The Social Integration of Baalei Teshuvah

This article focuses on the perceptions of baalei teshuvah, Jews who were raised with little identification with Judaism as a religious system and subsequently became Orthodox, as an example of the social integration of a group that migrates from one community to another. The baalei teshuvah participants perceived themselves as unique and distinct from those who were raised Orthodox and preferred to associate with others like themselves. They experienced a mixture of pride in their own religious fervor and embarrassment over their lack of knowledge compared with those who grew up Orthodox. At the same time they expressed ambivalent feelings toward Jews who were raised Orthodox. Immigration theory and the concepts of human, social, religious, and spiritual capital are used to discuss the baalei teshuvah's marginal status and preference to associate with other baalei teshuvah.     

A Review of “The Reformation. A Brief History”

Scholars researching the varieties of Orthodox Judaism have different types of primary and secondary resources available to them electronically. Books and journals are available digitally. Web sites emanate from institutions, organizations, and individuals that have clear ideological and political preferences. There is increasing use of the Internet by Orthodox and Haredi Jews for a variety of religious, communal, personal, and educational purposes. Religious Jewish residents of the West Bank maintain community Web sites that provide historical, theological, institutional, and communal information. This article describes some of the Web-based resources and tools that reflect the wide range of Orthodox thought, activity, and practices.     

Towards an anthropology of doubt: the case of religious reproduction in Orthodox Judaism

As Israel’s Orthodox Jews struggle to live up to high fertility norms rooted in religious and Zionist ideals, an obscured model of stratified critique has emerged. Based on an ethnography of Israel’s reproductive landscape, I demonstrate how critique of high fertility standards is based on particular social and cultural capital only available to the religious elite. While well-established, knowledgeable and assertive religious members find private ways to bypass the almost unachievable levels of fertility, a veil of secrecy leaves less privileged groups, particularly ba`aley teshuva (returnees) to carry most of the fertility load. Whereas scholars of religious transformation have demonstrated how religious elites act as actors and leaders of resistance, my findings illustrate an opposite pattern. Instead of disseminating this critique publicly, religious elites engage in private strategies of secrecy and creative performances of failure that enable these individuals to diverge from norms without publicly contesting them. I argue that not only is stratified critique based on social and cultural capital, it also reproduces social inequalities. By focusing on doubt, struggles, and failures engendered in “everyday Judaism,” these findings require us to refocus our inquiry on power structures within different sub-groups of Israel’s Orthodox Jews. Further, this unique case study highlights how stratified reproduction takes new shape as social and religious convictions gain and lose their force at a particular moment in history.     

The terror management function of Orthodox Jewish religiosity: a religious culture approach

Terror management theory proposes that humans, able to envision their inevitable death, develop worldviews opposing this debilitating fear. One TMT implication of considerable interest is its connection with the formation of religious belief. Taking a religious culture approach, this study measured the effect of death reminders on self-reported religiosity among 131 Orthodox Jews, and examined if Baal Teshuva—“returnees” differed from individuals born into Orthodox Judaism. Results showed that death reminders had a varied effect—both Baal Teshuva and those with intra-Orthodox religious change reported higher levels of intrinsic religiosity, while those without change reported lower. Explanations for these intra-faith differences relate to attachment theory and possible “Compensation” among those with religious change.     

Becoming Eastern Orthodox in diaspora: materializing Orthodox Russia and Holy Rus’

In this article, I draw on interviews and participant observation data from a two-year-long ethnographic study in a Russian Orthodox parish in the United States. I argue that both the Russian Orthodox immigrants and the Protestant converts to Orthodoxy attending this parish may be usefully thought of as diasporic groups. Seeking to construct their particular Orthodox identity, both groups deal with their own physical and symbolic displacements, and attempt to find their place of belonging. I demonstrate how in the process, through reliance on religious narratives, prayer, and Russian Orthodox icons, parishioners construct two overlapping, yet distinctive places of their origin: Holy Rus’ and Orthodox Russia. Finally, attending to how some Orthodox Christians were able to position themselves in two groups simultaneously, I suggest that we think of religious practitioners as able to inhabit two diasporas at once.     

