New York Glory: Religions in the City (review)

The dynamism and variety of religious life in New York City animates this interesting volume of twenty-six articles, including overview and conclusion. With New York City as the organizing principle, this multi-authored book goes for diversity rather than depth. Articles by sociologists, psychologists, anthropologists, lawyers, pastors, priests, and professors of ethnic studies—as well as one by the president of an evangelical seminary—mirror the wide variety of spiritual worlds in the city. The range in treatment of the material is accompanied by a broad range in quality, too.

The main thrust of the book is that religion is alive and well in New York City. Not only is it thriving, but it is intertwined with ethnicity, immigration, and political life. A few examples here give the flavor. Many middle class Hindu New Yorkers, who had been religiously laissez-faire in India, adopt a new-found fundamentalism in the city to anchor their children's ancestral identity. In the Seventh Day Adventist Church, new immigrant blood is regularly needed, as socially advancing Caucasians and African Americans often become embarrassed by the prospect of evangelizing their better-heeled peers. Immigrant pastors are more eager to propose crusades with higher expectations of success. While Latino Protestant/Pentecostal church leaders tend to avoid social justice projects, many Latinas in ministry are engaged in social actions that are deemed a type of heresy in the religious community as a whole. The Greek Orthodox Church struggles whether to be a diasporic or an American church.

Three articles about Jewish life capture distinct and evolving arenas of interest. Samuel Kliger reports on his own and others' research of the past decade on the religiosity of "Russian" Jews in New York City. His article provides a picture of how Jews from the former Soviet Union differ in their Jewishness and Judaism from American Jews. With many quotes from interviewees, the piece provides examples of how the two communities continue to misunderstand each other. Kliger shows that FSU Jews see their Jewishness as intrinsic, yet requiring no further elaboration, such that few feel the obligation to practice Jewish customs or religious traditions. Revealingly, American Jews approach their co-religionists with their own cultural assumptions—under the long-term influence of mainstream Protestant cultural style—rather than seeing them historically as "Russians." Influenced by the values of the Orthodox Church and Communist atheism, the "Russians" mostly reject the communal religious life of American Jews, preferring private religious faith, if at all.

In ethnographic sketches of New York study groups, Mareleyn Schneider gives an insider's view of the novelty of Orthodox Jewish women openly studying the Torah. Schneider sensitively reveals the mutability of tradition: women, historically discouraged from Torah study, have been building up opportunities and institutions—some formal, some informal—to participate fully in this key element in Jewish life. Schneider show how women's education has been evolving in Orthodox and Hasidic circles, concentrating on three trends of the last twenty years: a baalei teshuvah school for women; a Hasidic women's teachers' seminary; and a modern Orthodox institute for "serious study of classical Jewish texts." She reveals how current cautious acceptance of their learning helps women become part of a chain of tradition. As one modern Orthodox teacher reveals: ". . . with women gaining equal access to the texts, they will want equal access in every area. But if it emerges from authentic learning and authentic interaction, then I think it is authentic Judaism" (308).

In a very different neck of the New York Jewish woods, Helaine Harris writes about the history of Congregation Beth Simchat Torah, New York's gay and lesbian synagogue. Rather than dwelling on halachic issues or questions of the acceptance of a gay and lesbian synagogue by the Jewish mainstream, Harris's journalistic approach focuses on the socio-economic heterogeneity and religious pluralism of...