Editor’s note: We are pleased to welcome Avi Ciment as a monthly columnist for The Jewish Link.
Due to an overwhelming response to a series of hot topics I have written about, I’ve been asked to bring many of these discussions to a new monthly column exclusively for The Jewish Link. By way of introduction, my name is Avi Ciment. I am a 51-year-old married father of five (b”H), a YU graduate who grew up in Miami Beach, attended the Hebrew Academy, went to Camps Raleigh and Moshava, spent a year in Israel in yeshiva, graduated from YU and … wait for it … married a Stern girl.
As my kids went through the school system, I couldn’t help but notice certain failings within the Modern Orthodox community. The latest Pew polls confirm what so many already know. Namely, that roughly a third of many Modern Orthodox children no longer keep many of the mitzvot like tefillin and kashrut, and they probably text on Shabbat. Extensive interviews with rebbeim, outreach professionals and teenagers in general only confirmed my fears: that Modern Orthodoxy, except for pocket areas, is in trouble. One major clarification that needs to be addressed is the actual label itself, Modern Orthodox, which is very misleading for two legitimate reasons.
First, everybody defines it differently. When I was growing up, Modern Orthodox meant that most likely your mom was frum even if she wasn’t covering her hair. You probably attended a co-ed school and camp, maybe ate very minimal dairy out, saw movies, kept Shabbat and davened daily. Today that is not the case, as the definitions within Orthodoxy are a lot broader and can mean anything from keeping Shabbat sometimes to keeping it with all of its stringencies. This alone makes the definition weak at best.
And yet there’s yet another factor to consider. In certain communities such as Teaneck, or even Silver Spring for instance, the adherence to halacha and Torah observance in general (sometimes referred to as Modern Orthodox machmir) is higher than in some other communities where observance is generally more lax. Add to that the fact that there are many Modern Orthodox families that do take halacha seriously and are a true testament to what Rav Samson Rafael Hirsch and the Rav promulgated. Additionally, many Modern Orthodox children hide their true behavior so as to avoid shame or ridicule, therefore making a generalization of the sect all the more difficult.
Still the facts and polls speak for themselves, as evidenced by the recent upswing of articles and social media platforms discussing the failings within Modern Orthodoxy. As I mentioned in a recent three-part article, “The Modern Orthodox Conundrum,” the defection rate for Modern Orthodox people (excluding certain communities of course) is staggering. I personally saw it in Florida when many people stopped coming back to shul after COVID restrictions were dropped, whereas practically every yeshiva, shtiebel or Agudah shul was packed.
Rav Yoel Schonfeld, the rav of Young Israel of Kew Gardens Hills, penned an article saying that he noticed the young generation no longer comes to shul (http://bit.ly/3Y9gPtZ). A 2011 population study of Jews in New York City suggested that kids from roughly a third of Modern Orthodox families do not consider themselves Orthodox, or have conveniently repackaged it (social, diet, “Open Orthodoxy”—take your pick), presumably making things more palatable. Avraham Shusteris’s 2020 article “The American Yeshiva Day School Fraud” (http://bit.ly/3DpFmmB) further laments the fact that from his 2003 graduating class, most are no longer religious. I personally watched huge numbers of Upper West Side kippah-wearing singles casually walk through an electric door and push the elevator button on Shabbat. Though they are hardly immune, these things do not happen at nearly the same rate within the more frum communities.
While we can justify our behavior or castigate the other guy, I feel that being honest and transparent goes a long way. Having grown up on the left side of Modern Orthodoxy, I chose to look in the mirror and man up when it came to my inconsistencies, and started to see things differently.
Given this, there are a lot of things to discuss relating to all things Jewish and I will do my best to present things with integrity and fair reporting, as always, as I see it…
Avi Ciment lives in Florida and is a longtime columnist for The Jewish Press. He lectures throughout the world and has just finished his second book, “Real Questions Real Answers.” He can be reached at www.AviTalks.com.
