Traditional Judaism roars back

For much of the twentieth century, traditional Judaism in America appeared to be a hopeless cause. Nearly one million Jewish immigrants arrived in the United States between 1899 and 1910, but only 305 of them were rabbis. An editorial in The American Hebrew during that period lamented that many Jews

On the eve of America's entry into World War I, there were 3.5 million Jews in America, but only five religious day schools. Only one American Jew in three belonged to a synagogue in 1930, and three fourths of Jewish children received no religious education. Kosher butchers served a tiny clientele. As late as 1955, one prominent sociologist saw Orthodox Judaism in America as "a case study of institutional decay."

Yet half a century later, religious Judaism in America is thriving. Yeshiva schools exist in major cities nationwide. The number of Jewish day schools has exploded from five in 1917 to nearly 700 today. And though they account for only 10 percent of American Jews, the Orthodox exert great influence on Jewish culture, politics, and commerce.