Modern Orthodox Judaism: A Documentary History ed. by Zev Eleff (review)

• Published in: American Jewish History Vol. 101; no. 3; pp. 401 - 404
• Main Author: Ellenson, David
• Format: Journal Article Book Review
• Language: English
• Published: Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 01.07.2017
• Subjects: Clergy; Hebrew language; Jewish Americans; Jewish culture; Jewish people; Judaism; Religious history; Religious literature; Religious orthodoxy; Theological schools; Women; Israel
• ISSN: 0164-0178; 1086-3141; 1086-3141
• DOI: 10.1353/ajh.2017.0051

Eleff further indicates how elite traditionalist leaders and rabbis like Abraham Rice and Bernard Illowy defended the authority of the Talmud and the Oral Law against the attacks of Reform as well as how these leaders critiqued the prayer books that Reform liturgists produced. The documents include elements of the Kohut-Kohler debates of the 1880s and indicate how Sabato Morias and Jacob Schiff recognized the need for a traditionalist seminary to educate rabbis who would counter the Reform Rabbis that Hebrew Union College produced. A responsum issued by Joseph Soloveichik forbidding attendance at a synagogue where men and women sit together reveals how Orthodox Judaism employed mixed seating as the ritualistic boundary maintenance device for distinguishing Orthodox from Conservative Judaism. The birth of the Torah Umesorah day school movement and summer camps as the training grounds for thousands of Orthodox Jews loyal to Jewish law, the strength of Yeshiva University, the responses of Orthodox Judaism to contemporary trends and pressures, the education of a modern Orthodox rabbinate sensitive to the needs of modern American Jews, the growth of the kashrut industry, the move to greater traditionalism, and the ongoing devotion Orthodox Jews displayed towards Jewish law are all covered in these pages.