YudelLine

by Andrew Silow-Carroll

What's a Jewish issue?

I tackle the debate in this column.

And yet Orthodox Jews total less than 10 percent of the American Jewish body politic, according to most surveys. For most American Jews, picking and choosing within the Jewish tradition is a way of life — Torah has a vote, but certainly no veto. For them, tikun olam is not a replacement for Torah, but a way of articulating the broader impulse that they say grows naturally from the place where Jewish law, the prophetic tradition, history, and sociology combine.