Authentically Orthodox: A Tradition-Bound Faith in American Life by Zev Eleff (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Authentically Orthodox: A Tradition-Bound Faith in American Life by Zev Eleff Jody Myers Zev Eleff. Authentically Orthodox: A Tradition-Bound Faith in American Life. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2020. 311 pp. doi:10.1017/S0364009421000404 Zev Eleff has devised a fruitful and interesting way of describing developments within American Orthodox communities and the tensions between the Modern Orthodox and the Orthodox Right. He focuses on the quest for authenticity, a concern that has been central in the United States since the early nineteenth century. Authenticity in religion is a subjective judgement rendered by adherents who believe there is a correct form of beliefs and practices unsullied by financial, [End Page 498] political, and external cultural influences. One might think that for Orthodox Jews conformity to Halakhah determines authenticity. Eleff repeatedly shows, however, that among the Orthodox the charge of inauthenticity is leveled against an innovation when religious authorities deem it problematic but cannot fault the innovation on halakhic grounds; they therefore delegitimize it by declaring it new and contrary to Torah values. The Modern Orthodox, who have sought explicitly to incorporate elements of American liberal culture into their lives, have been most often accused of initiating inauthentic practices even though all Orthodox Jewish communities have developed new rituals, pedagogies, and rules. Furthermore, Eleff argues that scholars have underestimated the extent of American religious culture's influence on Orthodox Judaism, a corrective he demonstrates. Authentically Orthodox is not a historical narrative. It consists of nine case studies, each constituting a separate chapter focusing on a separate post–World War II innovation. Eleff arranges these in three sections. Part 1, "Halakhah and Change," examines kitniyot prohibitions on Passover, the Bat Mitzvah, and the yarmulke. Part 2 deals with the changed image of Orthodoxy in response to a Yeshiva University student team's victory in a College Bowl program on national TV, the creation of toys and games for Haredi children, and the life span of a Modern Orthodox Baltimore yeshiva. Part 3 focuses on "protected male space" through Yeshiva University regulation of co-ed social events, women's engagement in Torah study, and separate women's prayer groups. Each chapter can stand alone. Strictly speaking, none of the innovations were in violation of or required by Halakhah. For example, the case study on the yarmulke shows that in the 1960s American Orthodox Jews began to consider it imperative for men to wear a yarmulke during their waking hours no matter their activity, a position at variance with halakhic codes; they also began to describe the practice as a proud display of Jewish identity—certainly an American interpretation. In the 1980s, when the obligation to wear a yarmulke conflicted with a high school basketball league's rules prohibiting head coverings during playoffs, a yeshiva high school's leaders and supporters mounted a legal challenge. (The importance they attached to the sport is also an obvious sign of Americanization.) In Menora v. Illinois High School Association, the plaintiffs claimed that the prohibition violated the students' First Amendment Free Exercise right, and they won the two-year battle. At about the same time, some Orthodox rabbis and organizations began to oppose the long-standing Jewish community stance that the Constitution's Establishment Clause required strict separation of church and state and precluded state aid to religious schools. For this and related issues, the Orthodox were aligning themselves with Christian conservatives and asserting their distinctive American Orthodox identity. Similarly, in "Mitzvah Merchants and the Creation of an Orthodox Children's Culture," Eleff describes the school contests, trading cards, and toys developed by Orthodox educators that parallel those made by evangelical Christian educators. Both groups share the conviction that children's games should be "practice" for authentically religious adults. Their alternatives to American youth culture nevertheless promote the "American" values of competition, individual achievement, and acquisitiveness. [End Page 499] Eleff's frequent references to American religious history and historiography make his treatment of American Orthodox Judaism especially insightful. For example, in his chapter on Orthodox Bat Mitzvah ceremonies, Eleff builds upon the observation by historian Frederick Jackson Turner (and Shari Rabin's application of it to nineteenth-century American Jews) that there has...