jewish Data Bank has links to the NJPS and several other studies, some of which provide different figures for the overall Jewish population. In addition, the Jewish Data Bank has read-only views of pages from the American Jewish Year Book that provide local, state and regional Jewish population figures.

POLITICS

  • An analysis of the 2004 Jewish vote by the Washington-based Solomon Project shows that while American Jews continued to support Democrats by a wide margin (78-22 for John Kerry over George W. Bush), more religiously observant Jews nearly split their vote between Democrats and the GOP. And there are indications that Republicans in fact won the Orthodox community’s vote in 2004.
  • Read an Aug. 3, 2006, Washington Post story on the growing receptiveness of Orthodox Judaism to Republican politics.

ARTICLES

Regional sources

IN THE NORTHEAST

  • Alan M. Dershowitz is Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. He wrote The Vanishing American Jew: In Search of Jewish Identity for the Next Century. Contact 617-495-4617, dersh@law.harvard.edu.
  • Barry A. Kosmin is director of the Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture at the Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn. He co-wrote The Next Generation: Jewish Children and Adolescents. Contact 860-297-2353, Barry.Kosmin@trincoll.edu.
  • Karla Goldman is a historian in residence at the Jewish Women’s Archive in Brookline, Mass. She is an expert on how women have shaped American Judaism. Contact 502-852-6817, kgoldman@jwa.org.
  • Noah Feldman is a law professor at Harvard University and adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He wrote a July 22, 2007, essay in The New York Times Magazine (subscription required) titled “Orthodox Paradox,” about his drift away from the Orthodox Judaism of his youth. Contact 617-495-9140, nfeldman@law.harvard.edu.

IN THE EAST

  • Rabbi Shmuley Boteach is an Orthodox rabbi from Englewood, N.J., who has become a nationally known figure through his writings and television appearances. Boteach (pronounced boh-TAY-ock) offers family and personal advice based in traditional Jewish wisdom. He hosts The Learning Channel program “Shalom in the Home” and became popular through his book Kosher Sex: A Recipe for Passion and Intimacy. Contact Boteach through his Web site.
  • Robert M. Seltzer is a history professor at Hunter College, City University of New York. He has written books on the Jewish experience in America, including Toward the 21st Century: Is There a Modern Judaism? Contact 212-772-5490, rseltzer@hunter.cuny.edu.
  • Jacob Neusner is Research Professor of Religion and Theology at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y., and one of the leading scholars of Judaism in America. Contact 845-758-7389, neusner@bard.edu.

IN THE SOUTHEAST

  • Ira Sheskin is a specialist in Jewish demographics at the University of Miami, where he is a fellow at the Sue and Leonard Miller Center for Contemporary Judaic Studies. Sheskin was a consultant on the NJPS study. Contact 305-284-6693, isheskin@miami.edu.
  • Vanessa L. Ochs is director of Jewish studies at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. Ochs writes about Jewish sacred traditions and spiritual practices. Contact 434-924-6722, vlo4n@virginia.edu.
  • Melvin Konner is a professor of anthropology, human biology and Jewish studies at Emory University, and author of Unsettled: An Anthropology of the Jews, about the history of Jewish culture. Contact 404-727-4195, antmk@emory.edu.
  • David R. Blumenthal is a professor of Judaic studies at Emory University in Atlanta. He is an expert on Jewish mysticism and spirituality. Contact 404-727-7545, reldrb@emory.edu.

IN THE SOUTH

  • Jay Geller is an assistant professor of modern Jewish culture at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. He argues that the next generation of American Jews must expand its sense of identity. Contact 615-353-3968, jay.geller@vanderbilt.edu.
  • Lee Shai Weissbach is a history professor at the University of Louisville in Kentucky. He is an expert on small-town Jewish life in America, especially in the South, where surveys show traditional observance tends to be lower than in other areas. Contact 502-852-6817, weissbach@louisville.edu.
  • Steven Leonard Jacobs holds the Aaron Aronov Chair of Judaic Studies at the University of Alabama in Birmingham. Contact 205-348-0473, sjacobs@bama.ua.edu.

IN THE MIDWEST

  • Anthony Michels is an associate professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he teaches a course called “The American Jewish Experience: From Shtetl to Suburb.” Contact 608-265-2521, aemichels@wisc.edu.
  • Byron L. Sherwin is a professor of Jewish studies at the Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies in Chicago. Contact 312-322-1769.
  • Michael Fishbane is a professor of Jewish studies at the University of Chicago. His research specialties are Jewish mysticism and modern Jewish thought. Contact 773-702-8234, mfishban@midway.uchicago.edu.

IN THE SOUTHWEST

  • Gregory Kaplan is the Anna Smith Fine Assistant Professor of Judaic Studies at Rice University in Houston. He is an expert on modern Judaism. Contact 713-348-2778, gkaplan@rice.edu.
  • Richard Golden is director of the Jewish Studies Program at the University of North Texas in Denton. Contact 940-369-8933, rmg@unt.edu.
  • Adam Zachary Newton is interim director of Jewish studies at the University of Texas at Austin. He is an expert on modern Jewish thought. Contact 512-471-8532, adam.zach@mail.utexas.edu.

IN THE WEST/NORTHWEST

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