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Back to the Future with Jonathan Sarna

August 13, 2009 at 6:41 pm | In beliefs, culture, dating and marriage, economics, education, israel, orthodox, politics | Leave a Comment

The more I read of Jonathan Sarna, the more impressed I am with him personally, but the more I fear for institutional Judaism. Sarna is intelligent, considered, insightful and articulate, but he’s also an historian, and my feeling is that movements led by historians and sociologists rather than activists and entrepreneurs are already moving into their exhibit space at the museum.

I bring this up to comment on Sarna’s recent article in Reform Judaism Online, published by the URJ. Sarna has some thoughts to share looking backwards, and a few predictions for the future Judaism, inlcuding:

In the past, economic crises have caused American Judaism to turn inward and away from Israel and its troubles. It has also gutted educational spending, with terrible consequence.
Jewish institutional life tends to benefit from expansions in government services and social safety nets, as these free up significant funds and manpower for Jewish charities and social service organizations.
Expect to see lots of Jewish organizations go under, particularly in the hard-hit Orthodox sector, as we finally learn whose been swimming naked as the tide goes out. Mergers between Jewish instutions will increase, as will mergers between Jewish and non-Jewish institutions.

He’s got quite a few others, but I particularly want to focus on Dr. Sarna’s prediction that, as in the 1930s, American Judaism will turn inwards, and disengage to some extent with Israel. As evidence, Sarna cites the fact that fewer Jews are attending summer-long or semester-long programs in Israel.

My main objection to that piece of evidence is that it discounts Birthright Israel, which has sent over 200,000 Jews to Israel over the last decade. Much of the decline in summer and semester programs in Israel can be attributed to the fact that participants in those trips are ineligible for a Birthright tour, and many high-school students in particular have declined to go to Israel with their youth movements, synagogues, or schools precisely because they prefer to go on Birthright for free.

In any case, Sarna also points out that entirely endogamous Jewish couples are outnumbered nearly 2-to-1 by intermarried couples. If roughly 50 out of 100 Jews marry other Jews, you get 25 endogamous couples. That leaves another 50 Jews marrying 50 non-Jews, and thus you get that 2-to-1 ratio that is simply astonishing. Judaism in America has already been redefined on the ground, and we’re still left sorting out exactly what that might mean.

Netilat Yadayim Redux

July 28, 2009 at 7:30 am | In culture, halacha, orthodox | 5 Comments

A little while back, I was invited to guest post on DovBear. I wrote about how Orthodox Judaism has emphasized the ritual and symbolic value of its practices at the expense of the concrete and pragmatic values of those practices. One example I used was Netila Yadayim, ritual hand-washing. Netilat Yadayim has significance connected to ritual purity, but it is also undeniably part of a rich Jewish tradition of cleanliness. In my own personal practice I’ve sought to reclaim the practical value of cleaning my hands prior to eating, and also raising that value to the level of religious virtue by washing my hands with soap and water, and then rinsing with a traditional pitcher of water poured ritualistically over my hands.

Introspective Hareidi, a commenter helped, albeit unwittingly, illustrate my point. He noted that my practic,e of Netilat Yadayim might well lead me to saying an invalid blessing (bracha l’vatalah) because if there was still soap on my hands when I rinsed them, that soap would act as a block (chatzitza) between my hands and the water, thus invalidating my hand-washing and turning my blessing into an act of taking God’s name in vain. I’ll admit to having a pretty good laugh when I read the comment. How absurd! This guy was worried about the soap, but evidently, he had no concern about the dirt that the soap was washing away!

According to the halacha, Netilat Yadayim must be performed with hands that are already clean, precisely because dirt on the hands will block the water and invalidate the ritual efficacy of the hand-washing. But if you position yourself to observe people doing Netilat Yadayim, almost none of them pre-wash with soap. Culture trumps law, as usual.

I bring all this up because my engagement with Netilat Yadayim has been a really fascinating journey. I grew up with Netilat Yadayim being part of the Shabbat. I knew that it was something you were supposed to do at every meal with bread, but practically, it was a Shabbat thing. Having chosen to take it on as an adult for both its ritual and practical sides, I finally found myself meaningfully engaged in religion in a way that has been absent from my life for a long time.

