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This chapter considers developments indicating significant ritualistic departure not only from ultra-Orthodox norms and values but from what had been traditional Jewish religious behaviour since the last half-century. It examines both organizational and institutional developments and informal sources on the Modern Orthodox sector as a significant component of American Orthodoxy. It also refers to the role of women as the most discussed and pressing concerns for many Modern Orthodox Jews. The chapter looks at the increasing numbers of modern Jewish women who feel that they have a very limited or no place in the Orthodox synagogue or the organized community. It points out the variety of attempts that have been made to expand the educational opportunities available to Orthodox women and give them a greater role in synagogue life since the 1960s.

This chapter focuses on Orthodox Jews. These Jews at the end of the twentieth century are divided into a number of groupings, each following its own specific pattern of religious conduct. It describes the Sephardi Jews that are generally content to have their religious life modelled on the traditional behavioural norms of their ancestors without too much reflection on its theological underpinning. The Ashkenazi Jews have been compelled to become more theologically inclined due to the great impact made on European Jewry by the Emancipation and the Enlightenment. The chapter gives details on the Ashkenazim that are divided into the haredim or ultra-Orthodox and the Modern Orthodox.

This chapter presents the conclusions of the research and its wider implications for the study of Orthodox Jewish women. The study suggests that three subgroups — haredi, Modern Orthodox, and traditionalist — exist, and that different patterns of belief, practice, and world-view characterize each group. Individual women from the American and Israeli Orthodox spheres, and British women who have spent significant periods of time in either country, form a disproportionately high percentage of those advocating change and greater participation for Orthodox women in the UK. Haredi women generally adhere to well-defined ideologies that reject Western liberal influences. In contrast, Modern Orthodox women have responded positively to Western feminist influences. They seek a compromise between shifting gender roles in Western culture and halakhic restrictions on women's ritual performance, rather than full egalitarianism. They tend to expect both greater male participation in the non-ritual aspects of the domestic sphere and greater female participation in the ritual aspects of the public sphere. Modern Orthodox women are also the most vocal in expressing dissatisfaction with the current status of and opportunities for Orthodox women, and often actively seek change. Many women believe that their role is actually more important than that of men. Women preserve a surprisingly wide spectrum of traditional customs and beliefs, many tolerated rather than approved of or promoted by the religious establishment, and most linked to the protection of their families. They show remarkable commitment to continuing these practices, even when these are labelled as 'superstitions' or are devalued by some religious authorities.

This concluding chapter addresses the issue of Rabbi Jehiel Jacob Weinberg's lasting importance. Because Weinberg's form of Orthodoxy has been forced on to the defensive in recent years, it is no surprise that the so-called Modern Orthodox look towards him as a guiding light in their encounter with modernity. His name is often brought up in Modern Orthodox writings, for he identified with the ideals of this ‘movement’. He believed in a halakhah which responded to social change wherever possible, and was frightened by the rising extremism in Orthodoxy. Therefore, the chapter reveals that the Modern Orthodox claim Weinberg as one of their own, and draw inferences from his published opinions to cases which were not yet relevant in his time. As such, Weinberg stands out as an icon of Modern Orthodoxy.

This chapter ethnographically traces the contemporary crisis of authority to the Jewish blogosphere or “Jblogosphere” in the mid-2000s, which created an alternative, anonymous heretical public both online and in person. It analyzes the public that referenced an earlier crisis of authority, the Jewish Enlightenment from mid-eighteenth to mid-nineteenth centuries in Europe. The chapter describes the generation of Jewish men that were exposed to the European Enlightenment and used innovations in print culture to take on traditional Judaism and its leadership. It looks into the connection between secret life-changing doubt and the internet that began roughly in 2002 or 2003 when disillusioned Modern Orthodox and ultra–Orthodox Jews began to blog. It also discusses the Jblogosphere that gave anonymous public voice to a range of private interior life-changing doubt.

This chapter provides some tentative explanations for Chabad messianism. One of these explanations is the ideal of unity and the avoidance of communal strife. Every practising Jew has heard countless sermons about the imperative to love one's neighbour, particularly one's Jewish neighbour. While rhetoric about this value cuts across all Orthodox—and Jewish—lines, it is especially compelling for Modern Orthodox Jews who maintain cordial, even formal relations with other denominations and pride themselves on embracing an ideal of tolerance. No Orthodox Jew believes that everyone committed to the Jewish community has the right to serve as an Orthodox rabbi because of the value of unity. The appeal to this principle is relevant only after one has concluded that Lubavitch messianism is essentially within the boundaries of Orthodoxy. Since this is precisely what is at issue, the argument begs the question. The chapter then considers the explanations concerning orthopraxy, the balkanization of Orthodoxy, and Orthodox interdependence.