Two Jews, Three Opinions
Explaining the Jewish Movements and the future of Israel while I’m at it.
From the eighteenth century in the Enlightenment Era, an increasing amount of European Jews began to deviate from the religious statutes and traditions that had once set them apart from their Christian counterparts in terms of culture. Concurrently, an orthodox movement surfaced beside them, establishing a distinguishable individuality for a faction within the Jewish community that preferred not to assimilate into the mainstream, but rather to uphold and maintain traditional laws. The Jewish reaction to the intellectual movement is known as the Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment), led by men like Moses Mendelssohn in Germany. Advocates of the Haskalah encouraged Jews to confront and engage with secular culture, receive a contemporary education outside of Jewish topics, and incorporate themselves into broader society, while also reforming Jewish spiritual life to align more with modern matters and values. This move sparked the first significant debates over how Judaism should adapt; where some Jews embraced modern ideas, others feared that doing so would erode the very traditional religious life that had struggled to keep its flame alive the past few millennia.
As the Haskalah gained momentum, the groundwork was laid for Reform Judaism, formally emerging in early 19th-century Germany. Reform called for a modernization of Jewish practices, traditions and rituals. Its early leaders, such as Abraham Geiger, believed that halacha was not immutable and thus could be adjusted to suit and conform to modern matters. They abandoned and rejected rituals thought to be obsolete or unwarranted; strict Sabbath observance, many kosher dietary laws and went so far as to replace Hebrew with vernacular languages in prayer services. Reform correspondingly shifted in the direction of a more liberal understanding of Jewish sentiments, concentrating on ethical monotheism over conventional legal obligations and duties.
Next came Orthodox Judaism as a reaction to Reform, later to be followed by Masorti Judaism, most commonly known as Conservative Judaism. Orthodox Judaism, in the orthodox traditionalist fashion, resisted the changes proposed by the liberal movement, insisting that the Jewish law of the Torah was divinely ordained and thus must not be altered. The Torah, too, was held to be eternal and binding lest the Jew who strays commit a sin. This made way for prominent Orthodox leaders in the mid-19th century, notably Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, who encouraged Jews to engage with modern society without compromising on Jewish law through the philosophy Torah im Derech Eretz — ‘Torah with the way of the land’ — which led to the concept of a Modern Orthodox Jew, permitting a limited engagement with the secular culture of the outside world whilst preserving a rigid commitment to halacha.
The third opinion of the Jew: Masorti Judaism. The roots of Conservative Judaism can be traced back to Rabbi Zecharias Frankel’s 19th-century positive-historical school in Europe, but it wasn’t until the mid-20th century in the United States that Conservative Judaism became fully institutionalized. The Emet ve-Emunah strongly establishes the conviction in God as the Creator and Governor of the universe, stressing His power in calling the world into existence and His wisdom and goodness in guiding its destiny. While representing God’s nature as “elusive,” the platform acknowledges the diverse interpretations of belief. The movement historically retained a meaningful embrace of a naturalistic image of divinity, considering it inseparable from everyday society, especially championed by Mordecai Kaplan. That said, these sentiments were marginalized following Kaplan’s Reconstructionism evolution into an independent movement, the smallest and newest branch. Defining Judaism as an evolving religious civilization with an emphasis not on God but on its community, Kaplan was a professor at the Masorti Jewish Theological Seminary before establishing the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College.
Ordinarily, Reconstructionism would have been, to extend this metaphor, the fourth opinion of the Jew and Liberal Judaism the fifth, but given that they are both particularly undersized movements and are relatively identical in their ethical standings, they are fairly unessential to the discussion of Jewish movements in the topic of what makes a Jew a Jew. What is not unessential to the discussion at all, though, is Haredi Judaism. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, alongside modernist movements, there was a substantial emergence of Haredi — Ultra-Orthodox — Judaism, which stood in stark contrast to the Reform, Conservative and Modern Orthodox approaches as it adamantly rejected the persuasions of modernity and secularism. Haredi communities were profoundly resolute in safeguarding traditional Jewish life in all its facets. They chose to live in secluded, insular districts and rigidly clung to strict understandings of halacha. Israel’s population of Haredim, too, grows rapidly. This rapid growth for a population that has only recently been mandated to serve in the IDF of course presents long-term political, social and economic consequences for the nation.
