In the 20th Century, Ultra-Orthodoxy Protected Itself by Building High Walls. In the 21st, It Must Sustain Itself by Reaching over Those Walls

In the aftermath of World War II, ḥaredi Judaism emerged in Israel in its present form as leaders came to the conclusion that, after the onslaught of the Holocaust, the only way to defend against the onslaught of modernity was to create communities of intense religious devotion that were sealed off from outside influences. These communities grew and flourished beyond the wildest dreams of their founders, let alone of their detractors. But, writes Yehoshua Pfeffer, today’s Ḥaredim are hardly immune from outside influences, and suspiciousness toward secular ideas has left them without the intellectual armor to defend themselves against values antithetical to their own—what he terms “the liberal threat.” Pfeffer, himself a ḥaredi Jew, thus calls for a major change: