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Vol. 70, No. 1 (Summer 2026) - Celebrating America’s Sestercentennial

Porous Denominational Boundaries: A Riverdale Memoir

Adam S. Ferziger

It was a cold Sabbath morning in 1972 and I was eight years old. Walking with my dad to our Modern Orthodox congregation from our home in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, we passed a distinguished looking man wearing a hat and long coat. He too appeared on his way to shul, but was going in the opposite direction. My dad then proceeded to share that this was a well-known Jewish leader and scholar by the name of Gerson Cohen, who was the chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) in Manhattan.1

Duly impressed, and rambunctiously curious, I asked: “If he is such an important religious figure, why is he carrying his tallit (prayer shawl) to synagogue on Saturday?” I had been taught that according to Jewish law it is forbidden for a Jew to transport an object from a private to public space on the Sabbath, that is, unless an eruv, or symbolic border, is erected. My father explained that Cohen was a leader in the Conservative Jewish movement, and that this stream of Judaism was more lenient in regard to the laws of carrying on the Sabbath.2

To the best of my recall, this was my first introduction to the commonalities and distinctions between Orthodox and Conservative Judaisms. I may have heard these terms or titles previously, yet that day I learned that both denominations professed principled allegiance to observance of Jewish law but departed from one another through their interpretations in ways that sometimes manifest in visibly different behaviors. Perhaps intuitively I realized that regardless of the relative severity of a particular regulation, the public face of certain acts influenced their roles as distinguishing elements between different Jewish subgroups.

***

In the conventional historiography of American Judaism, the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were characterized by “institutional fluidity.” As historian Jeffrey Gurock has described, many synagogues and individuals did not see themselves as strictly Orthodox or Conservative in the contemporary sense; rather, they were traditionalists navigating a spectrum of acculturation. The “Schechter Era” at the Jewish Theological Seminary (beginning in 1902) initially aimed to create a “United Synagogue” that would encompass all traditional elements. However, as the seminary increasingly embraced historical-critical methods of study and sanctioned certain innovations, the ideological distance from the stricter traditionalists grew.3

A primary catalyst for this friction, as historian Jonathan Sarna has asserted, was the gradual adoption of mixed gender seating (the removal of the mehitzah divider). While initially viewed by some as a pragmatic concession to American social norms to keep families together, it eventually evolved into a definitive theological boundary. The family pew became a physical indicator of the shift toward Conservatism, alienating the more traditionalist, immigrant-connected Jews who viewed the separation of genders during prayer as an inviolable halakhic requirement.4

As the practice of mixed gender seating spread, the clash over the mehitzah became a legal and social battleground that forced congregations to choose a side. In several high-profile court confrontations, such as the Mt. Clemens case in Michigan, the presence or absence of a barrier became the primary evidence used to determine if a synagogue was legally Orthodox or had moved into the Conservative camp. The United Synagogue of America eventually accepted mixed seating as a hallmark of its movement, while the Orthodox Union (OU) and the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA) moved to make the mehitzah a mandatory requirement for membership.5 This structural and physical change in the sanctuary helped accelerate the end of institutional fluidity, making it increasingly difficult for a congregation to remain ambiguous about its denominational affiliation.6

A second boundary emerged from a monumental religio-legal decision. The 1950 “Responsum on the Sabbath,” issued by the Conservative Movement’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, formally permitted driving to the synagogue on Shabbat. While congregants may have understood this change primarily as a pragmatic concession to suburbanization, for the Orthodox rabbinate, the codified shift—from tacit recognition that most American Jews were not personally punctilious in their observance—to formal permission represented a fundamental break from the traditional halakhic process.7

Based on these developments, scholars have long identified the 1950s as the watershed period when the institutional fluidity of the immigrant era finally collapsed into rigid sectarianism. By this reading, the post-war years functioned as a formal “divorce” between Orthodoxy and Conservatism, finalized by these two non-negotiable boundary markers. To the historian focusing on elite discourse and organizational policy, these developments meant that by the 1960s, the two movements had retreated into mutually exclusive camps with burned bridges and distinct identities.8

