Reflections on Orthodox Jewish Life in America

In the last decade of the eighteenth century, Rebecca Samuel, then living in Petersburg, Virginia, wrote a letter to her parents in Hamburg, Germany, in which she explained why she was moving from that city to Charleston, South Carolina. She informed them that although her husband, Hyman, had earned the respect of their Gentile neighbors as a very successful clockmaker and silversmith, and although “one [i.e., a Jew] can live here peacefully,” she and her family were “leaving this place because of [the lack of] Yehudishkeit,” or Jewishness, which “is pushed aside here.” She explained that the shochet buys non-kosher meat, there is no sefer Torah in town, all Jewish-owned shops are open on Shabbat, there are no educational opportunities available for her two children, and almost none of the worshippers on the High Holidays wear a tallit. “You can believe me that I crave to see a synagogue to which I can go. The way we live now is no life at all.”¹

The desire of Jews in America to be financially successful and respected by members of the community at large without sacrificing Jewish observance and communal cohesiveness has been a hallmark of Jewish life in this country from the very dawn of its existence. But those eighteenth-century Jews living in America were acutely aware that America was different than the countries from which they had emigrated and in which many of their family members and religious authorities still lived. In a letter written in 1785 to a rabbi in Amsterdam, seeking guidance on a complex religious issue challenging their community, two lay leaders in Philadelphia noted that they were “anxiously awaiting” the rabbi’s reply “because this matter touches the very essence of our faith, especially in this country where everyone does as he pleases [asher kol ish hayashar bi’enav ya’aseh].” They wrote that in America, “the Kahal has no authority” over those who live in its midst, unlike the situation in Amsterdam and in many of those countries and communities they had left behind.²

In the old country, the community still had a hold, to a greater or lesser extent, on those who lived within its geographical boundaries. In America, by contrast, the ability of the community to exercise any power was severely limited, as its leaders were only too acutely aware. Some half-century later, a note written to a couple leaving Bavaria for Cleveland, Ohio, began with the warning, “Friends! You are traveling to a land of freedom where the opportunity will be presented to live without compulsory religious education.”³

For more than a hundred years after America’s founding, Orthodoxy was practiced by dispersed individuals committed to it who acted alone, bereft of any institutional infrastructure or support. It was only sometime in the second half of the nineteenth century that it found a place in a small number of communities that were beginning to be founded and developed.

Immigrants waiting at Ellis Island Immigration Station to go through the immigration process in 1910. Courtesy of the library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division

The founding meeting of the organization that was to be known as the Union of Orthodox Congregations of America [later to be known as the Orthodox Union] was held on the Upper West Side in Manhattan at the end of the century, in June 1898. Over one hundred individuals were present, representing congregations in Lancaster, Pennsylvania; Buffalo, New York; San Antonio, Texas; Louisville, Kentucky; Charleston, South Carolina; and others, with the greatest representation coming from New York City. It was called “The Convention of Orthodox Congregations” but the designation “Orthodox” was still unclear. A newspaper article describing the deliberations reported: “The attention of the chairman was called to the fact that some of the gentlemen reported were from congregations where organ and pews were in vogue. The chairman replied that the acceptance of an invitation by any congregation entitled them to representation.” It further noted that “Mr. [Lewis] Dembitz [from Louisville] objected to the use of the word Orthodox. It did not sufficiently indicate the purpose of the organization. Orthodox was used to cover one’s belief; persons who did not live a Jewish life, but read the olden prayers were, according to the generally accepted view, Orthodox. He preferred a title like Shomre Hadath, ‘Observers of the Law.’”⁴

A little more than two years later, Rabbi Jacob David Wilowsky, the great scholar and sage known as “the Slutsker Rav” or “the Ridbaz,” could speak only with great pessimism about the state of traditional Judaism in America. Addressing the second convention of the newly founded Orthodox Jewish Congregational Union of America (that was its name then) on December 30, 1900, the Ridbaz

deplored the condition of Orthodox Judaism in America. . . . He exclaimed that whoever came to America is Poshe Yisrael, for here, Judaism, the Torah She-Be-al-Pe, is trodden under foot. It was not only home that the Jews left behind them in Europe; it was their Torah, their Talmud, their Yeshivos, their Chochomim. His heart was rent by the sights to be seen. . . . In Europe they say that Yiddishkeit in America is nothing, but gold is found in the gutter. The fact is, neither gold nor Yiddishkeit is to be found here.⁵

And what was true then remained an accurate description of the situation for many years.

