“The preoccupation of the dati le’umi world with the settlement issue…has paradoxically contributed to enhancing…the influence of the haredim”

The preoccupation of the dati le’umi world with the settlement issue—with seeing God’s will in territorial terms—has paradoxically contributed to enhancing, even more powerfully in Israel than in the Diaspora, the influence of the haredim, whose concern with settlement as a religious obligation is negligible. Freed from the Modern Orthodox/dati le’umi settlement fixation, haredim have been able effectively to advance their own definition of how Orthodoxy can and should engage with the contemporary world. Even in the area of outreach both to other Jews and the larger society, once the most compelling aspect of Modern Orthodoxy, the edge now goes to Lubavitcher Hasidism.

Samuel Heilman, “Modern Orthodoxy, and Orthodoxy”, Mosaic (August 2014) [http://mosaicmagazine.com/supplemental/2014/08/modern-orthodoxy-and-orthodoxy/]