Religion and Modernity in Our Day

In this essay a comparison is proposed between the positions of Jewish Orthodoxy in modernistic Western society before and after World War II. It is assumed that the differences arise as a result of major changes in the cultural nature of modernity. The differences are defined, and it is then claimed that they have led to a radical change in the role of all the Jewish modern Orthodox movements. (As a specifically successful example of integration between Orthodoxy and modernity before the war, the changing role of the religious kibbutz movement is particularly examined.)