A few of the outreach groups engage in deceptive recruiting. They present themselves as non-denominational and unaffiliated with any branch of Judaism. This alone doesn’t make any of them into cults, but it’s a start. The staff photos on several of the outreach sites hide yarmulkes, even awkwardly framing the photos of many of the rabbis from the middle of the forehead downwards. The words Orthodox, Torah, mitzvahs, commandments, soul, spirituality, and even God are not obvious or don’t appear at all on several of the websites. What you see instead are references to Jewish heritage, tradition, identity, and wisdom – vague terms which any branch of Judaism might pursue but which mean one thing to Reform Jews and something entirely different to Orthodox ones.
Here’s an example:
DATA helps you to explore your Jewish heritage through engaging, thought provoking learning experiences in a warm and inviting atmosphere. DATA is a non-profit, unaffiliated Jewish learning center….Over 25 classes are offered at DATA every week for Jewish men and women of all backgrounds and affiliations….Whether you’re Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, unaffiliated or somewhere in between, DATA is your most vibrant source for Jewish learning in the Metroplex.
Many if not most non-Orthodox people will read this as implying that this outreach group provides an environment where Jews of all denominations can practice their style of Judaism under one roof. However, what is really meant is that non-Orthodox Jews are welcome to come and learn about Orthodox Judaism. The goal is to bring you into Orthodoxy, but they are coy about it, effectively hiding it under the cover of some vague pursuit of heritage and “Jewish learning” in an “unaffiliated Jewish learning center.” You can find more examples here, here, here, here, and here.) (Websites accessed April 17, 2023 as are all sites referenced in this article.)
A small Orthodox outreach organization based in the New York area actually denies that it is Orthodox. It writes on its website, “You see, we aren’t orthodox, conservative or reform, we’re just Jews.” But the people who run the organization and who give classes are in fact Orthodox. I know them. If you ask them how they could deny their Orthodoxy, they respond that they “don’t like labels.” That’s cute, but their classes are given by Orthodox rabbis from an Orthodox perspective so they do like labels. When they buy their food in supermarkets they look for the kosher label on the package, i.e. kosher as authorized by Orthodox supervisory agencies. In this case, they are Modern Orthodox, but they are Orthodox and that’s quite different from Reform, Conservative, Humanist, or Reconstructionist.
One of the four people listed on the site, a visiting rabbi, says so himself. “One of the problems that exists in the Jewish world is that we don’t understand or recognize the theological distinctions between the branches of Judaism. Don't fully understand how separate those branches are.” (“Torah Morality Versus General Morality,” Kosher Tube Channel, youtube) This rabbi runs an Orthodox organization and in his blog and videos unequivocally describes himself as an Orthodox Jew. He writes, “Even as an Orthodox Jew, I welcome…” and “As an Orthodox Jew, I believe…” He regularly examines the question of whether various groups, writers, or perspectives are “within the pale of Orthodoxy.” In fairness, let us say that as a visiting instructor, he is not responsible for the outreach website that lists his class. However, we see clearly that he is Orthodox and gives one of the three classes offered by an organization that claims not to be Orthodox. And not only that, he disapproves of the other branches of Judaism. Thus, we are not going to see different branches of Judaism practicing together under his roof. You’d have to read his blog or attend his classes to learn this. You won’t know it from the organization that promotes his class, for that organization describes itself as “non-denominational.” As it says on the site:
This same organization invites you to join them for High Holiday services at the Jewish Heritage Center in Queens, NY. That is an Orthodox Jewish institution too, but that word doesn’t appear on its website. Again, heritage is the word of the day. They talk of “life connected to Judaism and spirituality” – words which any branch of Judaism could utter. They offer to “empower our Jewish siblings to explore and embrace their rich heritage.” You’d think from that description along with the organization’s name that it is some kind of historical society. People are used to hearing about those. The USA has an estimated 10,000 of them. (“The Future of Historical Societies,” American Historical Association) They have names like Jefferson County Historical Society and Athens Clarke Heritage Foundation. The United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia are also loaded with historical societies.
Generally, historical societies concern themselves with history, which is fitting given the words historical and heritage in their names. As the Free Dictionary defines them:
Voluntary national and local associations of historians, both professional and amateur. Most historical societies consider their primary tasks to be the study of national or local history, the collection and publication of sources, the preparation and publication of printed works (including methodological aids on the teaching of history), and the popularization of historical knowledge.
