"Hands Up! Don't Shoot! We Want Summer Camp!": Orthodox Jewry in the Age of COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter

Post-war Orthodoxy is an amalgam of a variety of communities, often with very different perspectives, that coalesce in a big tent called Orthodoxy. Scholars generally distinguish between the Modern Orthodox, who are generally acculturated, socially integrated and Zionist, and the ultra-Orthodox or Haredim, who tend to segregate themselves from outside culture and society and have historically opposed Zionism. In his classic formulation, Charles Liebman distinguished these camps by differentiating between Orthodoxy as a religion (or "church") and Orthodoxy as a sect. ¹

Recent scholarship by people like Samuel Heilman and especially Adam Ferziger has demonstrated how these divisions are collapsing, however, as Modern Orthodoxy "slides to the Right" (in Heilman's words) and ultra-Orthodoxy more confidently engages with broader society, focusing less on delegitimizing other Jewish denominations and more on policing its own borders—for example, denying the legitimacy of groups like the Open Orthodox (a ritually progressive Orthodox movement founded by Rabbi Avi Weiss) and fighting against the acceptance of gay partnerships or female clerical leaders. ²

While Modern-Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox religious differences over ritual stringency and social integration are indeed collapsing as the movements increasingly pull towards each other, as Heilman and Ferziger describe, there is a broader yet less often discussed factor uniting the two groups as well: a new shared value that transcends their remaining religious differences. Over the past few decades, Orthodox Jews have increasingly coalesced around an ethno-nationalist identity that embraces the political Right and its ultra-nationalist worldview—both in America and in Israel—as a religious foundation united against the threat of the cultural Left. ³

This constitutes a break with the historical position of American Orthodox organizations since the 1950s and 60s, which were by-and-large Democratic or, in other cases, expressly apolitical, especially on a national level. But it is not unprecedented. Nineteenth and early twentieth-century Europe witnessed similar alliances, in which Orthodox communities in Germany, Galicia, Poland, and Russia aligned with Rightist nationalist movements against the secular socialist/communist Left. For some of these communities, the danger of communism, with its mandate to erase ethnic difference and undermine religion, seemed more threatening than hyper-nationalism or fascism. ⁴ The new orientation of American Orthodox Jews burst into popular discourse in 2016 when non-Orthodox Jews voted against Donald Trump in higher numbers than almost any demographic in America, while Orthodox Jews swung sharply red, with support growing stronger over the past three years before leveling off somewhat in 2020. ⁵

It's not simply that the Orthodox are supporting Trump. They are also forging alliances with political groups that are extremely dangerous and damaging to American democracy, and which sometimes include openly antisemitic partners. And they are adopting new values—such as American ethnonationalism, unfettered capitalism, gun rights, opposition to immigration, strict opposition to abortion access—as a part of this religious worldview. Ultra-Orthodoxy—whose earlier ambivalence toward Zionism has largely given way to full-blown support for ethno-nationalist Israelism—has adopted this ethno-nationalist conservative Americanism as part of its religious worldview. This worldview includes the shared "Judeo-Christian" goal of strengthening "Greater Israel" through settlement expansion as well as a "civilizational" battle against Islam, both historic departures for ultra-Orthodox Jews.

This year's twin challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and the explosion of racial justice protests following the video of George Floyd's murder going viral has exposed—among many other issues that warrant further research—the extent to which the broad spectrum of Orthodoxy shares this ethno-nationalist orientation, while also highlighting some key differences that continue to distinguish its divisions. The social restrictions and stay-at-home orders imposed by COVID-19 have carried particular relevance to the Orthodox sector in light of its members' intensely communal lives, religious obligations, and the logistical limitations of the Haredi sector, particularly its aversion to the internet and crowded living conditions due to high birthrate, low income and urban concentration. As Trump and his political camp...