The view from the street, however —specifically from the leafy, intellectually vibrant blocks of Riverdale in the 1970s and 80s—suggests a far more nuanced and liminal reality.9 While the national movements were engaged in polemical battles, the lived experience of a Modern Orthodox youth in that section of the Bronx revealed a landscape of porous borders. In Riverdale, the absolute separation described in academic literature was often subverted by the presence of a scholarly aristocracy that defied easy categorization. It was a neighborhood where standard Orthodox laypeople studied Talmud under the guidance of JTS professors, and where the children of Conservative rabbis and Orthodox professionals met in classrooms, social events, and as basketball teammates.

This brief memoir challenges the clean lines of historical consensus. It explores the tension between the “cataclysmic” denominational differences cited by rabbis and scholars and the vast commonalities experienced by families.10 Through a series of personal bookends—encounters that began with youthful judgment and matured into mutual respect—I reflect on a community that, perhaps uniquely, remained a laboratory for Jewish solidarity long after the historians declared the experiment over. Alternatively, numerous parallel communities existed that were characterized by a similar ambience of denominational fluidity. In either case, the very existence of such an exceptional local model raises questions as to what enabled such a dynamic to prevail long after the boundaries had seemingly been concretized.

***

Some eight years after discovering that there were learned and observant Jews who carried their tallit to synagogue on the Sabbath, at the beginning of my junior year of high school, my exposure to the intricacies and distinctive characteristics of Conservative Judaism expanded measurably. A college-age neighbor, who had attended a well-known yeshiva in Israel and was a fellow member of the Orthodox Riverdale Jewish Center, asked me if I was interested in serving as a Sabbath Torah reader at the Conservative Adath Israel synagogue (now known as CSAIR). He explained that the congregation was very respectful of personal Orthodox standards: I would not be required to chant into a microphone (forbidden on the Sabbath, according to most Orthodox authorities); at that time women did not get called up to the Torah on a regular basis; and I could pray in an isolated area of the sanctuary without mixed-gender seating. Since my bar mitzvah, my father had encouraged me to read the Torah publicly and this sounded like a good opportunity. At $35 per Shabbat, it would also be a nice income in return for doing a mitzvah.

When I shared the offer with my parents, they too were in favor, although my dad preferred that I pray in an earlier Orthodox service each Saturday morning, and then go to the Conservative house of prayer to perform my Torah recitation.11 I must admit that during the two years when I served as Torah reader, I didn’t fully listen to my dad. More often than not, I would wake up late after practicing the Bible portion deep into the night and then go straight to CSAIR. I have pondered from time to time whether my academic interest in the origins and evolutions of modern Jewish religious movements emerged from the hours I spent sitting alone in the pews, comparing the prayer book of the Conservative Movement with the one that I had grown up with in Orthodox settings.

I had my official tryout on the Sabbath of the intermediate days/Hol ha-Moed of Sukkot. I performed the task relatively well, definitely not perfectly, but competently enough that they were willing to take me for the job on a regular basis. Uncannily, as I left the bimah (rostrum) in the front of the sanctuary, a man called me over, shook my hand, and congratulated me on my reading. Then, his face turned stern. He asked me if I was aware of a particular grammatical issue that would impact on the Hebrew pronunciation of specific words. It was clear to me that for this man, fulfillment of the obligation to read the Torah publicly would be impaired if this grammatical nuance was not properly addressed. I pleaded ignorance and he sent me to study this topic thoroughly for the future so that I would achieve the level of proficiency that was expected in this synagogue. As I walked away from him, I realized that the man was Professor Gerson Cohen, the chancellor of JTS, and the same individual whom I had passed eight years earlier carrying his tallit bag to shul.

So here we are at the bookends of the initial exposure of an Orthodox young man to Conservative Judaism. As a child, I had called this man out for lack of adherence in his observance of the law; now the same man called out my teenage iteration eight years later for his relative ignorance in performance of another religious requirement.