Living in America, with its emphasis on freedom, democracy and individualism, was—and continues to be—both a blessing and a challenge to perpetuating Jewish values and practice.

Living in America, with its emphasis on freedom, democracy and individualism, was—and continues to be—both a blessing and a challenge to perpetuating Jewish values and practice. It is a blessing because we Jews have here been afforded an unprecedented opportunity to exercise our religion unhindered by external controls and constraints. At the same time, it serves as a real challenge because in a world without any “compulsory” prerogatives, any choices—including those to define and reject Jewish practice and identity—are possible, and even celebrated. And the more traditional the values and practices, the greater the challenge to their perpetuation.

Orthodoxy’s place in American Judaism was far from assured even as late as the 1950s. In his well-known analysis of Conservative Judaism published in 1955, Dr. Marshall Sklare wrote, “Orthodox adherents have succeeded in achieving the goal of institutional perpetuation to only a limited extent; the history of their movement in this country can be written in terms of institutional decay.”⁶It is thus manifestly evident that even by the middle of the last century Orthodoxy had not succeeded in rooting itself in an American soil that consistently swallowed up even those traditional Jewish immigrants who sought to make a new life here. What Dr. Sklare asserted seventy years ago was, indeed, a true reflection of the state of Orthodoxy in this country up until that time.

And yet, in this American world, Orthodoxy has found a place. In a book published less than twenty years later, the same Dr. Sklare wrote, “One of the most surprising trends in American Jewish life has been the emergence of Orthodoxy as a ‘third force’ competing with Reform and Conservative Judaism. In less than three decades, Orthodoxy has transformed its image from that of a dying movement to one whose strength and opinions must be reckoned with in any realistic appraisal of the Jewish community.”⁷

Indeed, the most significant success of American Orthodoxy is that it has resoundingly confounded all those negative prognostications about its future. Simply put, we are still here! But what is significant is much more than our mere continued existence. The greatest sociological surprise (or miracle, depending upon your perspective) of twentieth-century American Judaism is not only the dogged continued presence of Orthodoxy in this country, defying all odds, but the extraordinary growth that it has experienced. And the most remarkable growth has come from the Chareidi community, that segment of Orthodoxy where such growth was least expected. With its increasing confidence, institutional strength and extraordinary unselfconsciousness, Orthodoxу has achieved a presence and a prominence in America simply and literally unimaginable even a mere seven decades ago.

But none of this is cause for smug self-satisfied triumphalism. True, our competition no longer comes from the specific ideologies and positions of the various liberal movements. Far more formidable an adversary is the notion of individualism and the emphasis upon the sacred right of personal autonomy so pervasive in American culture today. Contemporary American sociologists of religion have recently pointed to this essential feature of American life, an attitude surely inimical to that espoused by any organized religion. I will decide; I will act; I will determine my own destiny. Choice is central to Americans in general and is even more so for Jews. Even if “religion” has returned to “the secular city,”⁸ and even if the name and concept of G-d has somewhat reentered the vocabulary of contemporary America,⁹ the result is not a religion, or a notion of G-d, that is even remotely prepared to recognize the fundamental obligation central certainly to traditional Judaism, to submit oneself—wholly and uncompromisingly—to Torah and mitzvot, a normative religious system which demands something of its adherents. We have our work cut out for us. Orthodox Judaism will be successful only if its adherents can construct a compelling argument in favor of the importance of submitting one’s life to a transcendent G-d, to convince Jews voluntarily to choose to abdicate their freedom of choice.¹⁰

The greatest sociological surprise (or miracle, depending upon your perspective) of twentieth-century American Judaism is not only the dogged continued presence of Orthodoxy in this country, defying all odds, but the extraordinary growth that it has experienced.

