The nation's Orthodox communities vary according to how

much they mesh with contemporary society.

n allegory has been passed around the In-
ternet lately that goes something like this:
the Mashiach (Messiah) came to earth,
but nobody believed his identity.
The problem was that members of
every synagogue he visited required
him to wear a different head cov-
ering.
One advocated a colorful, knit-
ted kippah, while another preferred a black skullcap. Still
another encouraged him to don a black hat atop his head.
"I'm the Mashiach!" he cried, as he began to enter, but
the Jews wanted to know first if he was left, right or cen-
ter. Not accepted by any observant community, Mashiach
walked out and said: "I guess my time hasn't come. I'll
just have to return to where I came from."
While America's Orthodox are linked by a strict ad-
herence to Jewish law, or Halachah, many accept dif-
ferent interpretations. Observant Jews depart on specific
ideology: whether to recognize the political state of Israel;
cf) how much to include women in observance; views of and
Lii cooperation with the secular world; and whether to part-
ner with the organized Jewish community.
m Jewish scholars acknowledge a national move to the
c.r) right, both politically and religiously, in recent years.
—
Lu Changes in Orthodox Judaism mirror that trend, they
say.
Rabbi Norman Lamm, rosh yeshiva of Yeshiva Uni-
-
0
cc versity in New York, the bastion of modern Jewish thought
L, in America, discarded the term "modern" and coined a
° new one, "centrist." Rabbi Irving "Yitz" Greenberg, who
used to be considered a leader of "modern" ideology but
1— for at least a decade has been deemed outside the pale by
peers (because of his extremely liberal interpretations
of Halachah), says Y.U.'s shift from "modern" to "centrist"
is part of a trend.

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PH OTO BY JANE HWAN G

LYNNE MEREDITH COHN STAFF WRITER

Rabbi Chaim Landau:
"We cannot ignore 50 percent
of the Jewish people — women"

Yeshiva University used to be considered "modern."
But what was considered modern 30 years ago may not
fly today. Now, Rabbi Lamm says, the university is "right
smack in the middle" of the Orthodox spectrum.
Y.U.'s institutional policy is to stay moderate.
"We believe in civility and tolerance and democracy
along with a total commitment to Halachah and the Jew-
ish tradition. We believe that one ought not to accept
modernity uncritically or to reject it mindlessly," Rabbi
Lamm says.
He defines modern as being open to Western civiliza-
tion and culture, the belief "that discourse ought to be
civil," a commitment to the State of Israel and "a belief
that women should be accepted to the maximum allowed
by Halachah and sacred tradition."
At the moment, the majority of Orthodox Jews in Amer-
ica are centrist, he says.
But in the last two decades, the yeshiva world has made
great headway into modern Orthodoxy, says Rabbi Green-
berg, founder of CLAL: the National Jewish Center for
Learning and Leadership, which aims to reach out among
the various Jewish movements.
Dr. Jeffrey S. Gurock, Libby M. Klaperrnan professor
of American Jewish history at Y.U., has spent his ca-
reer researching the social history of American Orthodoxy
over the last century. He says observant Orthodox Jews
fully observe Shabbat, keep kosher in and out of the home
and also affirm modernity in their behavior; they go; to
secular universities and take in as much of American cul-
ture as is allowed within the confines of Jewish law, he
says.
'That group, in recent years, has become more punc-
tilious in their observance of mitzvot. Thirty years ago
within the Young Israel [movement] ... leadership way
practicing Orthodox. And yet, one of the more common
phenomenon in Young Israel synagogues across the coun-