These bookends manifest a certain liminality that characterized my experience as a Modern Orthodox young man in Riverdale, New York. On the one hand, it was clear to me that the religious milieu and ideology with which my family identified was distinctive from the Conservative institutions and their core constituencies. Some of these were even considered to be deviant and maybe even destructive by people I respected. At the same time, I saw around me so many examples of devoted Conservative Jews, whose behavior, values, ideals, and perceptions of Judaism were very close to the ones that I had been taught. Interestingly, I never had any doubt that I was an Orthodox Jew, but I did have difficulty with the polemical ambience of the relationship to other denominations as it was presented to me when I got a little older.

To offer some additional examples of my contact with Conservative Judaism and Jews while growing up in Riverdale: my father, who was not blessed with the opportunity to learn Talmud extensively at a high level as a child and young adult, was eager to engage with this central repository of Jewish law and lore. To this end, he participated in a very active study group that met every Saturday for over thirty-five years and served as my parents’ core social group throughout their lives in Riverdale. Each Sabbath afternoon, the men arrived at the home of one of the group members and explored a Talmudic folio for an hour or so before they took in a light “third” meal, sandwiched by afternoon and evening collective prayers. The members of the shiur (class/lecture), as they referred to their weekly gatherings, were all Sabbath observers and some of them might have even sent their kids to more traditionalist-style non-coeducational day schools. Yet the learning circle was led by a respected professor from JTS, Rabbi Dr. Dov Zlotnick, a student of Professor Saul Lieberman, arguably the greatest academic Talmud scholar of the twentieth century.12 Both Lieberman and his protégé were strictly observant Jews, who nonetheless remained affiliated with JTS, a Conservative institution, where they trained generations of rabbinical students throughout most of their respective careers.13 Indeed, there were quite a few professors and rabbis who were active in the Conservative Movement and in the seminary who were regular members of the Talmud group over the years. The more prominent figures that I can recall were: Rabbi Joseph Brodie, vice president emeritus of JTS,14 and Rabbi Gordon Tucker, who was subsequently dean of the JTS rabbinical school as well as rabbi of a large Westchester, New York Conservative congregation.15 No one questioned their religious commitments. They were full-fledged members of this ostensibly Orthodox group, even as they dedicated their lives to advancing the goals of the Conservative Movement.16

In terms of my own schooling, I attended two Modern Orthodox day schools: the SAR Academy in Riverdale and later the Ramaz Upper School in Manhattan. In both cases I had numerous classmates who were children of Conservative rabbis, whose families affiliated with Conservative synagogues, and who spent their summers at the Conservative Camp Ramah.17 In fact, one of my best friends at SAR came from a traditional but not strictly-observant home and celebrated his bar mitzvah at CSAIR. His uncle was a well-known Conservative congregational rabbi. I was also proud to share the basketball court with the son of the chancellor of JTS after Cohen’s retirement (Professor Ismar Schorsch), who was co-captain of the SAR team during my first year on the squad in seventh grade.18 While I knew there were differences between Orthodoxy and Conservatism, I did not look down upon my classmates and I certainly never thought that their Judaism was inauthentic or lacking meaning.

On a family level, my parents too had grown up in Orthodox homes in the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Borough Park and Bensonhurst, but neither of them had attended Jewish secondary schools. Like most of their second-generation Jewish neighbors, they went to local public high schools. When it came to my older siblings, despite available options, my parents also did not see a direct correlation between school choices and cultivating their personal Orthodox identities. At the same time, it was critical to them that their children continue their Jewish educations past bar mitzvah age and throughout their adolescent years. Due to this unequivocal dedication, they spent a considerable portion of their income on private tutoring for my two older brothers and sister. At a certain point, however, they realized that structure was important and that having a social content as part of Jewish learning would make it more interesting and attractive. This was especially so when these studies were in addition to my siblings’ rigorous prep school demands. After exploring a number of options, they concluded that the best institution to achieve these goals was the Prozdor program at JTS.19 The result was that my brothers and sister, along with an assortment of Riverdale kids from Orthodox and non-Orthodox affiliated homes, would carpool to JTS every Sunday morning and once during the week for intensive Jewish studies lessons. In the process, they developed friendships with other kids who came from families that chose this path. As a matter of fact, one of my siblings’ closest friendships emerged from their studies at JTS. Two of my brothers also had their first experiences in the land of Israel as part of the conservative USY youth movement’s “Pilgrimage” teen summer programs.