The reason behind my new commitment to Netilat Yadayim was precisely because it was both ritual and purposeful. But in order for it to be purposeful, it needed to include soap. And that meant that the whole shape of the ritual was up for grabs. For a while I experimented with different approaches, before finally settling on a practice. Along the way, I puzzled over why we recite the blessing for Netilat Yadayim after we perform the act, and also tried on for size eliminating the entire ritual rinse in favor of just a good old-fashioned washing your hands with soap. This exploration alone was a tremendously rich experience.

The richest part of the experience, however, was not around the specifics of the practice. It was about the commitment to the practice. Sometimes I would forget to wash my hands, and remember only in mid-meal. Even though my hands were basically clean, I felt a pull to wash them, a pull I largely honored. Other times, I would be about to start a meal shortly after washing my hands for some other purpose, like if I had recently been to the restroom. My hands were clean, so did I need to wash them again? I didn’t really think so, but I often did, simply to retain the habit. In the few weeks since I adopted the practice, I felt like I was going through thousands of years of Jewish ritual evolution aimed at meeting my commitment both to ritual and to the practical value of having clean hands.

I’m certain that most Orthodox Jews reading this will shake their heads, perhaps in amusement, and perhaps in disdain. I don’t begrudge them those reactions. I just wish that on some level, they will also nod their heads in recognition. The struggle around religious practice is dignified by human initiative. My choices felt meaningful, powerful, and sometimes, when everything balanced out just right, they even felt holy. That’s an experience that I’ve rarely felt in the Orthodox world, and I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling that absence.

Dealing with Dweck

July 26, 2009 at 2:54 pm | In culture, economics, ethics, halacha, jewish denominations, jewish ethics, orthodox, politics | 4 Comments

I’m not really a current events blogger, but the corruption scandal in NJ raises some interesting questions around a topic I am very interested in: the relationship between the US government and the American Jewish community.

Lots of websites and commenters have been throwing around the term moser to describe Solomon Dweck, the FBI informant who cooperated with authorities to help implicate rabbis, politicians and other notables in the recent sting. A moser, according to traditional halacha, is a Jew who delivers other Jews into the hands of secular authorities. The sin of mesirah is a grave one, and the violator is considered worthy of being killed, even in an extrajudicial manner (as in, vigilante justice). It makes no difference whether those being informed against are innocent or guilty, by the way. The law prohibits turning Jews over to non-Jewish authorities even if these Jews are despicably evil.

It’s easy to understand how Maimonides, for example, who writes in such terms about a moser, might feel so strongly. Whether living in Christian Spain or Muslim Egypt in the 12th and 13th centuries, little could be expected by way of justice, fairness, or humane treatment by the prevailing governments and legal systems. Some would argue that the Dreyfuss Affair, the trial and convictions of Julius and (especially) Ethel Rosenberg, and Jonathan Pollard suggest that modern democracies and even American democracy don’t have a much better track record. The point, though clearly an overreaching, is well-taken.

In the modern world, where does this leave us? We know that child-molestors like Baruch Lanner and Yehuda Kolko were left free to ruin more lives and abuse more innocent victims precisely because rabbis in the Orthodox community refused to turn them into secular authorities. These same rabbis also lacked the tools and powers to prevent these men from committing further abuses.

Omerta may be appropriate when secular authorities are capricious at best and violently cruel and antagonistic at worst. Faced with such an enemy, the Jewish community must be secretive, protective, and devious. Yakov deals with Lavan, just such an enemy, b’mirmah, deceitfully. Trust, honesty, and openness must be mutual to be meaningful.

However, in the United States, where Jews live with a government that they too elect, and in a nation that is unprecedented in history for its embrace of Judaism, Jewish culture, and Jewish leadership, this culture of silence is a corrosive and corrupting influence, particularly when silence is coupled with zero enforceability. Instead of protecting us from an exploitative and dangerous authority, it actually endangers us further, because it encourages corruption, extortion, bribery, and a general disrespect and abuse of the system of laws and justice that protect all of us.