Cross-sex versus same-sex experience and relationship satisfaction: addressing diverse social networks among Orthodox Jews

Romantic experiences in adolescence often predict relationship stability and marital status in adulthood. Religious practice and belief also have been linked to increased marital satisfaction and overall wellbeing. However, certain religions limit cross-sex interaction in areas of education, social and romantic relationships. Although gender segregation has been studied in educational and occupational contexts, no previous research has addressed religious gender segregation and its impact on relationship development, marital satisfaction, and overall wellbeing. The present study addressed the generalisability of data on cross-sex experience derived from normative populations to a religious subculture, outlining predictors for marital satisfaction and wellbeing in an Orthodox Jewish sample. Results showed some similarities between the general population and the Orthodox Jews represented by the study sample. However, some factors illustrated divergent paths and outcomes for this sample. This study demonstrates the influence of societal norms and the importance of addressing cultural context when evaluating marital satisfaction.     

Family functioning among returnees to Orthodox Judaism in Israel

The role of religious conversion in marriages and family functioning has been little explored. The current study examined family functioning and parenting stress among returnees to Orthodox Judaism with adolescent children. Possible explanatory factors for difficulties, such as attachment insecurity, religious discord in families, and poor community integration, were also explored. Randomly selected samples of returnee and nonreturnee Orthodox Jews with adolescent children (N = 1632) completed measures of attachment, community integration, marital functioning, and parenting stress. Results indicate that returnees report greater family disengagement (lack of warmth), family chaos (lack of control), and parenting stress. They also reported higher religious discord, higher attachment insecurity, and poorer community integration, which all correlated with higher parenting stress, family disengagement (lack of warmth), and family chaos (lack of control). Moreover, differences between returnees and nonreturnees on family functioning and parenting stress were largely mediated by differences in the explanatory factors. These results substantiate previous anecdotal reports and suggest possible avenues for intervention among Orthodox returnees with family difficulties. They also support the relevance of religious factors in family functioning.     

The relationship between religiosity/spirituality and well-being in gay and heterosexual Orthodox Jews

Numerous studies have demonstrated positive relationships between religiosity/spirituality and emotional well-being. Little research exists, though, on these relationships in Orthodox Jewish and gay populations. Therefore, data from two studies focusing on heterosexual Orthodox Jews (Study 1, 52 females, 18 males) and gay Orthodox Jews (Study 2, 191 males) are presented. The studies assessed religiosity, spirituality, and well-being using validated self-report measures. In Study 1, religiosity and spirituality were generally positively correlated with well-being. In Study 2, spirituality was positively correlated with well-being, while religiosity entered into a complex pattern of relationships. For gay Orthodox Jews, religiosity may not have the same associations with well-being that it does for heterosexual Orthodox Jews, although spirituality may provide an alternative pathway for emotional benefits.     

Do Spiritual Struggles Predict Poorer Physical/Mental Health Among Jews?

Although spirituality and religion are generally associated with higher levels of physical and mental well-being, spiritual struggles, which involve tension in regard to spiritual issues, have been identified as a risk factor for poorer physical and mental health, especially among individuals with greater levels of personal religiousness. However, studies in this area have utilized predominantly Christian samples and the importance of spiritual struggles to Jews is not known. We proposed and tested two competing models in an adult Jewish community sample: (a) the Universal Effects model in which spiritual struggles were proposed to be associated with decreased levels of physical/mental health, and more problematic for more religious Jews, and (b) the Differential Effects model in which spiritual struggles were proposed to be generally unrelated to the physical/mental health of Jews, and even less impactful on religious Jews. We found some support for both models. Spiritual struggles were modestly associated with lower levels of physical/mental health in the sample as a whole, even after controlling for demographic covariates. However, at the highest levels of spiritual struggle, Orthodox Jews exhibited an increase in physical and mental health whereas non-Orthodox Jews' health continued to decrease.     

Denominational Variations Across American Jewish Communities

This article explores the Jewish identity of different Jewish denominational identification groups using the Decade 2000 Data Set with its 19,800 interviews of Jewish households in 22 American Jewish communities. We relate the Jewish identity of individuals in each denominational group (Orthodox, Conservative, Reform/Reconstructionist) to the denominational composition of the community. Communities are clustered via k‐means cluster analysis based on their denominational profiles. We examine the extent to which individual Jewish identification varies by the denominational composition of the community in which an individual resides, finding that considerable variation exists in Jewish identity measures depending on the type of denominational profile that exists in the individual's community. That is, Orthodox Jews, for example, behave differently in a community with a significant Orthodox population than in a community with few Orthodox, but many Reform Jews. Implications for Jewish communities, as well as for the broader interreligious community, are considered.     