To be perfectly honest, I did not find the secular high school/supplementary Jewish studies approach attractive and worked hard to convince my parents to send me to Ramaz, a Jewish high school which combined rigorous general and Jewish studies, and most importantly enabled me to play on the varsity basketball team without conflicts related to games that were scheduled on the Sabbath. Suffice it to say, once again, in high school as well I had numerous classmates whose families were connected to JTS and the Conservative Movement. We were aware that most kids were Orthodox affiliated, but the denominational distinctions were really not a major divide.

After high school, when I spent two years studying Talmud in Israel-based yeshivot, and later when I attended Yeshiva University, I had far less direct connections with Conservative kids. Moreover, for the first time I was exposed to some Orthodox authorities who described the Conservative Movement pejoratively as “out of the [Jewish] ballpark” and refused to set foot in the edifice of a Conservative synagogue under any condition.20 While I learned a great deal of Talmud and Jewish law from some of these figures and drew inspiration from other aspects of their deep religious commitments, I was put off by the polemics and antagonism that were highlighted on many occasions.21

Was my porous upbringing an anomaly or at best a particularly Riverdale phenomenon? To be sure, the geographic proximity of Riverdale to JTS—fifteen to twenty minutes by car along with direct subway service—played a crucial role. Many of the Conservative families I met exemplified the JTS elite who were richly educated in traditional Jewish literature and committed to a Conservative approach to Jewish observance. Then again, Riverdale was even closer to Yeshiva University, the educational centerpiece and ideological breeding ground of American Modern Orthodoxy, and within a few years became home to the New York branch of the Lithuanian Haredi Telshe Yeshiva.22 Riverdale’s denominational liminality may have also been facilitated by three dynamic liberal voices within the Orthodox rabbinate: Rabbi Jack Sable, Rabbi Yitz Greenberg and Rabbi Avi Weiss, each of whom led local Modern Orthodox synagogues at formative periods in the community’s development, and themselves highlighted Jewish solidarity over denominational exclusivism.23 As such, there is likely some truth to a “Riverdale Exceptionalism” understanding. At the same time, there exist communities in Manhattan, White Plains, Boston, Los Angeles, and certainly in numerous Midwest cities, that seemed to feature their own versions of porous boundaries between Orthodoxy and Conservatism.

The “Riverdale Exceptionalism” described in this memoir provides an informative counter-narrative to the standard historiography of American Jewish denominationalism. Beyond the local logistic and unique personality elements that facilitated late twentieth-century Riverdale’s intradenominational ambience, there are sociological factors related to the broader evolution of American Jewish communal life that bear consideration.

In parallel to the ideological and religio-legal divides, Jeffrey Gurock has referred to the period from 1900 until 1960 as “Twentieth-Century American Orthodoxy’s Era of Non-Observance,” during which the majority of Jews who affiliated with Orthodox institutions were not necessarily punctilious in their personal religious behavior.24 In point of fact, most of the founding members of the Riverdale Jewish Center, established in 1954, would have fit smoothly into that category.25 By the mid-1960s, a more observant contingent began to move into the neighborhood and rapidly take the reins of leadership. That said, the founders remained involved, some through their base in the men’s club and the sisterhood. At least during my childhood, the lay leadership of the synagogue continued to reflect the heterogeneity of its membership.

