I was born in 1957. My experience growing up as a Modern Orthodox Jew in America vastly differed from that of my parents. Virtually all of my friends — boys and girls — attended yeshiva through high school. Many continued in post-high school programs in Israel and the United States.
I was one of the few among my group of friends who had two American-born parents and did not lose a grandparent during the Holocaust. Many of my friends and classmates had parents who came from extremely Orthodox homes in pre-World War II Europe. Several of their fathers attended the elite yeshivas of pre-war Europe. Their homes had televisions their families went to the movies went mixed-swimming and their mothers did not cover their hair.
Nevertheless my friends’ parents retained the values customs and traditions of their youth and passed these onto their children and eventually their grandchildren. My parent’s generation saw the advent of English Judaica with the linear Chumash Blackman Mishnayot and Soncino Talmud. My generation saw this evolve into the ArtScroll revolution which permits even the newly observant to become conversant with Tanach Mishna Talmud and halacha.
Just as men did not wear yarmulkes in public our parents forced us to wear baseball caps whenever we went to a public event not associated with our yeshiva or synagogue. After the Six Day War we were no longer afraid to be seen with a yarmulke and rebelled. We ventured to Yankee and Shea stadiums and Madison Square Garden with our yarmulkes perched proudly on our heads. I wear my yarmulke when representing clients in court as do many other male Orthodox attorneys. I have begun to notice an increase in the number of female attorneys who wear sheitels in court. A Civil Court judge in Brooklyn wears his yarmulke on the bench.
There are chassidic professors in universities. Sabbath observance is now accepted in many top law and accounting firms. Many of these firms have Mincha services and Daf Yomi classes. (The downtown Brooklyn building in which my office is located has an office suite dedicated to Mincha minyanim and Daf Yomi classes.) Medical schools have Shabbat programs for interns and residents.
Those young people who choose to enter the professions find that most of the barriers for Orthodox Jews have been lifted. They no longer have to eat fish at a non-kosher business meeting but can arrange for kosher meals almost anywhere. Today even the most Orthodox of Jews can fully participate in American life.
Indeed I believe that the perceived encroachment of ultra-Orthodoxy is nothing more than a new generation’s realization that they can be Orthodox without having to make many of the accommodations their parents had to make to stay employed and participate in American society.
While some Modern Orthodox parents may complain that their children have become too religious they fail to realize that they have fully participated in acquiesced to and often encouraged their children’s way of life.
For the most part it is the parent who chooses a child’s elementary school and high school. It is parents who have the obligation to investigate their child’s choice of post-high school programs and who can approve or disapprove of their child’s choice. It is parents who pay for that post-high school program. It is these same parents who agree to support their children if they wish to join a kollel after they marry.
If many of these young people shun college for the yeshiva lifestyle perhaps it is because they have seen their professional parents fired from long-term positions as companies have merged and/or failed. They see positions in the rabbinate or Jewish education as secure and viable employment options. Parents realize that these jobs now pay decent wages and many encourage their children to follow their dreams. Most are proud of their children’s choices.
