Orthodox Judaism is a collective term for the traditionalist branches of contemporary Judaism. Theologically, it is chiefly defined by regarding the Torah, both Written and Oral, as literally revealed by God on Mount Sinai and faithfully transmitted ever since.
The relationships between the various denominations of Judaism are complex and include a range of trends from the conciliatory and welcoming to hostile and antagonistic.
Samson Raphael Hirsch was a German Orthodox rabbi best known as the intellectual founder of the Torah im Derech Eretz school of contemporary Orthodox Judaism. Occasionally termed neo-Orthodoxy, his philosophy, together with that of Azriel Hildesheimer, has had a considerable influence on the development of Orthodox Judaism.
Modern Orthodox Judaism is a movement within Orthodox Judaism that attempts to synthesize Jewish values and the observance of Jewish law with the modern world.
Joseph Ber Soloveitchik was a major American Orthodox rabbi, Talmudist, and modern Jewish philosopher. He was a scion of the Lithuanian Jewish Soloveitchik rabbinic dynasty.
Azriel Hildesheimer was a German rabbi and leader of Orthodox Judaism. He is regarded as a pioneering moderniser of Orthodox Judaism in Germany and as a founder of Modern Orthodox Judaism.
Torah im Derech Eretz is a phrase common in Rabbinic literature referring to various aspects of one's interaction with the wider world. The term also refers to a philosophy of Orthodox Judaism articulated by Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808–1888), which formalizes a relationship between traditionally observant Judaism and the modern world. Some refer to the resultant mode of Orthodox Judaism as Neo-Orthodoxy or, in some historiographies, as Frankfurter Orthodoxy.
Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz was a leader of American Orthodox Judaism and founder of institutions including Torah U'Mesorah, an outreach and educational organization. In 1921 he became principal of Yeshiva Torah Vodaath, an early Brooklyn-based yeshiva founded in 1918. He subsequently added a high school and postgraduate program to the yeshiva. His policies were often informed by the Orthodox philosophical movement Torah im Derech Eretz.
Norman Lamm was an American Modern Orthodox rabbi, scholar, academic administrator, author, and Jewish community leader. He was the Chancellor of Yeshiva University until he announced his retirement on July 1, 2013.
Joseph Breuer, also known as Yosef Breuer was a rabbi and community leader in Germany and the United States. He was rabbi of one of the large Jewish synagogues founded by German-Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi oppression that had settled in Washington Heights, New York.
Torah Umadda is a worldview in Orthodox Judaism concerning the relationship between the secular world and Judaism, and in particular between secular knowledge and Jewish religious knowledge. The resultant mode of Orthodox Judaism is referred to as Centrist Orthodoxy.
Shimon (Simon) Schwab was an Orthodox rabbi and communal leader in Germany and the United States. Educated in Frankfurt am Main and in the yeshivas of Lithuania, he was rabbi in Ichenhausen, Bavaria, after immigration to the United States in Baltimore, and from 1958 until his death at Khal Adath Jeshurun in Washington Heights, Manhattan. He was an ideologue of Agudath Israel of America, specifically defending the Torah im Derech Eretz approach to Jewish life. He wrote several popular works of Jewish thought.
Feldheim Publishers is an American Orthodox Jewish publisher of Torah books and literature. Its extensive catalog of titles includes books on Jewish law, Torah, Talmud, Jewish lifestyle, Shabbat and Jewish holidays, Jewish history, biography, and kosher cookbooks. It also publishes children's books. The company's headquarters is located in New York, with publishing and sales divisions in Jerusalem. Its president is Yitzchak Feldheim.
Yeshiva Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch was founded in New York City in 1944, as a means of reestablishing the Orthodox Jewish community of Frankfurt, Germany in the United States. The school, founded by Rabbi Joseph Breuer, is run according to the philosophy of Rabbi Breuer's grandfather, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch. It is located in the Upper Manhattan neighborhood of Washington Heights.
Judith Bleich is a professor of Judaic studies at Touro College in Manhattan. She specializes in the nineteenth-century development of Reform and neo-Orthodoxy in the wake of the enlightenment and emancipation, and has written extensively on modern Jewish history. She is also a member of the steering committee for the Orthodox Forum organized by Yeshiva University.
SolomonBreuer was a Hungarian-born German rabbi, initially in Pápa, Hungary, and from the early 1890s in Frankfurt as a successor of his father-in-law Samson Raphael Hirsch.
Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg (1884–1966) was an Ashkenazi Orthodox rabbi, posek and rosh yeshiva. He is best known as the author of the work of responsa Seridei Eish.
Jewish heresy refers to those beliefs which contradict the traditional doctrines of Rabbinic Judaism, including theological beliefs and opinions about the practice of halakha. Jewish tradition contains a range of statements about heretics, including laws for how to deal with them in a communal context, and statements about the divine punishment they are expected to receive.
Meir Yaakov Soloveichik is an American Orthodox rabbi and writer. He is the son of Rabbi Eliyahu Soloveichik, grandson of Rabbi Ahron Soloveichik, and a great nephew of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, the leader of American Jewry who identified with what became known as Modern Orthodoxy.
Torah Lehranstalt, also known as the Frankfurt Yeshiva or the Breuer Yeshiva, was an Orthodox Jewish yeshiva in Frankfurt am Main, founded in 1893 by Rabbi Dr. Solomon Breuer, the rabbi of the city's seceded Orthodox community.