However, the ones we are talking about here are only minimally about history. They are Orthodox religious outreach centers. By heritage they mean Orthodox Judaism, which is first and foremost a religion that involves extensive ritual practice and theology. It is a kind of heritage, but let’s get real. That’s not how the word is commonly used in the English language. The average person doesn’t think of religion when hearing the word heritage.
Perception in the mind of the consumer is a key part of the laws regarding truth in advertising. As the Dictionary of Marketing Terms explains:
Requirement by the Federal Trade Commission as well as various state and local government agencies, that advertisements not make misleading, false, or deceptive claims. An advertisement can be deceptive without being an outright lie depending upon the perception it creates in the mind of the consumer. For example, a product that calls itself "light" may be nothing more than a slightly lower calorie version of its regular formula but will be perceived to be a low-calorie product. Or a beverage called an "orange juice drink" may contain primarily sugar and water with a minuscule juice content. Deceptive advertising can be accomplished with pictures as well as with words. In one famous case, a soup manufacturer placed marbles in the bottom of the bowl so that the contents of the soup rose to the surface in a photograph taken for their advertisements. An advertisement can also be considered deceptive if it makes a claim that is true but also leads the consumer to believe falsely that the same claim could not be made by competitive brands. For example, using "fat free" claims on a bottle of maple syrup might lead consumers to believe that other syrups contain fat.
Arguably, some of these Orthodox outreach groups are violating truth in advertising laws. In their advertising, they are employing terminology (e.g. heritage and wisdom) that are understood in a particular way by the great majority of people and delivering to them something very different. Investigation into one’s heritage as is done with genealogy research may result in new information or even new feelings about one’s history but does not involve major life change-over as does adopting Orthodox Jewish practice, particularly when it is presented in extremist fashion.
Some of these groups try to defend their approach by claiming that if you dig into their sites long enough, you’ll find some indications of Orthodox Judaism. But they say that because they know who they are, and they know what Orthodox Judaism is, so they know what they would look for. The average college kid doesn’t know any of this and isn’t digging into the site anyway. With Meor, even a search won’t help unless you are detective Sherlock Holmes and can read into the slightest clues.
That a group’s intentions become more obvious once you go to one of its events isn’t a defense. That sort of thing happens with cults of all sorts. The infamous Unification Church, aka the Moonies, used to send pretty young women to 8th Avenue in Manhattan to flirt with young men and lead them upstairs to their recruitment center. Once you get up there, you can see that drawing you into the church was really the goal all along. But by then, you are in a room full of unnaturally friendly, like-minded people who use aggressive tactics to start selling you on their ideology as they make it difficult to leave. Never underestimate the power of peer pressure. More than a few innocent people have succumbed.
Most Orthodox Jewish outreach groups are not guilty of such deception. Chabad, Breslov, and Belz hasidim proudly display their Orthodox orientation on their websites and in their outreach work. Ohr Somayach, Arachim, National Jewish Outreach Program, Henini, JITC, Torah u’Mesorah and other groups also are reasonably transparent in their orientation as religious and Orthodox (JITC has the word Orthodox in its banner); although frequently some of these groups mishandle beginners in ways which I will discuss.
The deception can border on the absurd. Meor is staffed entirely with Orthodox Jews but writes on its website that it aims to help college kids to “connect with Judaism on their own terms”. This is from the website:
Launched in 2005, MEOR’s unique brand of Jewish leadership training, sophisticated text-based study, and experiential education programming highlight the importance of Jewish values, identity, and community. In over fifteen years, MEOR has impacted more than 18,000 undergraduate students, encouraging them to connect with Judaism on their own terms and in their own time.
It’s like the old Burger King ads, “Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce; Special orders don’t upset us. All we ask is that you let us serve it your way.” Connecting them “on their own terms'' is not going to happen if all the rabbis are Orthodox, particularly if they are one kind of Orthodox. They are defining Judaism as Orthodox without saying so. The average college kid who goes to Meor’s events knows nothing about Orthodox Judaism, so when this organization says that it helps young people to connect with Judaism on their own terms, Orthodox Judaism is not what participants imagine.
