DE TR O IT JE W ISH N E WS

PHOTO BY JANE HWAN G

Modern . . . Compared To What?

LJ_I

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For a while, Detroit women worshipped together on
Simchat Torah in a davening group, Mrs. Roszler says.
When the group's leader moved away, "it didn't have
enough strength to stand on its own. This community is
really a very slow-moving community; other communi-
ties are much more progressive. It doesn't mean they don't
want it, but there's no push for it."
Rabbi Avi Weiss, co-founder of Me0RoT (Modern Or-
thodox Rabbinic Training Fellowship), housed in his shul,
the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, N.Y., is part of a tri-
umvirate ofleft-leaning leaders — Rabbis Greenberg and
Saul Berman of Stern College included — who believe in
teaching women to lead Torah communities.
Rabbi Weiss recently founded a sister program to
Me0RoT, Torat Miriam, which does not ordain women
as rabbis, but rather holds weekly Torah ses-
sions on ideological issues. The purpose of
both Me0RoT and Torat Miriam is to ex-
pose men and women "to the ideology of
modem Orthodoxy," Rabbi Weiss says.
'We cannot ignore the legitimate re-
ligious aspirations of 50 percent of the
Jewish people, who happen to be
women," says Rabbi Chaim Landau of
Baltimore's Ner Tamid Greenspring
Valley Synagogue. "The role of women
[in shul] has to be enhanced as far as pos-
sible, but still within the parameters of Jew-
ish law."
That can mean special Shabbat services for women, a
bat-mitzvah ceremony and Simchat Torah traditions
where women, in an all-female section, carry the Torah.
At Ner Tamid, most women cover their hair in some way
when they enter the synagogue, but Rabbi Landau says
it is not required.
According to Jewish law, three parts of a woman are
eruva (naked): voice, hair and thigh. Some rabbis inter-

pret that to mean that a married woman's hair should be
covered at all times, either by a sheitel (wig) or hat, that
women cannot sing in front of men and that clothing
should cover the knee.
Around some Orthodox tables, women sing zemirot,
Shabbat songs, along with men; others do not. Citing the
prohibition that women should not wear men's cloth-
ing, some Orthodox women wear only skirts.
On the streets of New York, at least, Y.U.'s Dr. Gurock
sees self-defined mode Orthodox women who wear
pants, and those who don't. Those who wear pants go
by the theory that it is permissible to do so because the
clothing was made specifically for women. He also sees a
mix of modern, married women who cover their hair and
those who don't.
At the Frisch School, an Orthodox co-ed high
school with -500 students in Paramus, N.J.,
girls used to wear pants. But no more, says
Rabbi Saul Zucker, principal of Frisch. This
change is indicative of the fact that "the
world has shifted to the right," he says.
Y.U.'s Dr. Gurock expects in 20 years
to look back on this time and differenti-
ate Jewish thought based on "attitude to-
ward the degree to which women can
participate in the community. One hundred
years ago how you lined up on the question
of Americanization would be a litmus test for
understanding different types of Orthodox rabbis."

M

odem ideology held sway in the United States
until the 1960s, Rabbi Greenberg says. But
that changed first with post-World War II
immigration, which brought in strong ele-
ments of the right-wing yeshiva world, he says.
The teachings of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, revered
as a halachic leader of this century, helped many to strike

a balance between life in America and life as observant
Jews.
"As long as the dominant thrust in American Jewish
life was making it in America, and American criterion
had modernity ... then you might say modern Orthodoxy
was dominant," Rabbi Greenberg says. "In the past 20-
30 years, American Jews began to ask, 'What's the price
of making it in America?' and began to be more ambiva-
lent about it, more critical of contemporary culture."
Centrist/modern Jews often have televisions in their
homes, whereas many haredim do not. But those with
TVs may relegate their viewing to CNN, PBS, Discovery
or the like. And many centrist/modern Jews work hand-
in-hand with local Federations, and with Jews in other
movements, whereas often right-wingers will not.
"Ostracizing the unaffiliated, the assimilated, the in-
termarried does not work," says Rabbi Kenneth Brander
of the Boca Raton Synagogue, whose membership prides
itself on reaching out to the greater community.
The rabbis of Yeshiva University are one moderate
Orthodox power base today, says Rabbi Brander, for-
merly assistant to Rabbi Soloveitchik. He also cites Rab-
bis Jacob J. Schachter, Shlomo Riskin and Saul Berman,
and the Rabbinic Council of America and the Orthodox
Union.
They, like Rabbi Soloveitchik, mesh Jewish philosophy
and Jewish law with modern living, Rabbi Brander says.
The best available statistics about the number of Or-
thodox Jews living in America shows that they are a small
part of the national landscape. The National Jewish Pop-
ulation Survey of 1990 provides the most recent count.
Professor David Schnall, the Herbert Schiff professor
of management and administration at Y.U.'s Wurzweil-
er School of Social Work, says the survey probably un- i
dercounts the Orthodox, which its authors admitted. The
survey estimated that 6-6.5 percent of the American Jew-
ish community identifies as Orthodox, with an overall

