“Over the past generation new institutions…have emerged as counterweights to the rightward and isolationist drift within Orthodoxy”

Over the past generation new institutions — Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, Yeshivat Maharat, JOFA and the IRF — have emerged as counterweights to the rightward and isolationist drift within Orthodoxy. Their numbers are small but growing, and their intellectual heft is great. Most important, they uphold a vision of Orthodoxy willing to engage the modern world and work alongside non-Orthodox allies for the collective benefit of the Jewish people.

The current controversy is but one skirmish in a prolonged battle for the soul of Modern Orthodoxy. Given the increasing importance of Orthodoxy in Jewish communal life, in terms of its numbers and vitality, much depends on the battle’s outcome.

Dov S. Zakheim and Steven Bayme, “The Riskin Row: Crossroads For Modern Orthodoxy?”, The Jewish Week (3 July 2015), 28.