We all know of people who have unfortunately left the fold of Orthodox Judaism. It’s natural to assume that these individuals might harbor negative views toward the frum community and Torah observance. And of course, the many sensationalized docu-series and tell-all books on the subject only serve to further that perception. But a new study by the Orthodox Union’s Center for Communal Research has uncovered a different reality.
“I was very surprised by the fact that most of the respondents overwhelmingly still had very positive feelings towards the Orthodox Jewish community even while sometimes also having very negative feelings,” said Moshe Krakowski, Ph.D., a professor and director of doctoral studies at Yeshiva University’s Azrieli Graduate School of Jewish Education and Administration and one of the authors of the study. “Out-and-out hatred or feeling that the Orthodox Jewish community is wrong or bad was really, really tiny. That was not something I expected necessarily, but it was really interesting to see.”
Indeed, many of those interviewed reported maintaining select Jewish practices such as davening or Shabbat dinner, even if not necessarily within a halachic framework, and staying connected with Orthodox family members and friends and with their Jewish identity generally.
Researchers found that most so-called “leavers” began questioning Orthodoxy before completing high school, some as early as middle school. They also found that many who leave their Orthodox upbringing behind “experienced conflicting parental beliefs or rapid religious changes during their childhood,” felt a sense of isolation from their peers, had a negative experience with rabbis or teachers, or suffered some type of trauma.
The study, entitled “Attrition and Connection in American Orthodox Judaism: Journeys Within and Out of Orthodox Judaism,” focused on 29 individuals – 15 women and 14 men, ages 18 to 43, who had left Orthodoxy. Participants hailed from Modern Orthodox, Yeshivish, Chabad, or Chasidic backgrounds in the U.S., Europe, or Israel.
The Jewish Press spoke to Krakowski about some of the study’s fascinating findings and how rabbis, teachers, and communal leaders – as well as each and every one of us – can help keep young Jews from checking out.
The Jewish Press: What sorts of interactions with Orthodox people do ex-Orthodox Jews most welcome and what best helps keep them connected in some way?
Dr. Krakowski: I don’t know – but people really did feel connected even after leaving despite often also having negative emotion.
Why do you think there is a perception of leaving Orthodoxy being more common than it actually is?
I actually don’t think we know how common it is – that’s something part two of the study will help us figure out.
Your study also challenges the perception that those who leave view our religious practices with contempt. Is the existence of such formerly Orthodox people just the Netflix version, or did your research perhaps probe a different category of individuals?
We covered every type of “leaver” from every type of community. I’m sure there are some people who view Orthodoxy with tremendous contempt, and there were a few in this study who did, but I don’t believe that is the norm.
Is 29 individuals enough of a sample to draw broad conclusions? Especially considering the personal life difficulties involved in many cases.
Twenty-nine is a much bigger sample than you would usually use for a qualitative study of this kind. This is part of what makes qualitative research and quantitative research different from one another. In a qualitative study, numbers aren’t that important; we’re not super concerned with questions like “how many…?” “what’s the average…?” or “what percentage are…?” We’re concerned with the qualities of people’s experiences.
Why do we do both types of research?
Because they tell us very different things. One way to illustrate the difference is by analogy with cars. Imagine you wanted to know which car accelerates faster and which brakes faster: a Tesla Model S or a Toyota Camry. To ensure that you aren’t subject to one or another quirk in a particular car, you might take every hundredth car off the factory line for both models until you have fifty of each, accelerate and brake them, and take the average. That’s quantitative.
But what if you wanted to know why one or the other was superior? How many cars would you need? Just two. You would open up the engine of both and explore exactly how the Camry engine works and how the Tesla works. Once you had a model of how the different pieces fit together – how a gear connects to a shaft, how the pistons are powered, the electric system and battery or the gasoline combustion – you would begin to understand how and why one car performs better and make predictions about how each car will operate under different conditions. If you sampled more models from different companies, you might come up with a handful of different prototypes for how a car engine can work, a typology of car types: two types of pure battery engines, two pure gasoline, three types of hybrid engines, etc.
Building conceptual models of this kind is central to all research. Well before a drug makes its way to Phase 3 trials, researchers spend years in the lab building models of how a molecule might interact with a particular protein or the impact of one bacterium on another. Only once they have a sense for how and why things work do they actually test whether that conceptual model matches the reality in the human body (which will always be more complex than the simplified lab environment).
This part of our study sought to build models in exactly this way. By talking to people from a wide range of backgrounds and ages about their lives, we started to piece together an understanding of the mechanics of those lives. What kinds of experiences did “leavers” have? How did those experiences impact them? How were those experiences different in different communities and how were they the same?
One perception about this issue is that a major driver of people leaving Orthodoxy, especially among teens, is their feeling that Judaism isn’t nearly exciting or engaging enough, especially when compared to the all-invasive, highly stylized and entertaining and overwhelming pop culture which some us, especially in the Modern Orthodox world, are exposed to. Any thoughts on this theory?
I think it’s more a question of how rooted people feel within Orthodoxy. It’s not that these other things seem so exciting; it’s that if those things make up the substance of one’s world, it’s harder to maintain a sense of Orthodoxy as a normative choice. I think every other element is downstream from the degree to which one see Orthodoxy as “just the way things are” vs. seeing it as an active choice. I can’t tell you percentages based on this study, but I think that things that destabilize one’s sense of the Orthodox community as normative – whether because you are engaged in outside things or because you have instability in your life – are all likely to contribute.
That complaints about the treatment of feminist issues popped somewhat prominently among Modern Orthodox, Chabad, and Central Orthodox, as opposed to among more “right-wing” groups, is intriguing.
On the one hand, that’s understandable, since Jews in these groups, broadly speaking, are more exposed to feminist thinking and to the possibilities that are out there. On the other hand, these groups certainly seem to make more overtures and accommodations where they deem possible. What do you make of this finding?
Again, those communities have more engagement with and exposure to different ways of seeing the world. That means they have to engage with those ways of seeing the world and contend with the degree to which Orthodoxy doesn’t match. Those communities that aren’t engaging with those issues don’t have to contend with them in the same way.
How might yeshivas and the Jewish education system be contributing to the phenomenon – both negatively (people giving up observance) and positively (their remaining connected nevertheless)? How can we – teachers, rabbis and communal leaders, neighbors and relatives – do better?
I think that people need to be aware of the potential for misalignment between community, school, and home values to contribute to attrition, and to make sure to keep people on the same page as much as possible. I think that religious authority figures – especially rabbis –have an awesome responsibility because they are the face of Orthodoxy to many people and if they act badly the repercussions are dire.
From a religious standpoint, should we try to bring these quasi-observant ex-Orthodox people back to full participation, or try to preserve the delicate balance of their relationship with Judaism and the community while focusing our kiruv on those who are truly alienated and distant?
I don’t think this study can answer that.
Does age, sex, or family religious orientation/background play a role in who stays and who strays?
This study can’t answer that, but part two will iy”H.
What will part two of the study focus on?
Part two will survey graduates of Orthodox Jewish elementary schools who are now roughly 18-35 to see if we can build a picture of attrition rates in different communities and whether there are clusters of experiences that go together that make people more or less likely to leave.
What aspects of our faith and lifestyle do people tend to still cling to or feel most positively about?
All sorts – it’s like asking what do you like most about your family? You can’t really answer; you like it because it’s natural and comfortable and it’s how you grew up.
With this knowledge in hand, where does the community go next?
I think that for an organization like the OU, there’s a lot they can do to advise communities, rabbis, organizations, etc. on what to be aware of, how to identify risk factors, etc. The same goes for the rest of us.
