Sociology Without Leaving Home

I find myself in disagreement with much that Samuel Heilmann has written over the years. I think his basic premise is faulty in that he starts with the assumption that Orthodoxy is essentially more or less like the version he is comfortable with, and all deviations from the way he grew up need an explanation. His base line Orthodoxy is what they used to call the Orthodoxy of the ‘big shuls’ as opposed to the shteiblech, yeshivish and chasidisher minyanim. In these big tent sorts of places everyone was Orthodox, but some were lax in their observance. If left-wing Modern Orthodox becomes the paradigm, charedi life is marginalized and, as a result, becomes a problem that requires a special explanation.

None of this corresponds to my own recollection. The Orthodox refugees who came to America immediately before the war largely came from traditional homes in Eastern Europe. None of these people had the slightest familiarity with American Conservative or Reform Judaism. After the war, the bulk of the people who came to Orthodoxy were Ultra and Strict Orthodox, and not Modern Orthodox. The famous yeshivas in New York and elsewhere were already seriously frum before the war. Although the world was frum, the current ideological divisions were much less severe. I’ll give a few examples.

In my youth, I remember reading that the Satmar Rav, Harav Yoel Teitelbaum z”l gave a talk in Mesivta Torah Vodaath. It wasn’t considered particularly odd for the leader of the anti-Zionist and the most extreme version of Hungarian Transylvanian chassidus to be invited to speak in an American yeshiva. While we’re on the topic of anti-Zionism, it’s useful to remember that the American Agudah in the 50’s was far from being a pro-Zionist movement. It is my understanding, and readers can send in their own impressions, that the ideology that was dominant in Agudah, especially in Camp Agudah in those years was very close to the Neturei Karta position that is today considered over the top, off the wall, and extremist. The charedim then were less Zionist than today where many have turned more right wing pro-settler. Nevertheless the contacts between Strict Orthodox Agudah and Mizrachi Jews was closer than today.

I remember in my teenage years Rabbi I. Domb’s The Transformation: The Case of Neturei Karta was being passed around, not exactly what you would call a left wing Modern Orthodox manual. Some friends read The Transformation, some played basketball, and some talked eventually about philosophy of science or mathematics. Some did all three. I did not feel growing up that my surroundings were particularly extreme or charedi. It didn’t feel charedi. It didn’t feel Modern Orthodox. It felt like growing up with everyone else, some bigger learners, some less into learning, more frum, less frum. It’s called growing up in a neighborhood. I should also add that at least during adolescence people didn’t sort themselves into cliques based on religiosity. You played ball, schmoozed, kibitzed with whoever was around. I am willing to bet many others had similar experiences.

The parents who sent their children to the famous American yeshivas and bais yaakovs were not Modern Orthodox Jews who became more religious. They were European Jews who originally came from families that today would be called Strict Orthodox, but who might have modernized somewhat before and after the war. Charedi life was not foreign to them. The same phenomenon exists today. There are thousands of Orthodox Jews who want to daven in a chassidish shteibel, perhaps headed by some miniscule rebbele. It’s not because they are so charedi themselves, but because that way of life is familiar and comfortable. Even if they go to the movies and send their son or daughter to YU, they might want their rav to wear an appropriate outfit. They want to daven nusach sfard. Heimish chassidish is a big tent, capacious space.

Many, many of the students at Yeshiva University and its associated schools were drawn from the ranks of families that were connected to a European orthodoxy. I would say that in those days the lines of separation between the various stripes were loosely drawn. One kid went to Chaim Berlin and Brooklyn College. His brother or cousin might have gone to YU. In the years immediately after the war the ideological separations we have today were much gentler. It wasn’t so uncommon for someone to be a Munkaczer chasid, with all that such an affiliation implies, and be clean shaven and sympathize with the Mizrachi.

Heilman’s attributing college and professional education to Modern Orthodox and learning, kolel and estrangement from the world to charedim is just not the way it happened. It was all mixed up…big learners went to college and became charedim big time. Plenty of guys who didn’t go to college or went to college and dropped out were Modern Orthodox . The attitude towards college as most everyone knows hardened as the years went by.

Heilman will have none of this. If children grew up in America yeshivish and frum, it’s because the charedi influence infiltrated American Orthodoxy and captured these children from their modern parents. He is describing, what I consider, a marginal phenomenon: a Modern Orthodox day school that can’t find Modern Orthodox teachers and must import extremist yeshiva trained teachers, who in turn, indoctrinate these modern kids. It is not the way I experienced the formative years of American Judaism. My experience was of somewhat modernized parents happily sending their children to the great American yeshivas.

There were plenty of crossover rabbis. Rabbi Maryles has just written (10/25) a detailed, vivid portrait of the Skokie Yeshiva as a premier Modern Orthodox institution that in more recent years has turned charedi. Yet at various points during its Modern Orthodox period two important charedi personalities taught there, and no one gave it a second thought, Rabbi Kreisworth z’’l who became the head of the distinguished charedi community of Antwerp, and yibadel lchaim Rabbi Perlow, the Novominsker Rebbe and current head of the Moetzet Gedolei Hatorah. In the years after the war many Strict Orthodox Jews were distinguished rosh yeshivas at YU, the intellectual, spiritual center of MO. Consider the case of Rabbi Bleich who teaches at YU, who was trained elsewhere in, I assume, more charedi institutions. His books on halachic problems are read and accepted by most everyone. Is he RWMO or LWUO? No…he is Rabbi Bleich whose books are read and accepted by most everyone. I can give many more examples where the attempt to impose sociological ideal types on a fluid reality leads to ludicrous results.

The entire schematic categories of MO and UO, and the neologisms RW (right wing) and LW (left wing) UO and MO were either nonexistent or didn’t carry the rigid associations they do today. A downside of the Jewish world of blogging is that everyone, me included, has become an amateur sociologist. It is important to remember that the typological categories being used do not and never did pick out unique non-overlapping classes of people. Many Jews were and are a little bit of this and a little bit of that.

Heilman’s narrative is not only biased against charedim, it is far too neat and artificial and fails to capture the complex strands that were interwoven to create the colorful tapestry we have today. Heilman gets his story wrong because he has a story, and then makes a messy reality fit his tidy theories. His story consciously or not is permeated with the entire edifice of the sociological literature on acculturation and assimilation. His observations, to the extent that he does look outside, are totally theory laden. He sees what his theories tell him to see.

A better way would have been to have talked to people, hundreds, thousands, and listen empathically. Try to get a feel what it was to belong to Breuer’s kehila, Bais Medrash Elyon, YU, the Young Israel of Boro Park and on and on. Only then should he have put together a narrative. But with Heilman you get the feeling he can produce an answer without ever leaving his office.