January 28th, 2027, 7:00 pm - 8:15 pm
This class is postponed. A new date/time TBD
Actual class date will be in 2026, not 2027
Orthodox Judaism, broadly defined as the acceptance of the authority of Halakah, traditional Jewish law, has defied diagnoses of irrelevance and predictions of imminent demise, and, demographers tell us, is the one sector of Jewish religious life in America that is thriving.
Scholarly and journalistic interest in Orthodoxy has tended to focus on its Haredi, or ultra-Orthodox component, whose adherents’ dress, lifestyle and culturally separatist inclinations mark them as distinctive and newsworthy. But what of the Modern Orthodox who straddle both worlds, the religious tradition they revere in common with Haredim and the contemporary mindset they share with non-Orthodox Jews and other Americans?
In our session we will discuss the social, intellectual and economic factors that led to the emergence of a vibrant Modern Orthodoxy in the post-World War II era, the challenges it weathered in succeeding decades, its leaders and detractors, the issues that confront it today, and its possible long-term future.
Lawrence Grossman, born and raised in New York City, received a Modern Orthodox upbringing and education. He majored in history at Yeshiva University and graduated as valedictorian of his class. He subsequently earned rabbinical ordination and a Master’s degree in Hebrew Literature from Yeshiva U, and a Ph.D. in history from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where he held a Danforth Foundation Fellowship and a Herbert Lehman Fellowship.
After ten years of college teaching, he spent close to four decades at the American Jewish Committee (AJC), serving as director of publications and editor of the American Jewish Year Book, for which he wrote the annual survey of Jewish communal affairs. He is also the author of The Democratic Party and the Negro, 1868-1892 (University of Illinois Press, 1976), a revised version of his PhD dissertation, as well as numerous articles, reviews and op-eds.
The material in this class is from Dr Grossman’s latest book, Living in Both Worlds: Modern Orthodox Judaism in the United States, 1945-2025. The book is “short-listed” for a National Jewish Book Award. It comes as a hardcover and as an e-book. You can purchase either version from the publisher Academic Studies Press and receive a 25% discount by using the code 2026JSC. You can also buy either version at Amazon, Blackwell’s or Bookshop.org or buy the hardcover book at your local bookstore.
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