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1 I 1
1999
16 Detroit Jewish News
OLDN6H
Views of Akiva students on a typical clay.
the idea that the Holocaust was caused
by God's anger, "but I'm sure that
view is not the philosophy of Akiva."
Dr. Steven Bayme, the American
Jewish Committee's national director
of Jewish communal affairs, has writ-
ten extensively on trends in the Jewish
community and identifies as modern
Orthodox. He also found Gross' views
out of kilter with centrist Orthodoxy
"That's a very extreme view," he
said of the Holocaust statement, and
he said the "amen" admonition was
not normative."
Bayme noted, "There's a greater
emphasis today on religious obser-
vance, but it's not done in the context
of 'Do it this way or your children
will be orphaned.'"
While they find Gross' -views far
from mainstream, both Schiff and
Bayme say that, despite a counter
trend of Orthodox feminism,
Orthodoxy is experiencing a steady
shift to the right. Centrist Orthodox
Jews are becoming more rigidly obser-
vant and adopting a more insular out-
look toward the world outside of
Judaism than they did in the past.
"The lines between uitra-
Orthodoxy and modern Orthodoxy
are becoming blurred," said Bayme.
In the November/December 1998
issue of the American Jewish Congress
magazine, Congress Monthly, City
College of New York Professors
William Helmreich and Reuel Shinnar
call modern Orthodoxy "a movement
under siege." They note that day
schools have "a preponderance of
right-wing rebbes and principals who
are largely out of sync with the
lifestyles of the modern Orthodox par-
ents whose children they teach."
According to Helmreich, whose
fields are sociology and Judaic studies,
and Shinnar, who specializes in chemi-
cal engineering, the shift in modern
Orthodox day schools has occurred in
part because modern Orthodoxy's
emphasis on professional success in the
secular world has led to a "brain drain"
in Jewish education. "Right-wing
Orthodox, seeking employment and a
meaningful livelihood for their non-
college trained and isolationist follow-
ers" have filled the void, they write.
Akiva's Gross has a limited back-
ground in secular studies. Accordinc,
to his deposition, Gross holds an
undergraduate degree in Talmudic
studies and Jewish history from the
Talmudic University of Florida, a mas-
ter's degree in Judaic studies from the
Israel Talmudic Research Institute and
is pursuing a master's in philosophy of
education from Simon Frasier
University in Canada. Prior to Akiva,
he had no experience overseeing secu-
lar studies or a school of Akiva's size.
Former Akiva parent Terri
Dworkin, who sat on the search com-
mittee that hired Gross, said the rabbi
was quite open about his limited expe-
rience and that his views were to the
right of Akiva's. Dworkin opposed