Coping with Illness and Threat: Why Non-religious Jews Choose to Consult Rabbis on Healthcare Issues

Whereas modern and advanced medical services are available and accessible to all citizens of Israel, the phenomenon of consulting Orthodox rabbis (Jewish clerics) on healthcare issues is gaining ground among populations that do not identify themselves as religious. The objective of the research was to enquire why non-religious Jews choose to consult rabbis on medical issues. Fifty semi-structured open-ended interviews were conducted during 2009–2011 in northern Israel. The article presents the respondents’ main motives, expectations, beliefs, and modes of consulting both physicians and rabbis. This study aims to contribute to discussion about conflating modern medicine with spiritual-religious beliefs in modern-secular society.     

Health Impact of Jewish Religious Observance in the USA: Findings from the 2000–01 National Jewish Population Survey

Using data from the 2000–01 National Jewish Population Survey (NJPS) (N = 5,148), effects of eight religious measures were investigated in relation to two health outcomes, standard single-item indicators of self-rated health and presence of an activity-limiting health condition. Seven of the religious measures were associated bivariately with one or both health indicators. Through two-step OLS regression of each health indicator onto all of the religious measures, adjusting for age and other sociodemographic correlates, two measures of synagogue involvement remained statistically significant. Follow-up analysis revealed a net health impact of religious observance primarily limited to Orthodox and Conservative Jews.     

Religion and the crisis in Ukraine

This article investigates religious nationalism in the Russian–Ukrainian conflict, which has appeared in political and popular rhetoric and has been expressed through violence. From the Tsarist era, Kyiv and Crimea have featured centrally in Russian national mythology as the cradle(s) of Russian Christianity. This nationalist conception of space persisted after political borders changed with the collapse of the Soviet Union, as has the Russian Orthodox Church's historic jurisdiction in Ukraine. As a result, Russian Orthodox believers retain a special affinity for Kyiv and Crimea, and many Ukrainian citizens have looked to Moscow for matters of faith. Subjects of inquiry include religious nationalism, the baptism of Slavic Prince Vladimir (Volodymyr), Orthodox holy places in Crimea and Ukraine, Patriarch Kirill's Russian World concept, and religious violence in Ukraine and Crimea.     

Orthodox Christianity as a transnational religion: theoretical,historical and comparative considerations

In this article I analyse Orthodox Christianity as a transnational religion. In the first section I develop a theoretical argument concerning the relationship among diaspora, transnationalism and Orthodoxy. Seen through these lenses, transnationalism represents a newfound situation connected to the epochal shift from empires to nation-states. I then give a historical overview of demographic trends which shows that in the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries millions of Orthodox emigrated to North America and Western Europe; while large Orthodox groups were created in the USA by the early twentieth century, the majority of Orthodox immigrants to Canada, Australia and Western Europe are post-1945 arrivals. I then offer a brief overview of the situation of Orthodox transnationalism in the post-Soviet space since 1989, and argue that in contrast to that situation, it is the experience of migration that is most accurately captured by the label of religious transnationalism. Lastly, I conduct an initial comparison of North American and European experiences. The current fragmentation of Orthodox jurisdictions reflects the creation of autonomous church organisations or groups of parishes that extend the jurisdictions of Mother Churches into the host states. I contemplate the consequences of religious transnationalism for future developments.     

“Not Being Counted”: Women's Place and Religious Space in Jewish Orthodox Communities During the COVID-19 Crisis

This article draws on the anthropology of crisis to analyze ways in which communal-religious responses to crisis situations can reveal engrained social and cultural structures, and especially their gendered aspects. We focus on two alternative forms of Jewish communal prayer service that emerged in Orthodox communities in Israel during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic: street and balcony minyans. Based on interviews and texts, we explore Orthodox women's experiences of these new religious spaces that entailed the rearrangement of traditional gender and spatial boundaries. We show that while these spaces opened room for new religious experiences for women, they ultimately accentuated their experiences of exclusion. We argue that the destabilization of the physical religious space in these alternative communal prayers reinforced symbolic gender boundaries. Thus, our study not only demonstrates how crises can uncover the deep social grammar of a community, but also how they unearth processes that defy and challenge that grammar.     