From the establishment of the State of Israel, Haredi political parties have exerted a substantial degree of influence, despite representing a fairly slim portion of the population. This political sway occurs as an immediate product of Israel’s proportionate representation approach to government, where small parties frequently function as decisive actors in coalition governments. Haredi political bodies — Shas and United Torah Judaism, for instance — oftentimes find themselves in a place of control, essentially acting as kingmakers whose support is vital for forming governing coalitions. This, therefore, endows upon them considerable leverage to guarantee policies and funding that benefit Haredi institutions, including yeshivas and religious welfare programs.
The most consequential long-term challenge posed by Israel’s Haredi community, though, is its fast demographic expansion. High birth rates expand the Haredi population much faster than the general Israeli population, thereby essentially, if nothing else, producing a new batch of voters every year for the Haredi parties; such rapid growth, in fact, that some estimate Haredim to constitute between 25% and 30% of the total Israeli population by 2050 and thus further compounding the already hugely disproportionate ultra-Orthodox influence on Israel’s social norms, economics and politics.
The future of Israel may hinge on the degree to which the Haredi community integrates into broader society. If large segments of the Haredi population remain economically dependent on the state and continue to abstain from military service, tensions with the secular population could worsen, threatening national cohesion. On the other hand, if successful efforts are made to integrate Haredim into the workforce and public life, it could alleviate some of the economic strain and foster greater social harmony. The question of whether Israel can navigate these challenges while preserving both its democratic and Jewish character remains a pressing concern for the nation’s future.
Mind, this all is of course not to say that any amount of observance above the Modern Orthodox approach is inherently bad; the Chabad movement, as Haredi as they come, acts for the purpose of global outreach and Jewish education, establishing over 5,000 Chabad Houses in over 100 countries, and in doing so making it one of the largest and most widespread Jewish outreach organisations in the world. It focuses on Jewish unity, operates numerous charitable programmes — soup kitchens, homeless shelters and hospitals, helping both the Jew and the non-Jew — and runs Chesed initiatives to provide financial and emotional support for those struggling. As a small child in the winter months, I would walk just twenty minutes down the street with my parents to a roundabout in which stood a Chanukiah about as large as a lamppost, to light candles, dance, sing and devour some of the most delicious doughnuts I’ve ever eaten. Not to mention Chabad’s Chabad.org website: always a helping hand when writing a sermon — or indeed, this very article.
Haredim, being the most easily visible and identifiable movement of Judaism today, with the men’s wide black hats and black suits and the women’s head coverings and long skirts, are more problematic to understand than they are to notice. The word “Haredim” is a troublesome word in and of itself, being either a noun or an adjective, and covering a collection of theologically, politically, and socially traditional Orthodox Jews so wide that the history, practices and beliefs of the Jews included in the term remain somewhat of a mystery in that they differ quite remarkably depending on which community one might visit. The uniting factor amongst their differences, though, is their total respect for both the Written and Oral Law of the Torah as the foremost and defining characteristic in all facets of existence, thereby granting one prestige and esteem in a Haredi community in proportion to their level of Torah scholarship.
Unlike the Modern Orthodox, too, Haredim generally — unlike Chabad of the Hasidic movement, which actively promotes outreach to otherwise secular Jews — strive to restrict communication with non-Jews and non-Haredi Jews alike, lest they contaminate their traditions and values. Their interaction with the outside world generally reaches its peak during times of necessary economic contact and the occasional need to visit a public toilet, and though its exact roots are difficult to trace, it is known for a fact that during the 19th century, as industrialization and urbanization spread, the barriers that had once excluded Jews from European society began to loosen and ease themselves until a new, more worldly ilk of Jew arose, provoking a defensive response that gave rise to an extraordinarily conservative, anti-secular, and isolationist movement. The establishment of Agudas Yisroel in Poland in 1912 marked a momentous point in the emergence of the Haredi movement, in which the group aimed to represent the social and cultural interests of devoutly religious Jews and was assembled in reaction to growing assimilation and secularization within the international Jewish people. Agudas Yisroel aimed to maintain and preserve Torah-bound Judaism at both the individual and collective level, but it was also notable because it was established by a coalition of Hasidim and Mitnagdim, two major factions of Haredidim that had previously been rivals.
Hey: thanks for reading this. If you liked it, feel free to take a look at my other articles, and if you get bored of those, the book I published in the spring. Yom tov!
