How can Orthodox Jews navigate a public sphere that no longer respects our values?

Coordinated by Gedalia Guttentag

For decades, Orthodox Jews faced the future with confidence, secure in the knowledge that their communities would continue to thrive in an America that had a real respect for religion, tradition, and family values.

But slowly at first and then all at once, the public square has become uncomfortable for Orthodoxy. The autonomy of our yeshivah system is threatened by education authorities and has come under sustained attack by influential media outlets such as the New York Times. Schools and businesses are exposed to lawsuits for hiring decisions in line with our core beliefs. On TV and streaming platforms, a spate of negative portrayals of religious Jews has played into the stereotype of our communities as backward and oppressive.

Underlying these disparate elements is the fact that with the rise of progressivism, the zeitgeist has decisively shifted against traditional values.

That sea change — an international phenomenon that has been echoed in Britain as well — has left Orthodox Jews particularly exposed. Already vulnerable to anti-Semitism on the streets, they see a similar process underway in the cultural sphere; uniquely among minority groups, it’s okay to badmouth the Orthodox.

The increasingly hostile environment demands a new roadmap for communal activism, and raises questions of strategy.

In the face of government intrusion into religious freedom, how openly should we challenge authorities and risk sensitive political relationships? How can we build more effective alliances and leverage the clout of like-minded groups in our lobbying efforts? And is there any way to stop the creators of popular culture from spreading a skewed portrayal of our way of life?

At veteran community organizations and beyond, a route recalculation is underway and has led to the rise of fresh approaches for dealing with the new environment, from government relations to media and popular culture.

Values Before Cash

By Avi Schick

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ecent surveys indicate that nearly a third of American adults under 30 do not identify with any religion. That is a much higher number than just a few years ago, and it is rising. At the same time, the role and reach of government continues to grow. The result is more government involvement in all areas of our daily lives and less deference to religious institutions and practices.

New Yorkers don’t need surveys to see how this convergence plays out in practice. The past decade has brought us government restrictions on bris milah, tefillah, and chinuch. For the uninitiated, I am referring to New York City’s regulation of metzitzah b’peh, New York State’s pandemic-era designation of frum neighborhoods as zones in which shul attendance was strictly limited, and the repeated attempts to impose curricular and other requirements on yeshivos.

Most recently, the political and media class in New York has focused its ire on Yeshiva University. Every segment of the Orthodox community has now been caught in the crosshairs of a sustained liberal effort to impose secular values on religious activity.

New York’s aggressive new intrusion into religious life has been met by an equally aggressive legal effort challenging those attempts to impair our religious practices. With siyata d’Shmaya and achdus, we have had great success.

But legal victories alone are insufficient. They beat back particular manifestations of the progressive mindset, but do not address the underlying issues. If we do not develop an approach that gets at the root of the problem, we will be fighting these battles again and again.

Diagnosing the problem is the easy part. Prescribing the right remedy and ensuring that we stick with it is far more difficult. Given the growing antipathy to religion and the broad acceptance of a caricature of frum life that mischaracterizes it as uncaring and even abusive to our children and discriminatory toward others, there is no guarantee that anything we do will work. But there are several things that should be tried.

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irst, the Orthodox community must substantially increase its investment in day-to-day political organizing. The current model is too oriented toward times of crises. At that point, those whose policies we oppose already have the initiative. The frum community is stuck playing defense.

We need to make our voices heard and develop relationships before problems arise. We can’t rely on casual interactions or pay attention only to statewide and citywide leaders. We must identify the local politicians who can help, we need to identify the ways in which they can help, and we need to make sure that they get to know our religious imperatives and policy priorities before problems arise.

There is nothing particularly novel about this. The challenge is that it is expensive and time consuming.

To give one example: There are more than 300 yeshivos in New York City alone. There ought to be an organized effort to bring political leaders into all of our schools, and to recruit parents in each school to engage with them. Given school schedules, it would take nearly two years to get through all of our yeshivos, even if there was a visit scheduled every school day.

Everybody is busy, and there are always other things that need to get done. But if we only engage during times of crisis, we all but guarantee that there will continue to be crises.

This kind of organized effort is not cheap. It will require a real investment in staff, and financial resources. Playing the long game also requires patience and discipline, which are not always in abundant supply. There is no instant gratification in creating an effective political infrastructure.

None of this is easy. All of it is necessary if Torah life is going to continue to thrive without the interference of those who want to undermine it.

Second, the Orthodox community needs to do a better job in its politics by partnering with other communities that also have an interest in preserving traditional values.

In our successful litigations over the bris milah, tefillah and chinuch restrictions, we made sure that prominent non-Jewish voices were heard — and in some cases were out in front. The Catholic community spoke out prominently against the first round of yeshivah regulations. The Muslim community submitted a powerful brief on behalf of our shuls challenging the limitations on attendance at houses of worship.

Importantly, partnering with others doesn’t mean asking them to voice their support for our legislative priorities after we have drafted them. What it does mean is working closely with other communities to identify looming threats to religious life and coming together to craft an affirmative agenda to address them.

Sometimes that may involve compromises. Occasionally de-emphasizing a particular issue on our community’s wish list in favor of policy priorities that reflect the consensus of a diverse range of religious communities would be a smart investment. It sends a powerful message that the Orthodox community doesn’t stand alone. It projects a strong and unified opposition to those would use the levers of government to attack religious life.

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his brings us to the third and final element of our prescription. It will be the most difficult dose to swallow. But without it our religious institutions will continue to come under attack.

For too long, our community’s priorities in City Hall and in Albany have been monetary. This is understandable; our institutions are underfunded and under resourced and need the financial help. Our community deserves it. Our yeshivah system alone probably costs nearly $2 billion annually to sustain and saves the government even more each year.

But being understandable doesn’t make it wise. Money may be the coin of the realm in politics, but it is often a really bad way to measure true political friendship or support.

Government can spend almost endlessly. Sticking some money in the budget may be as much about avoiding choosing political sides as it is about picking them. Everybody can get some money; it is not a zero-sum game. That is why our state and city budgets spiral increasingly out of control year after year.

True political friendship is expressed when there are competing choices to be made. In those instances, our priorities rarely get chosen.

Consider anti-discrimination laws. They used to be drafted to ensure that religious institutions and adherents would not be in violation for sticking to the values dictated by their faith. No more. As anti-discrimination prohibitions that reflect values at odds with our own have increased, they have eliminated or decreased protections for religious beliefs or institutions.

There are surely larger societal forces at work. Yet it is equally certain that elected officials believe that their standing in our communities will be fine as long as the steady drip of government funding continues. Very few of our leaders or institutions will have the fortitude to criticize the hand that feeds it.

To be clear, I am not advocating that our community stop advocating for funding. Nor is it obligated to support political candidates or parties who make promises but have no reasonable path to victory. What our community does need to do is make clear that helping to protect our way of life is far more important to us than helping to pay for a bit more of it.

Our religious leaders frequently remind us that the most valuable things in life can’t be bought. Our communal leaders need to keep that in mind when prioritizing our policy preferences. It is our best shot at obtaining the protections we need to live the lives we desire.

Avi Schick is a partner at Troutman Pepper and president of the Rabbi Jacob Joseph School.