An extraordinary personal memory illustrates this makeup. At the Sunday evening party that my parents held for my bar mitzvah in 1977, the former president of the synagogue, who was also my Little League softball coach, approached me. He said, “Son, I prepared a special gift for you. Yesterday, I slipped a small tape recorder into my tallit bag and recorded your Torah reading. Here is the cassette.” I was stunned, touched, and slightly bewildered to discover that my multiple mistakes were now on record for posterity. Luckily, no good soul performed a similar act of kindness during my subsequent tenure as Torah reader at CSAIR.

In retrospect, this story testifies to the individual diversity that continued to exist in Riverdale Orthodox spaces long after the denominational divide had seemingly become permanent. To be sure, there are still numerous Orthodox synagogues throughout North America attended by Jews who did not abide by the core demands of Jewish law. Notwithstanding, their representation has declined dramatically and it is certainly less likely that they would be chosen as president of the synagogue. The porous boundaries that I experienced reflected the gap between the split of the movements and the ongoing religious lifestyle overlap of their synagogue memberships. For multiple Riverdale Jews of the 1970s and early 1980s in both Orthodox and Conservative congregations, they could still have easily found themselves in the alternative settings.

Since the late 1980s, not only have the organizational lines become far more hermetic, but the religious lifestyles and outlooks of their core populations have less in common. Some will attribute this to the transition to full gender equality within Conservative Judaism, reflected most prominently by Cohen’s ordination of the movement’s first woman rabbi in 1985, and the Orthodox backlash that ensued.26 Others may focus on the rising rates of exogamy among products of the Conservative Movement from about the same time period.27 Still others may point to the triumphalism that characterized Orthodoxy at this period. As they celebrated having upended mid-century predictions of their demise and emerged as a vibrant, self-sufficient American movement, punctuated by strong rabbinical leadership and Jewishly-educated and religiously allegiant constituency, their tent grew smaller.28

What is clear is that lived religion often operates independently of ideological positionality. While scholars emphasize the formal “divorce” of the 1950s triggered by non-negotiable legal boundaries like mixed seating and driving on Shabbat, I suggest that the porousness of the Riverdale community during the 1970s and early 1980s was enabled by a shared commitment by its religious elites to a life of Jewish observance. Indeed, this was still paralleled, to a great degree, by a common perception by the broader memberships of the Orthodox and Conservative congregations that, regardless of personal behavior, observance of Jewish law was a religious ideal. But especially among the elites, the bridge between seemingly separate worlds was built upon a mutual dedication to the rhythms of Jewish law and practice, even when interpretations diverged dramatically. In Riverdale, the Conservative laypeople and rabbis did not view their practices as a departure from tradition, but as a principled expression of it.

The existence of such a community highlights that for these individuals, the “rhythm” of Judaism in the home and in the public square remained remarkably similar to their Orthodox counterparts. Figures like Gerson Cohen or the professors in the Shabbat afternoon Talmud group exemplified a Conservative constituency who were richly educated in traditional literature and committed to a rooted Jewish lifestyle. For these families, the vast commonalities of a Sabbath-observant life—keeping kosher, valuing intensive Jewish education, and engaging in high-level text study—outweighed the polemical divides that occupied the rhetoric of national movements. Having been nurtured in an Orthodox congregation and then spending two formative years reciting the Torah portion in a Conservative one, the underlying religious language remained close enough to enable me to navigate between them relatively seamlessly.

This experience offers a vital nuance to classic scholarship that emphasizes the decline of halakhic allegiance within the wider Conservative Movement.29 While the national trend may have moved toward a less observant laity, the local reality in Riverdale was defined by a constituency that saw living an observant life—according to their specific interpretations—as fundamental to their identity. The porous borders were maintained because both groups recognized in each other a fundamental commitment regarding Jewish life, a shared common religious language. Ultimately, lived religion presents a far more complex picture than ideological positionality alone; it suggests that even after formal institutional boundaries have been seemingly concretized, a shared core engagement with religious principles and practice can sustain a sense of solidarity and mutuality.

