Diaspora Modern Orthodoxy and Israeli Religious Zionism

Similarities, differences, opportunities, and...

The war in Israel, which is now well over one hundred days old, has in some ways highlighted the commonalities between all Jews across the world, no matter where they live, and in other ways demonstrated the gaps that continue to exist between an Israeli public that is dealing with the reality of war on their doorsteps, and a non-Israeli Jewish world which, despite its emotional investment in Israel, obviously is not experiencing war in the same way that Israelis do.

The highlighting of these similarities and differences is at the forefront of the Jewish conversation today, so it seemed appropos to discusee one of the most important areas of both overlap and divergence; namely, the broadly defined Modern Orthodox world that exists outside of Israel, and the Dati Leumi world in Israel - that is, the community that defines itself as National Religious.

With Rabbi Scott Kahn of the Orthodox Conundrum, Rabbanit Shayna discusses the definitions of the words Modern, Orthodox, Dati, and Leumi, and the various ways that these communities are similar and different. They also talked about differences in the way that kids are raised in Israel and outside of Israel, both at home and at school, and some of the advantages and disadvantages associated with each.