But our focus on this 250th anniversary of America’s founding needs be on American Jewry as a whole, not just American Orthodoxy. Ever since its founding, America has been good to the Jews. George Washington famously asserted in his letter to the Jews of Newport, in the summer of 1790 that “happily, the Government of the United States which gives to bigotry no sanctions, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.” He concluded his letter with a prayer: “May the children of the stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the goodwill of the other inhabitants; while everyone shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.”¹¹

With some exceptions, this sentiment defined the place of Jews in America for centuries.¹² America has famously, and deservedly, been called a “malchut shel chesed,” a phrase that has been understood in different ways, all of which reflecting how Jews think of themselves as Americans, given the religious freedom America has bestowed upon them.¹³

I want to express my own personal debt of gratitude to America. My father, Rabbi Herschel Schacter, z”l, was the first American Army chaplain to enter a concentration camp when he liberated the Buchenwald Concentration Camp on April 11, 1945. He had been serving as a pulpit rabbi in Stamford, Connecticut, when he volunteered to serve in the army in 1942. His parents were absolutely opposed to this move on his part, and, in response, he sent them a letter explaining why he felt compelled to contravene their explicitly stated wishes. Among his arguments, he wrote (what follows is my English translation of the original Hebrew):

I thought a great deal about your feelings of sorrow concerning my decision to leave my comfortable position here and enlist in the army of our blessed land, the land of freedom and liberty—the only land among all the lands of the earth that has conferred equality and the right to exist to the Children of Israel—to fight for her and to protect all of these rights on our behalf and on behalf of the entire world.

Are we not obligated as faithful Jews to dedicate our lives on behalf of this, our truly blessed country that provided refuge and tranquility to our wretched and oppressed brethren?

And then, turning directly to his father, he wrote, “Please consider, dear father, where would you be had America not opened her compassionate doors and gates to all who knocked, to all those persecuted and downtrodden from all ends of the world?”¹⁴ Like millions of American Jews, all four of my grandparents were immigrants who created wonderful personal and Jewish lives in this country. My hakarat hatov to America is profound. America has been good—very good—to my family, as it has to so many others.

But now we have reached an inflection point. At this juncture in our history, we look to the future of Jewish life in the United States with trepidation. Antisemitism is rising and becoming a factor of great concern. At the same time, baruch Hashem, Medinat Yisrael is playing more and more a central role in our religious priorities. We do not know what the future will bring for Jews in this country. But we draw strength from the knowledge that our future as a people, wherever we may be, is Divinely assured. In his letter to the Jews of Yemen facing crisis, Maimonides wrote to strengthen their resolve to persevere: “The Divine assurance was given to Jacob, our father, that his descendants would survive the people who degraded and discomfited them . . . . Although his offspring will be abased like dust that is trodden under foot, they will ultimately emerge triumphant and victorious.”¹⁵ This fact was also recognized by non-Jews. The twentieth-century Russian religious philosopher Nicholas Berdayev also grappled with this reality that defied rational explanation:

According to the materialistic and positivist criterion, this people [the Jews] ought long ago to have perished. Its survival is a mysterious and wonderful phenomenon demonstrating that the life of this people is governed by a special predetermination . . . . The survival of the Jews, their resistance to destruction, their endurance under absolutely peculiar conditions, and the fateful role played by them in history; all these point to the particular and mysterious foundations of their destiny.¹⁶

With the help of G-d, we will continue successfully to meet all the challenges that do—and will continue to—confront us well into the rest of the twenty-first century, and beyond.

Notes

1. See Jacob Rader Marcus, American Jewry: Documents, Eighteenth Century (Cincinnati: The Hebrew Union College Press, 1959), 52–53.