***

Around the year 2015, a new prayer framework was organized in Riverdale that runs under the auspices of CSAIR. The Kivinu Minyan meets once a month on Saturday morning and is described in congregational literature as “Full traditional liturgy, spirited singing, and minimal interruptions aimed at creating an intense focus on the davening, followed by learning.”30 The driving force and unofficial rabbi of the framework is Rabbi Ethan Tucker. Tucker spent significant chunks of his childhood in Riverdale in both the Orthodox and Conservative communities and was graduated from Ramaz Upper School. His kids attended SAR. Today he is the co-president and rosh yeshiva (educational head) of Yeshivat Hadar,31 a fully egalitarian, tradition-oriented institution for higher Torah study and rabbinical training, based on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, with growing representation in Israel as well.32 Tucker received his BA from Harvard, Orthodox ordination in Israel, as well as a PhD in Talmud from JTS. He is considered a highly influential halakhic authority within the emergent tradition-oriented post-denominational sector of American Judaism.33 Like his partners in founding and shepherding Hadar, he has a strong Conservative pedigree. His father is Rabbi Gordon Tucker, the former dean of the JTS rabbinical school and a prominent congregational rabbi as well. Today, the father is Vice Chancellor for Religious Life and Engagement at JTS. All the same, the son and his cohorts chose to create a post-denominational institution that in many ways reflects the more law-centric spirit that once prevailed in the elite circles of Conservative Judaism during my youth.

Kivinu attracts participants from across the Riverdale denominational spectrum, including numerous members of Orthodox congregations who identify with its egalitarian ethos and its prayer/study combination. Like his father, who once sat next to my father at the Sabbath Talmud shiur taught by Professor Dov Zlotnick of JTS, the younger Tucker is a partner in writing a new chapter in the liminal denominational history of the Riverdale Jewish community. It is too early to tell whether this is an isolated Riverdale phenomenon, or indicative of a broader renaissance of a less rigidly divided spectrum of American Jewish congregational life.34

Adam S. Ferziger, PhD is Professor in the Israel & Golda Koschitzky Dept. of Jewish History & Contemporary Jewry and Rabbi S.R. Hirsch Chair for Research of the Torah with Derekh Erez Movement at Bar-Ilan University. His book, Beyond Sectarianism: The Realignment of American Orthodox Judaism (Wayne State University Press, 2015), received a National Jewish Book Award. His most recent monograph, Agents of Change: American Jews and the Transformation of Israeli Judaism (New York University Press, 2025), was chosen by the Association for Israel Studies (AIS) as co-winner of the Shapiro Prize for Best Book in Israel Studies.

  1. 1 * Thank you to my mother, Sandra Ferziger Gottlieb, to my wife Dr. Naomi Ferziger, and to my siblings, Dr. Reuven Ferziger, Jonathan Ferziger, Minna Ferziger Felig, and Ari Ferziger, along with Dr. David Bernstein, Rabbi Dr. Seth Farber, and Bennett Katz for their valuable comments on an earlier draft.

    1 On Cohen, see Raymond P. Scheindlin, “Gerson D. Cohen (1924-1991),” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research (1992): 15-18. I learned subsequently that his mother, known as “Morah Cohen,” had been my mother’s Hebrew and Jewish studies teacher at the Shulamith School for Girls in Borough Park, Brooklyn.

  2. 2 The Conservative Movement never removed the prohibition of carrying from domain to domain, but it introduced the factor of performance of a mitzvah as a source for leniency. The issue of eruv is treated briefly in a recent responsum: see David J. Fine and Barry J. Leff, “Electric Cars on Shabbat: A Renewed Responsum on the Sabbath,” Committee of Jewish Law and Standards, OH 305: 18b (2023), https://www.rabbinicalassembly.org/sites/default/files/2023-07/fine_leff_shabbat-final.pdf.

