The Orthodox Jewish Community and the Coronavirus: Halacha Grapples with the Pandemic

Contemporary Jewry https://doi.org/10.1007/s12397-021-09390-2 The Orthodox Jewish Community and the Coronavirus: Halacha Grapples with the Pandemic Mark L. Trencher1 Received: 28 September 2020 / Accepted: 13 July 2021 © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2021 Abstract Many general population surveys have been conducted relating to the coronavirus/ COVID-19. Some have reported on small samples of Jewish respondents, but issues specific to Judaism have not been well explored. This paper provides findings from the first broad coronavirus-related survey of the U.S. Orthodox Jewish community, conducted in May 2020 among 502 Jewish respondents who resided in the United States, self-identified as Orthodox Jews, and indicated whether they were Modern Orthodox or Haredi (“Ultra-Orthodox”). The survey broadly probed the impact of the pandemic through the lens of Jewish individual and communal attitudes, behaviors and practices, exploring such issues as people’s health, finances, Jewish prayer and religious study, synagogues and their programs, what services their communities and its Jewish organizations are offering, the extent to which they avail themselves of these services and how they are perceived, changes in the perceived value of Jewish communal connection, and many other aspects, including how people assess the pandemic’s impact on their overall “feelings of Jewishness.” While many communal changes arising from the pandemic will prove to be transitory, others may become more permanent or, at the very least, create introspection with respect to normative religious observance. This paper references findings relating to the former, while focusing on the latter. Thus, we focus on and report survey findings relating to how the Orthodox community has melded its adherence to Halacha (Jewish law) and tradition with the need for change and flexibility required to deal safely with the pandemic. We will also share some of the communal views that have arisen on how such changes might play out in the years ahead. Keywords Survey · COVID · Coronavirus · Pandemic · Jewish · Orthodox · Modern Orthodox · Haredi * Mark L. Trencher http://nishmaresearch.com 1 Nishma Research, West Hartford, CT, USA 13 Vol.:(0123456789) M. L. Trencher Introduction Orthodox Judaism—An Under‑Studied Population While much communal research is conducted in the broad U.S. Jewish community, much less research is conducted among the Orthodox and, in particular, within its Haredi segment. A recent Pew Research Center study (Pew Research Center’s Jewish Americans in 2020; May 11, 2021, https://www.pewforum.org/2021/05/11/jewish-americans-in-2020/)—is illustrative. Starting with statistical data, Pew’s national cross-sectional, address-based sampling survey (methodologically a state-of-the art survey) drew 4718 respondents, providing a 95% margin of error of ±3%. Because the Orthodox community is relatively small, Pew’s sample of the Orthodox was 430, providing a much larger 95% margin of error of ±9%. Diving further, if we extracted data for the three sub-segments of Orthodoxy—Hasidic, Yeshivish and Modern Orthodox Jews, the margins of error would be between ±15% and ±17% for the segments. And, of course, comparisons of male and female, across age categories, by educational levels attained, are all difficult given the small sample sizes. Additionally, questions relevant to the Orthodox are different from those asked of the large American Jewish community, reflecting Orthodoxy’s different practices, beliefs and priorities. While surveys like Pew or those that are Federation-sponsored might not ask about concerns relating to the cost of maintaining a kosher kitchen or whether people pray in synagogue on a daily basis, such questions might be appropriate in a survey of the Orthodox community. More recently, surveys focusing on areas such as political views (such as Ben Sales and Laura Adkins, “‘I think it’s Israel’: How Orthodox Jews became Republicans,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, February 13, 2020; https://jewishworldnews. org/i-think-its-israel-how-orthodox-jews-became-republicans/) and handling of the Coronavirus pandemic (as discussed in this paper) have highlighted sharp differences between the Orthodox community and the rest of American Judaism. While the American Orthodox community is relatively small, it seems to disproportionately affect how the public perceives the Jewish community (Cathryn Prince, “Under attack, US ultra-Orthodox are misunderstood, ‘terrified’”; The Times of Israel, February 26, 2020. https://www.timesofisrael.com/jewish-academic-under- attack-us-ultra-orthodox-are-misunderstood-terrified/). Our hope is that this paper will contribute to a growing body of literature dealing with the historically understudied Orthodox community, and will spur researchers to develop methodologies to reach this community and to conduct quality research to fill our knowledge gaps relating to it. Methodology Many broad population surveys have been conducted relating to the coronavirus pandemic (Kaiser Family Foundation Coronavirus (COVID-19) and Pew Research Center Coronavirus Disease). Few have broken out findings specific 13 The Orthodox Jewish Community and the Coronavirus: Halacha… to the Jewish community, and our objective in conducting this research was to explore a broad set of issues specific to the Orthodox Jewish community. The survey reports and related information (including survey respondent demographic data) that we draw upon are publicly available (Trencher 2020 and Berman Jewish Databank). Additionally, we cite a few items derived from more recent research (conducted since the mid-2020 Nishma survey) and more recent observations. This was an “opt-in” online survey that took about 15 min to complete and was conducted May 4–19, 2020. We reached Jews residing in the U.S. through their Orthodox synagogue rabbis who are members of the Rabbinical Council of America, the National Council of Young Israel, and the International Rabbinic Fellowship. A total of 502 respondents self-identified as Orthodox and further indicated whether they fall within the Modern Orthodox or Haredi (“Ultra-Orthodox”) camps within Orthodoxy. The findings presented are based on these 502 respondents. We refer to our sample of 502 as the “respondents” with the understanding that the extent to which they represent the larger community is not knowable and that we therefore avoid inference to the larger population, for several reasons. For one thing, there is no “profile” of the Orthodox community, based on an adequately large sample, to which our respondents can be compared to ascertain their representativeness. The relative shares of Modern Orthodox and Haredi respondents in our sample—approximately 430 and 70, or 86% and 14%, respectively—differ from their representation in the population—estimated at 37% and 63%, respectively (Trencher 2018). To adjust for this, data labeled in this r (...truncated)