If our communities are built on corruption, we encourage hatred of Judaism by Jews and non-Jews alike. How many Jews felt a sense of revulsion upon hearing this latest sordid story? The Syrian community feels betrayed and slandered. The Orthodox community at large feels a pit in its stomach, particularly as this is the period of the Nine Days, a particularly tragic and mournful time in Jewish history. And the broad family of Jews is sickened as well by yet another story of financial malfeasance that seems to confirm all the worst hatreds and stereotypes still held by some non-Jews, even in this, the fairest of nations.

The answer is a difficult one. If we hold fast with the prohibition of mesirah than we, as a community, are the true criminals, for failing to police ourselves, and for allowing this evil to take root in our midst. Alternatively, we can turn over the powers of investigation and enforcement to the State, and lose some of our dignity, identity and uniqueness in the process. What is for sure is that this is not an isolated incident, and that a culture of corruption and contempt for government and for Gentiles is thriving, particularly in some Orthodox communities. We need to address the moral and economic causes underlying this immediately, lest we breed a new generation of anti-Semites, and lest we fail to treat our fellow American with the full measure of justice and fairness that he surely deserves.

The Gap Between Hareidim and Modern Orthodox

July 24, 2009 at 8:40 am | In beliefs, ethics, halacha, israel, jewish denominations, orthodox | 3 Comments

In XGH’s most recent post, How to stop Chareidim breaking the law, the suggestion was to emphasize Kiddush Hashem/Chillul Hasehm (sanctification/desecration of God’s name, usually through public conduct) and its implications for practical conduct in the public square.

While I agree with the sentiment of the post, I think it misses a fundamental point.

There is a 3,000-year old debate in Judaism as to whether human initiative and human judgment is of value.

One position is that God has laid out for us the manner in which we should act, and that the human challenge is to submit to that, to yoke ourselves to that path, and to blind ourselves from anything that might lead us astray. This is the path adopted by Hareidim today.

The other position is that we have been granted a Divine gift of judgment and decision-making, and that we must use those faculties to choose a proper path through an ever-changing world. This is the Modern Orthodox (MO) position.

When the MO look at the Hareidi world, they level a critique based on observed facts. How can it be, they say, that you are following the Divine path, if your real-world outcomes are so poor? Your institutions are built on corruption and theft, your youth are delinquent, uneducated, and filthy, and your communities rally behind th emsot odious villains and act out violently as thier only means of expression. Surely this can’t be God’s will!

In turn, when Hareidim look at the MO, they don’t look so much on the facts on the ground as much as the influences. If you, the MO, want to believe your judgment is sanctified and in line with the Divine will, you must purify yourselves. If you were influenced only by Torah and expressed excellent character traits, perhaps we could believe in your judgment. But instead, your homes have televisions and internet showing obscene images and abhorrent culture. Your children grow up knowing more rock songs by heart than mishnayot, idolizing movie stars instead of Gedolim, and wasting their time on Harry Potter instead of Halacha.

I’m not sure how to bridge this gap, but I do know that the first step towards bridging it is understanding it. This is an ancient Machloket. It’s the same as the argument over whether the world was created in Tishrei or in Nisan. It’s the same as the argument over whether God performing miracles on your behalf is a good reflection on your or a bad reflection on you. It’s the same as the argument over whether we should start the Haggadah with the story of our slavery in Egypt or our idolatrous roots in Mesopotamia. And this isn’t something we’re going to easily resolve.

Conversions in Controversy: The Orthodox Patrilineal Descent

June 28, 2009 at 9:51 pm | In beliefs, dating and marriage, halacha, jewish denominations, orthodox | 6 Comments

By now you’ve all heard about Hareidi Rabbi Avraham Sherman, who heads Israel’s High Rabbinical court, and his ongoing retroactive nullifications of conversions to Judaism. This story has been building for some time, as the Hareidi establishment in Israel, which has long controlled the rabbinic arm of the government, has sought to monopolize power over the definition of who is a Jew.