  3. 3 Jeffrey S. Gurock, Orthodox Jews in America (Indiana University Press, 2009), 109-147.

  4. 4 Jonathan Sarna, “The Debate Over Mixed Seating In The American Synagogue,” The American Synagogue: A Sanctuary Transformed (Cambridge University Press, 1987), 363-394.

  5. 5 “Traditional” mixed-seating synagogues that remained Orthodox-affiliated remained a more common feature in some Midwest communities. See, for example, Dan Elazar, “The Organized Jewish Community of Greater Chicago,” The Daniel Elazar On-Line Library, https://dje.jcpa.org/articles2/chicago.htm.

  6. 6 Elazar.

  7. 7 On both legal and cultural aspects of the driving responsum, see Jenna Weissman Joselit, “In the Driver’s Seat: Rabbinic Authority in Postwar America,” Jewish Religious Leadership: Image and Reality 2, Jack Wertheimer, ed. (JTS, 2014), 659-70.

  8. 8 Jack Wertheimer, A People Divided (Brandeis University Press, 1994), 95-184.

  9. 9 On the evolution of Riverdale’s Jewish life, see Neil MacFarquhar, “At the New Year, a New Day for Riverdale; A Bronx Neighborhood Is Now a Lively Center for Orthodox Jews,” The New York Times (Oct. 1, 1997), https://www.nytimes.com/1997/10/01/nyregion/new-year-new-day-for-riverdale-bronx-neighborhood-now-lively-center-for-orthodox.html. For a contemporary demographic profile, see: https://communitystudy.ujafedny.org/explore-data/riverdale-kingsbridge.

  10. 10 Reuven P. Bulka, The Coming Cataclysm: The Orthodox-Reform Rift and the Future of the Jewish People (Mosaic Press, 1984).

  11. 11 At the time, I discovered that at least regarding the Amidah prayer, they were remarkably similar, with the notable exceptions of key phrases referring to the sacrificial rite in past tense rather than focusing on its renewal and the terminology employed to describe Gentiles.

  12. 12 Zvi Leshem, “HaRav Professor Dov Zlotnick z”l,” (2014), https://www.academia.edu/9671839/Rav_Professor_Dov_Zlotnick_z_l.

  13. 13 Marc B. Shapiro, Saul Lieberman and the Orthodox (University of Scranton Press, 2006).

  14. 14 https://www.jtsa.edu/team/joseph-brodie/.

  15. 15 https://www.jtsa.edu/team/gordon-tucker/.

  16. 16 Additional distinguished JTS-affiliated figures who enriched the religious landscape of my Riverdale childhood included Prof. Haim Dimitrovsky and Prof. Shamma Friedman. For a personal memoir related to the former’s Riverdale Shabbat routines, see Daniel Boyarin, “Walking and Learning on Shabbos with Prof. Haim Zalman Dimitrovsky,” Tablet (Sept. 13, 2021), https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/history/articles/walking-and-learning-on-shabbos. For Friedman’s retrospections on his early JTS days, see Yitz Landes, “An Interview with Shamma Friedman,” The Talmud Blog (May 6, 2014), https://thetalmud.blog/2014/05/06/an-interview-with-shamma-friedman/.

  17. 17 The role of Camp Ramah in nurturing a committed younger generation of Conservative Jews cannot be overestimated. See Steven M. Cohen, The Alumni of Ramah Camps: A Long-Term Portrait of Jewish Engagement, Berman Archives, Stanford University (2017), https://static1.squarespace.com/static/582c7e401b631bf8805b7364/t/59cc0dfbf6576ea26050c3d6/1506545148400/ramah_alumni_survey_full_report_2017.pdf.

  18. 18 Our coach was a doctoral candidate at Columbia and former Ramaz basketball standout by the name of Jeffrey S. Gurock.

  19. 19 https://www.jtsa.edu/prozdor/.

  20. 20 Other profound Orthodox Torah scholars with whom I studied demonstrated far greater appreciation for non-Orthodox Jews, see Adam S. Ferziger, Agents of Change: American Jews and the Transformation of Israeli Judaism (NYU Press, 2025), 107-131.

