From Institutional Decay to Primary Day: American Orthodox Jewry Since World war Ii (Part Two: Recent American Jewish History, 1954-2004‪)‬

A number of works on American Jewry written during the early second-half of the twentieth century began with the contrast between the very pessimistic evaluations about the state of American Judaism at the end of the nineteenth century and the authors' more optimistic prognoses at mid-twentieth century. (1) An even starker contrast can be made between the state of American Orthodox Jewry at the time of World War II and at the turn of the twenty-first century. The New York area has always been home to the majority of Orthodox Jews in the United States. According to the 2001 National Jewish Population Survey, 73 percent of those who identify as Orthodox Jews live in the Middle Atlantic states, i.e., New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. In the 1920s and 1930s, the overwhelming majority were in New York City proper, and as a result of immigration from Eastern Europe between 1881 and 1923-1926 the period was the "heyday of American Orthodoxy." (2) The sense of elation and self-confidence dissipated rather quickly. Indeed, as Jeffrey Gurock's detailed analysis demonstrates, the first half of the twentieth century was the "era of non-observance" for American Orthodoxy, (3) and Orthodoxy was increasingly viewed as doomed in American society. As Jenna Joselit put it,