There are excellent political and religious reasons for them to do so, of course. The question of who is a Jew defines who may claim the right to citizenship in Israel through the Law of Return, and with that citizenship, the basket of Aliyah benefits. From the Hareidi perspective, limiting aliyah only to Hareidi Jews, or at least Orthodox Jews, means that all the money flows to them, and that no money is spent on Russian immigrants, South American converts, or people converted by non-Orthodox clergy.

Many are rightfully tearing their hair out over the potential confusion that retroactive nullification of conversion creates. The Wolf, for example, wonders if uncertainty over conversions will lead to converts being unreliable for any kind of religious obligation, from testimony to minyan. He further speculates in a later post:

And how about things that have long-reaching consequences? What if you use a convert as a witness to your wedding? Or even worse, what if a convert serves on a bais din (or is a witness) to a divorce? Can you imagine the halachic nightmare that would result from a witness (or judge) on a divorce case (or multiple cases) being found to be not Jewish retroactively, throwing all those divorcees, their new spouses and children (and grandchildren) into some halachic purgatory from which they and their descendants may never escape? What about a convert who sits on a bais din for other conversions — you could have multiple “generations” of invalidated conversions, each wreaking havoc on countless individuals and society as a whole. And, don’t forget, this doesn’t go just for the convert, but for any descendant of a female convert as well!

I believe that this path leads to both a cleavage between Hareidi Judaism and the rest of us, but also to the complete abandonment of Judaism as a hereditary status. By performing these retroactive nullifications, Hareidi Judaism is casting into doubt conversions done by otherwise-respected institutions of MOdern Orthodoxy, like the RCA. As such, the RCA will eventually be forced to reject Hareidi hegemony over them, and will have to work against Hareidi authority over the Israeli Rabbinate. They already are in alliance with the Religious Zionists on this issue, but they will need to work with the Masroti movement and even the Reform movement to rewrite the rules. For all that, they may not even be successful.

What will be true is that between intermarriage, patrilineal descent, and Hareidi conversion nullification, the question of who is a Jew and who is not will have many answers and no clarity of any kind. For many, the only pragmatic way of dealing with this reality is to rely on people and their self-identifications. Sure, when it comes to weddings some people might ask for a bit more background on a person’s Jewish provenance, but for the gabbai at a shul, the question of Kohen, Levi, or Yisrael will remain the standard by which Judaism is defined in the day-to-day. Whether this is good for Judaism or not I don’t know, but it does represent another stage in our evolution away from a tribal religion and towards something much greater, but also more diffuse.

Looking for the Middle

June 28, 2009 at 10:37 am | In beliefs, jewish denominations, orthodox | 1 Comment

I recently saw a post from YD about the search for a middle path between Yeshivish Orthodoxy and Modern Orthodoxy. It was actually the second post in a series, and the first post goes into even greater depth about his feeling that YU is too far over to the right:

Which brings me to YU. I found there to be very little guidance from the Rebbeim in Yeshiva University. Many of them only come in for a few hours, just to give shiur, and leave. Very little is heard from the Rebbeim besides the Torah they teach [...] every once in a while there was a speech about a meaningful topic like dating or something, but this was never followed by a “meet with the rebbe and discuss your issues personally” session. In short, one could easily get the impression there that Talmud Torah is the only important value.

What’s funny about the whole thing is that YCT, which presents itself as left of YU, is seen as too far left. But in the left wing of the MO world, YCT is not left enough, particularly on gender issues. In the meantime, those same folks see Hadar, the right wing of the Conservative world, as too far left.

It appears to me that what we’re actually seeing across the denominations and beyond them, is a supreme dissatisfaction with the status quo. When the people of the United States elected Barack Obama, analysts explained that this was a a ‘change’ election. They were right, but they didn’t say enough. I believe we’re in a moment of tremendous change. I think that in the last few years we have seen the beginning of tremendous challenges to the status quo, and that we will continue to see challenge and change in more and more areas of of our lives.