  21. 21 Perhaps this contributed to subsequent efforts to locate my own deeply held beliefs and committed Orthodox observance in more organically porous landscapes of Israeli Judaism.

  22. 22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeshiva_of_Telshe_Alumni.

  23. 23 On Sable and the founding of the RJC, see, “RIVERDALE RABBI GETS SYNAGOGUE; At 30 He Enlists Orthodox Congregation to Build It in Time for Holy Days,” New York Times (Sept. 22, 1957), 40. On Greenberg, see Adam S. Ferziger, Miri Freud-Kandel and Steven Bayme, Yitz Greenberg and American Modern Orthodox Judaism: The Road Not Taken (Academic Studies Press, 2019). On Weiss, see Maya Bernstein, “An Open Letter to Rabbi Avi Weiss,” EJewishPhilanthropy (Jan. 28, 2014), https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/an-open-letter-to-rabbi-avi-weiss/.

  24. 24 Jeffrey S. Gurock, “Twentieth-Century American Orthodoxy’s Era of Non-Observance, 1900-1960,” The Torah u-Madda Journal 9 (2000): 87-107.

  25. 25 Andy Gross, “Jack Sable dies at 87, founded Jewish Center,” The Riverdale Press (Dec. 12, 2013), https://www.riverdalepress.com/stories/jack-sable-dies-at-87-founded-jewish-center,53453.

  26. 26 Ari L. Goldman, “Gerson D. Cohen Is Dead at 66; Ex-Chancellor of Jewish Seminary,” The New York Times (Aug. 19, 1991), https://www.nytimes.com/1991/08/19/nyregion/gerson-d-cohen-is-dead-at-66-ex-chancellor-of-jewish-seminary.html; Adam S. Ferziger, “Feminism and Heresy: The Construction of a Jewish Metanarrative,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 77, no. 3 (2009): 494-546.

  27. 27 Adam S. Ferziger, “Between Catholic Israel and the ‘K’rov Yisrael’: Non-Jews in Conservative Synagogues (1982-2009),” Journal of Jewish Studies 61, no. 1 (2010): 88-116.

  28. 28 Samuel C. Heilman, “The Modern Orthodox in America,” Routledge Handbook of Jewish Ritual and Practice, Oliver Leaman, ed. (Routledge, 2022), 192-202.

  29. 29 Marshall Sklare, Conservative Judaism: An American Religious Movement (Free Press, 1955), 207-210.

  30. 30 https://www.csair.org/prayer.

  31. 31 https://www.csair.org/gala2025-honorees.

  32. 32 https://www.hadar.org/learn/yeshivat-hadar.

  33. 33 Ethan Tucker and Michael Rosenberg, Gender Equality and Prayer in Jewish Law (Hadar Press, 2025).

  34. 34 Notably, the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale (HIR) continues to play a critical role in facilitating the religious ambience of Riverdale Jewish life. It was led by Rabbi Avi Weiss for over forty years, and today his protégé, Rabbi Steven Exler, is the senior rabbi. HIR exemplifies the “Open Orthodox” synagogue model within American Orthodoxy. This gains expression, among others, in the prominent role of women in the synagogue clergy team, an embracing approach to Jews of all levels of practice and orientation, along with non-sectarian social activism. Today HIR houses the banner rabbinical training institutions of Open Orthodoxy, Yeshiva Chovevei Torah for men and Yeshivat Maharat for women. That said, HIR’s mehitzah and limited inclusion of women within public ritual roles stakes out its place as an Orthodox, rather than egalitarian, religious space. See Steven Lipman, “Avi Weiss, Leading Modern Orthodox Rabbi, ‘Stepping Back,’” NY Jewish Week (Oct. 21, 2014), https://www.jta.org/2014/10/21/ny/avi-weiss-leading-modern-orthodox-rabbi-stepping-back.