2. See Sidney M. Fish, “The Problem of Intermarriage in Early America,” Gratz College Annual of Jewish Studies 4 (1975): 89, 93.

3. See Jonathan D. Sarna, American Judaism: A History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), 66.

4. See The American Hebrew 63, no. 6 (June 10, 1898): 172. By “pews,” I assume that the reference was to “mixed pews.” The article went on to note (p. 173) that “several of the delegates expressed their regret that they failed to understand the drift of the discussion inasmuch as they are unfamiliar with English.”

5. See The American Hebrew 68, no. 7 (January 4, 1901): 236.

6. See Marshall Sklare, Conservative Judaism: An American Religious Movement (Glencoe: Free Press, 1955), 43. This prediction also appears in both the 1972 and 1985 reprints of the book.

7. See Marshall Sklare, The Jewish Community in America (New York: Behrman House, 1974), 131.

8. In 1965, Harvey Cox published a book entitled The Secular City (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1965). Nineteen years later, he published a book entitled Religion in the Secular City (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984).

9. See, for example, John Updike, Roger’s Version (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986), 10, 20–21.

10. I have dealt with this challenge in my “Halakhic Authority in a World of Personal Autonomy,” in Michael J. Harris, Daniel Rynhold and Tamara Wright, eds., Radical Responsibility: Celebrating the Thought of Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks (New Milford: The Michael Scharf Publication Trust / YU Press; Jerusalem: Maggid Books, 2012), 155–76. See also my “Foreword” to Zev Eleff, Modern Orthodox Judaism: A Documentary History (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 2016), xxv–xxviii, and my contribution to the Symposium on “The Sea Change of Orthodox Judaism,” Tradition 32, no. 4 (Summer, 1998): 92–97.

11. See Lewis Abraham, “Correspondence Between Washington and Jewish Citizens,” Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society 3 (1895): 91–92. It has already been pointed out that Washington’s formulation, “which gives to bigotry no sanctions, to persecution no assistance,” already appeared in the letter sent him first by the leadership of the Newport Congregation. See ibid., p. 90.

12. See Jonathan D. Sarna, “American Anti-Semitism,” in David Berger, ed., History and Hate: The Dimensions of Anti-Semitism (Philadelphia, New York and Jerusalem: The Jewish Publication Society, 1986), 115–28; Pamela S. Nadell, Antisemitism: An American Tradition (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2025).

13. See Elana Stein Hain, “Twentieth-Century American Orthodox Responses to Living in a Malkhut shel Chesed,” in Zev Eleff and Shaul Seidler-Feller, eds., Emet Le-Ya’akov: Facing the Truths of History: Essays in Honor of Jacob J. Schacter (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2023), 234–57.

14. See Rafael Medoff, The Rabbi of Buchenwald: The Life and Times of Herschel Schacter (New York: Ktav Publishing House, 2021), 4–8; Jacob J. Schacter, “‘The Voice of Your Brothers’ Blood is Screaming’: Rabbi Herschel Schacter’s Letter Home,” Tradition 54, no. 1 (2022): 121–30.

15. See Maimonides, “Letter to Yemen,” translated in Isadore Twersky, A Maimonides Reader (New York: Behrman House, 1972), 444–45. See also idem, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Isurei Bi’ah 14:4, where Maimonides writes that “all the nations shall cease to exist while they [the Jewish people] shall endure.”

16. This passage, from Berdayev’s The Meaning of History, as well as that from Maimonides’ “Letter to Yemen” quoted above, are cited in Isadore Twersky, “Survival, Normalcy, Modernity,” in Moshe Davis, ed., Zionism in Transition (New York: Herzl Press, 1980), 348–49.

Rabbi Dr. Jacob J. Schacter is university professor of Jewish history and Jewish thought at Yeshiva University and senior scholar at the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (RIETS). He serves as a contributing editor of Jewish Action.