“When Orthodoxy was not as chic as it is today”: The Jewish Forum and American Modern Orthodoxy

The Jewish Forum was an American Orthodox monthly published from 1918 to 1962. It reflected issues and developments affecting Orthodox Judaism in America, from the twenties to the sixties. In these decades, Orthodoxy went from being a threatened entity on the American scene to a well-recognized, respected force in Judaism and The Jewish Forum played a role in this transformation. The journal is a useful research tool for tracing the history of the development of Modern Orthodoxy in America in the twentieth century and is itself part of that history. Jewish journals in America have had a history of struggling for their very existence and disappearing with “alarming frequency” and so The Jewish Forum’s forty-four years of publishing, against all odds, constitutes an achievement of some significance.¹

The Jewish Forum sought to strengthen those who wanted to lead an Orthodox life in America. The editor wrote, in 1926, that the aim of The Jewish Forum was to “bring them [Jews] back to the fold and to keep those that are still reluctant to break away.”² It sought, as well, to win the allegiance of Jews attracted to Reform or Conservative Judaism. The Jewish Forum set out to accomplish these goals by demonstrating that Orthodoxy in America, which contemporary critics likened to a sinking ship, was relevant.³ This was not an easy task in an age in which traditional Judaism was widely seen as out of date and “not fit for modern life.”⁴ At its demise, The Jewish Forum could look back to its beginnings, “when Orthodoxy was not as chic as it is today, nor even acceptable.”⁵

The cofounders of The Jewish Forum were men who represented an emerging group of American Jews who would come to be called Modern Orthodox. Modern Orthodoxy was associated with the philosophy of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, who favored emancipation and Jewish participation in general society, but at the same time defended Orthodox Judaism. Hirsch’s philosophy encouraged Jews to learn the language and adopt the culture of the land in which they lived, while keeping intact Orthodox halakhic tradition.⁶ Jews had to be uncompromising in their observance of the laws of Judaism while appreciating that the laws themselves were adaptable and elastic.⁷ In this view, Judaism was neither static nor unresponsive to changing conditions and the advancement of knowledge. True traditional Judaism was not adverse to adjustment to contemporary life.⁸

Samuel Heilman and Steven Cohen in Cosmopolitans and Parochials describe contemporary Modern Orthodoxy and the tensions between bringing together the contemporary world and the traditional demands of Judaism.⁹ Similarly, Jeffrey Gurock describes two groups in the American Orthodoxy of the early twentieth century, the “resisters” and the “accommodators.” Gurock’s “resisters,” like Heilman and Cohen’s “parochial,” resisted American culture, were against the combination of advanced secular and religious studies, and did not necessarily endorse Zionist aspirations. The “accommodators” supported inclusion and cooperation with all Jews and accommodated secular culture while observing Jewish Law.¹⁰

The concept of Modern Orthodoxy was not well defined at The Jewish Forum’s inception. Indeed, the very term “Modern Orthodoxy” for the journal’s philosophy only appears for the first time, in August 1937, in an article entitled “Neo and Modern Orthodox Judaism,” written by Phineas Israeli, a 1902 graduate of The Jewish Theological Seminary.¹¹ Modern Orthodoxy, according to Israeli, is solely an American phenomenon. The first two aspects of Modern Orthodoxy were established by Moses Mendelssohn and Samson Raphael Hirsch, and consist of a combination of loyalty to Jewish tradition and love for general culture and rationalism. It is the innovations in practice and more up to date interpretations of Jewish doctrine, appealing to the rising generation, that Israeli felt were distinctive to American Modern Orthodoxy.¹² In the absence of “Modern Orthodoxy,” writers in The Jewish Forum used various terms to denote the Judaism they supported, including “Traditional Judaism,” “Torah-true Judaism”, “Authentic Judaism,” and “Jewish Jews.”¹³

Orthodox Judaism in modern times has had...