Nearly all of our institutions are at all-time lows when it comes to approval ratings. This is true of political, religious, business, and even civic institutions. We appear to have reached a tipping point that is birthing new institutions and placing terrific pressure on our existing ones to reform. And at the heart of all this cry for change is a desire for greater openness and unity, a focus on pragmatism over ideology, and an unwillingness to fight the same fights over and over again.

These principles inform the broad river that is coursing through our institutions, and we don’t know how it will turn out. The entrenched forces seeking to maintain the status quo are powerful, well-organized, and willing to go far for their beliefs. We have already seen what this conflict looks like when that river threatens to overflow the levees. We’ve seen brutality and murder of peaceful protesters in Iran, we’ve seen violently rioting Hareidim clashing with police in Jerusalem, and we’ve seen the giants of the automotive industry totter and topple into a feeding frenzy of special interests. We don’t know yet how it’s all going to turn out, but make no mistake, change is coming, change is here, and we are responsibly, both individually and collectively to harness its force for the better by being more open to one another, more focused on what’s real, and less willing to be derailed by the issues that have divided us in the past.

Fake Solutions to our Tuition Crisis (pt 1)

May 10, 2009 at 12:50 am | In education, orthodox | 2 Comments

The OU has put out a self-serving bit of hogwash trumpeting its vaporous initiative to fix the tuition crisis plaguing the Orthodox community.

In brief, th OU presents a two-prong approach. The first is a cost-cutting and revenue-enhancing strategy for the near term. The cost-cutting elements are saving money by joining together with schools and other groups to obtain insurance as part of a large pool and taking advantage of energy efficient technologies to save more money. The revenue-enhancement comes through hiring grant-writers, encouraging people to use the OU internet toolbar, and setting up ‘Kehilla Funds’ whereby all members of the community donate money towards supporting the schools, even those members who don’t have children.
Let’s look at each aspect of this laughable proposal. Let’s say that the insurance savings are $100k per school, and the energy savings are another $100k – both well above estimate. The cost-cutting measures, estimated high, in a school of 500 students, lead to a savings of $400 per student, assuming all the savings go directly to lowering tuition, and average tuition, per the post, is $15k, you’ve now lowered tuition by a whopping 2.67%. Wow, that’s totally a “radical impact in terms of savings.” What nonsense.

As for the revenue-enhancing meaures, grant-writing is great, but if Jewish philanthropy in general is suffering, I don’t see how it helps that much. It’s just more organizations competing for a shrinking pool of money. To put things in perspective, every $500,000 raised can reduce tuition no more than $1,000, assuming 500 students per school. Even if every school raised another $500k through grants, we’d still have an enormous problem, and there’s no reason to believe that there’s $500k per school available to be raised, no matter how many grant-writers you hire.

As to the OU toolbar, that’s the biggest scam of all. Yes, a small handful of very broad-based organizations have used them successfully. Our community isn’t going to benefit that much, since we’re just not big enough. Moreover, it seems like the OU will suddenly become a grant-making org, channeling whatever money is raised to whichever school it likes. No details are provided about how the OU intends to make those decisions. And anyone who believes that you can make those kinds of funding decisions without spending quite a bit of money to create and support that decision-making apparatus doesn’t know anything about economics, or about philanthropy. This is nothing other than a thinly-disguised effort by the OU to squat on a source of revenue.

The last idea, of Kehilla Funds, doesn’t hold up either. In the Jewish world, the number of families with kids in school easily dwarfs those without. Those with kids are already paying, so know we’re dealing with just those without kids. Let’s say that out of 1000 Jewish families in a neighborhood there are 250 with no kids in school. Let’s say they all give the $360/year that the OU proposes = $90,000. Let’s say that the remaining 750 families average three kids in school at $15k/child. That’s a total tuition cost of over $33 million! The $90k we just raised into the ‘Kehilla’ fund doesn’t make a damn bit of difference.

Tomorrow we’ll look at part 2, in which the OU tries to take credit for a grassroots community initiative. Stay tuned.

Changes Coming in Orthodox Education Options?