Conversion and Attachment Insecurity Among Orthodox Jews

Radical conversion, which entails a sweeping transformation of existing meaning systems, is often precipitated by emotional distress. Nevertheless, although many individuals turn toward religion when distressed, few undertake total and radical conversions. Previous research suggests that insecurely attached individuals—who resemble James's disillusioned, doubting, and divided sick souls—may be particularly prone to radical conversions. Thus, the present research examined insecure parental attachment history and convert status among 122 Orthodox and 31 non-Orthodox Jews, hypothesizing that converts to and from Orthodox Judaism, who undertake an all-encompassing transformation of beliefs, behaviors, values, and life's purpose, would report greater insecurity in parental attachment history than nonconverts. Results indicate that converts report greater maternal and paternal insecurity, as compared to both nonconverts and those with intra-Orthodox religious change. Thus, further research examining insecure attachment, and associated religious stressors and doubts, may uncover some of the individual differences underlying radical conversions.     

Sacrifice and Stigma: Managing Religious Risk

This article develops a theoretical explanation for the incidence of sacrifice and stigma or “strictness” that—unlike the extant literature—explicitly incorporates a supernatural motive for religiosity. This innovation permits a precise delineation of religious risks and leads to the critical insight that “strictness” is an instrument of mutually beneficial risk mitigation. The theory yields alternative explanations for all empirical regularities on the incidence of strictness that the club model explains, including the seemingly anomalous labor market behavior of Ultra‐Orthodox Jews in Israel, the high lethality of extremist religious sects, and the positive correlation between strictness and social service provision. Among the attributes that distinguish the risk mitigation approach from the club model are: its explanation of observed income dispersion within strictness categories that is substantially greater than that implied by the club model; its prediction that the positive correlation between strictness and exclusivity is a causal relationship in which exclusivity is causally prior to strictness; and its demonstration that variation in the risk mitigation benefits members derive from strictness is at least as important as variation in the opportunity costs of strictness in explaining variation in the levels of strictness employed across denominations and sects.     

Religiosity and coping with loneliness

Loneliness is a universal experience which transcends age, sex, geography, and culture. Religion, and often one's religiosity, are known to affect one's approach to life, behaviour, and social involvement. The present, preliminary study aimed to explore whether coping with loneliness is influenced by one's religious observance. The present study focused on Israeli Jews. 250 participants identified themselves as Secular, Conservative, or Orthodox, by answering a 34-item yes/no questionnaire on loneliness. The three groups statistically significantly differed in their manner of coping with loneliness only on the Religion and Faith subscale, as hypothesized. Similar studies with people of other religious denominations could further highlight that issue.     

Gender Differences in American Jewish Identity: Testing the Power Control Theory Explanation

This paper addresses discrepancies in previous research about whether there are gender differences in Jewish identity. Four factors of Jewish identity are examined: multifaceted Jewish engagement, social Jewish identity, communal religious identity, and cultural Jewish identity. Using the 2011 New York Jewish Community Survey, gender differences in Jewish identity in seven denominational groups of American Jews are examined. The power control theory (PCT) is tested as an explanation for the gender differences, and found to be lacking. Measures of power imbalance in current family situations are used, in addition to measures related to socialization; the rationale for this variation is discussed. According to PCT, the Orthodox would exhibit greater gender differences in Jewish identity, but the opposite is true: significant gender differences are found for non-Orthodox denominations more than are found for the Orthodox. Being raised Orthodox does not contribute to the gender differences. Measures of power imbalance within families do not contribute to the explanation of variance in any of the Jewish identity factors. Possible generalization of the findings is discussed, as well as directions for further research.     

Converting to Continuity: Temporality and Self in Eastern Orthodox Conversion Narratives

Based on interviews with converts to Eastern Orthodox Christianity in the United States, this article documents and analyzes a narrative form in which conversion is described as the progressive discovery of a latent religious self that was part of one's life all along, or what I term a conversion to continuity. These findings contrast markedly with those of most contemporary conversion research, which emphasize the narration of a dramatic temporal break between converts’ past and present religious selves (epitomized by the evangelical “born‐again” genre). I examine how and why temporal continuity was a characteristic feature of these conversion accounts and demonstrate how such narratives helped constitute forms of religious experience and self‐identity that differ in important respects from those documented in previous studies. In light of these findings, I argue for a reconceptualization of continuity and discontinuity within processes of religious identity change as an institutionally anchored figure/ground relationship as opposed to an either/or dichotomy. I also highlight promising avenues for future comparative research on the relationships between time, narrative, and subjectivity across religious and secular contexts.