May 2, 2009 at 9:02 pm | In economics, education, israel, orthodox | Leave a Comment

An interesting article in the Jewish Standard suggests that parents are ready to explore new options for what a Modern Orthodox school could look like. As the tuition crisis overshadows the shidduch crisis, I’m finding myself more and more irritated by the total lack of vision and perspective displayed by both parents and leadership.

I attended Netiv Meir, a premiere yeshiva high school in Jerusalem, where most students dormed. The school was widely acknowledged as perhaps the best religious high schools, and one of the best high schools, period, in Israel.

Let me tell you a bit about my school. Our day began with davening at 7 am, and we finished our last class at about 6pm. Following davening and dinner we had night seder and study hall. We didn’t free up until 9pm Sunday through Thursday. Fridays were a half-day, and we stayed in every other Shabbat too. The school had about 500 students in four grades, and served three meals a day and maintained four dormitory buildings.

The key difference between this excellent school and American MO schools was the student-to-teacher ratio, and the approach to extracurriculars. In Netiv Meir, there were forty students to a class. That’s right, forty. In the article above, they talk about going from an 18:1 ratio at the expensive schools to a 25:1 ratio at a proposed cheaper school. Yet my school achieved academic excellence with a 40:1 ratio.

As for extracurriculars, there basically weren’t any. There were no athletic teams or choirs or anything of the sort. Anyway, who had the time? We spent as many as six hours a day learning Torah. Night seder was the extracurricular activity! Physical education was not neglected by any means – this school was training future soldiers in the IDF, and our gym classes involved reaching certain requirements for distance running, pushups, situps, and pullups.

We played sports in our free time, but not in organized leagues. There were no debate teams, but we did study three languages (Hebrew, English and Arabic – and Aramaic, I suppose), and everyone learned biology, chemisty, physics, algebra, geomety, trigonometry and calculus. We learned computer programming (on old computers perhaps, but we gained real knowledge), history, Tanach, literature and so on.

No class had a teacher’s aid. Most classes didn’t use fancy textbooks. Yet the graduates of this school knew more math, science, and Torah in 10th grade than any graduate of the MO instutions in New York like HAFTR, DRS, Flatbush, Ramaz, TABC, Frisch, and SAR.

We need to recalibrate our expectations and our sense of what is possible if we are going to create an exceptional and sustainable edcuational model for our communities. We need to questions orthodoxies like the idea that student-to-teacher ratios are critical, or that extracurriculars are required if our children arte going to get into good colleges, or that it’s ok for our kids to graduate high school without being fluent in Hebrew, and without being capable of learning a daf of Gemara on their own. We might also do well to acknowledge that day care, school, and summer camp are all related to the same need to educate our kids, socialize them, and free Mom and Dad to earn a living and maintain a household.

I’ve written a bit about possible alternative models for Jewish education on this blog. I fear I might not have been bold enough myself in proposing solutions but perhaps I was succesful in laying out some tradeoffs. What other fresh ideas are out there?

Alternative Models for Jewish Education

March 12, 2009 at 10:03 pm | In culture, education, jewish denominations, orthodox, politics | 12 Comments

I’ve been reading a lot of posts about Jewish education, often in the context of the economic difficulties we are currently in. I’d like to just sketch a few alternative models for Jewish education that may be more sustainable than what we’ve got now.

Model 1:

Existing day schools slash costs and give a bare-bones offering. No extra-curriculars (or pay-as-you-go), no AP classes, and a scaled-back Judaics curriculum. High schools run for only three years and graduate students per the minimum state standards (like a NY Regents diploma). Access to education is increased, and quality instruction will still be available, but less will be taught. Students who want to get into top colleges will need to go elsewhere.

Model 2:

Community schools. For this to work, all denominations need to pull together to make the schools attractive to all. Secular studies will benefit from economies of scale, and facilities and overhead costs will be significantly reduced. Judaic studies can be offered on different tracks, so that parents can still have their children study the brand of Judaism they subscribe to. The big obstacle here is aprticipation of the Orthodox, most of whom would not send their children to a co-educational school, or to a school where they might be exposed to ‘heterodox’ children and influences.

Model 3:

Public schooling/Charter school followed by Talmud Torah/Hebrew School. Though this model can be economically affordable, it suffers two major flaws. For the Orthodox, sending your kdis to public school is the only thing worse than sending them to a community day school. For the non-Orthodox, Hebrew schools are usually a 4-6 hours/week commitment. Kids very quickly get the message that Hebrew School isn’t important. Little of educational value ends up being achieved, which only confirms that the exercise is not valuable.

Model 4:

Home-schooling networks. These are great ideas, especially for small communities, but I can’t imagine how these would scale up to meet the needs of large Jewish communites. That said, their existence will particularly benefit the Orthodox, for whom home-schooling wouldn’t carry mcuh of a stigma.

As for me, I would like to see Model 2, the community schools, become the dominant model. Enough already with all of our separate institutions and insistence on ideological purity. Teaching our kids together is the surest and swiftest path towards greater Jewish unity, appreciation of Jewish diversity, and flowering community.

Speculation on the Future of Orthodoxy

February 22, 2009 at 5:46 pm | In culture, economics, education, jewish denominations, orthodox | 8 Comments

The Orthodox community of the last few decades has seen itself as a community on the rise. The growth in numbers of adherents, the large families, and the explosion in the numbers of synagogues and schools attest to that rise, and feed into the phenomenon of Orthodx triumphalism that I personally find upsetting. Some, like Rabbi Harry Maryles at Emes V’Emunah, believe that this growth, and its concommitant rightward motion, will lead to a Hareidi future for Judaism.

As the market has taught us though, past results are no guarantee of future performance. And it is the market’s recent performance that makes me speculate on the future of Orthodoxy.

Dr. Jonathan Sarna, writing about this topic from the perspective of Jewish philanthropy, has identified a few trends that bode ill for the Orthodox community.

In most economic downturns, it is the weakest companies and institutions that take the biggest hits. Sarna points out that the Orthodox community faces a double-whammy. Not only are the Orthodox disproportionately emplyed in the banking and financial sectors that ahve been hardest-hit in this downturn, but Orthodox institutions are also the most vulnerable financially. On top of this, the Orthodox use two very expensive classes of institutions very heavily: synagogues and schools.

Based on the above, we might predict a few things. First, educational expenses will continue to rise, and many schools will be forced to close. Some Orthodox Jews will surely yank on the escape cord and make Aliyah. Others will be forced to consider other educational options for their children. Despite all the news about vouchers and charter schools, at this time, public school is the only real alternative.

The effects of this will be felt broadly. As Rabbi Maryles correctly points out, the Hareidi domination of Orthodox education has been a key factor in the general rightward tilt of Orthodoxy. But with fewer students attending these schools, and a lesser demand for teachers in Orthodox schools from right to left, the Hareidi economic system will come under even more pressure. Orthodox institutions, particularly those providing social services, will also be under tremendous strain, and some will surely fold. Organizations that provide what one might call ’shadow’ care – that is, services that are already avaiable through the government (eg Hatzalah ambulance service) or through non-Orthodox organizations will see their support dry up as critical charitable services receive top priority from stretched donors.

Taken together with the already-precarious economic structure that Orthodoxy rests upon, and what we have is the makings of a severe decline for Orthodoxy. Some will push further right, embrace lives of faith, poverty and subsistence on government programs. More will enter the workforce. As more Orthodox children attend public educational institutions, demand will rise for supplementary education that can help students navigate their more socially integrated lives. As an educator, I would guess that those precious hours in after-school programs will not be spent on learning how to decode the Talmud. Instead, the currciulum will focus on Jewish identity in a plural society.

All this may well be a boon to Orthodoxy, American Judaism, and American society as a whole. It will certainly erase many denominational lines, as Jews from across the denominational spectrum will all be faced with the same essential challenge of how to maintain a Jewish idenity and grow a vibrant Jewish culture without the help of ghetto walls. But it will be a difficult blow to the Orthodox community of today, and to many of its finest institutions.