Not only that, but Orthodox Judaism in general is not approached on one’s own terms. That’s not how it works. As Solomon the King said, “The sum of the matter, everything having been heard, fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the entire man." (Ecclesiastes 12:13) A major part of Orthodox Judaism consists of adherence to an extensive set of normative duties and values largely within a community framework. It’s the task of the outreach person to explain how service to God actually frees a person from the constraints of physicality and society, producing a spiritual encounter with the Divine that allows the real essence of a person to emerge. As Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808-1888) wrote, “In the Jewish land, where the Divine law has full scope, nothing was supposed to germinate or blossom or ripen without bringing the Jew obligations as well as enjoyment. A duty is attached to every enjoyment, and it alone gives the enjoyment its true taste by turning what otherwise would be selfish and animal into a human acknowledgment of Divine love." (Judaism Eternal, Volume 1, Chapter V, Shebat, p. 33.) That’s the kind of thing that the outreach person should try to put forth rather than a dubious offer of “Judaism on their terms,” which is a sales ploy.
Even within the normative elements of religious service, there is room for the personal and the subjective, but to say that one approaches Judaism on his own terms is misleading word choice, particularly in the branch of the Orthodox world where Meor and in its own yeshivas sit. There, obedience to rabbinic authority is paramount and comes along with a more parochial outlook not only on Judaism but on Orthodox Judaism.
The same applies to the organization Aish which has been advertising a “have it your way” approach for years. Here’s their logo and slogan from 2008:
Elizabeth Katzki went to Aish for entrepreneurship training. Aish promises participants a “non-judgmental atmosphere to explore their heritage at their own pace.” Is that what happens? It didn’t for Elizabeth. She writes in her 2009 blog post on JWeekly.com how an ad on Facebook interested her in a two-week trip to the Women’s’ Future Jewish Enterprisers in New York. She writes, “I was informed at the beginning of the trip that Aish HaTorah does not have any affiliation with any particular denomination of Judaism, so I was less than thrilled when bombarded with Orthodox Jewish opinions.” She continues:
I reached my breaking point when sitting down to lunch on Shabbat with a host family. We began discussing Jewish rights [sic, should be rites] of passage, and I told them that I was confirmed and that it was a very meaningful ceremony and process for me. My heartfelt expression was immediately rebutted with a verse from a Jewish text stating that Jews should not take traditions from other religions and that confirmation was really not a Jewish event. Now, I know that confirmation has Christian origins, but it was a very Jewish experience for me, and to have someone discount that, a fellow Jew at that, was heartbreaking. If this statement had come from the mouth of someone who was not Jewish, it may not have hurt so deeply, but to find out that an experience that I considered so genuine and so Jewish, was wrong in the eyes of another Jew burned. (Copy of post)
So it wasn’t non-judgmental after all, and it wasn’t non-denominational. Her experience didn’t match the promise of “Your life, Your Judaism” from Aish’s ad. Her Judaism involved a harmless confirmation ceremony that was derided by her hosts. In the end, Elizabeth was turned off by the relentless proselytizing. She writes, “I became increasingly steadfast in my belief in Reform Judaism as the right Jewish path for me. The more I disagreed with the Orthodox viewpoints presented to me, the more I thought about what felt right.”
Not every encounter with Aish is like this. I know people who had good experiences there; although that tends to happen mostly with those who follow along and don’t ask too many questions. In this case, we see an illustration of how false advertising and mishandling produced a bad experience. It’s as if the marketing department and the family to which this newcomer was handed were not in communication with one another.
A decade ago, a similarly situated Orthodox outreach group that pairs interested people with study partners ran a campaign that took the notion of personalized Judaism to such an extreme that they literally renamed the religion after fictitious participants. Their website showed a photo of a handsome model named Brad and underneath his photo wrote Bradism. Next to him was Emily and Emilyism, then Johnathan and Johnathansim, and lastly Judy and Judyism. Since these are clearly photos of models and not real participants in the program, I’ll show it to you. [Since the campaign is no longer on the site, the organization shall go unnamed.]
It’s nice that the organization worked around Brad’s schedule, but that doesn’t turn the religion into Bradism. I’m quite sure that if Brad said that he likes the idea of a day of rest but he wants to cook, drive his car, make phone calls, and buy a beer at the bar that he’d be told by his study partner that those activities are strictly prohibited on the Sabbath; likewise, if Emily said that she wants to paint watercolor or play the guitar on the Sabbath because that makes her feel spiritual. So how can we call the religion Bradism or Emilyism? I’ll bet that 98% of the study partners weren’t even equipped to present the parts of the Torah that do allow for individualized practice or outlook. They are just people who went to yeshiva or seminary and learned the standard stuff. Clearly, this campaign didn’t reflect the reality of the religion or even of the program. It was concocted solely to get people to lower their guard in order to draw them in. It’s pure marketing but problematic marketing, and that has repercussions as I shall discuss.
Meor and a few other groups also promise leadership training and roles. Meor says, “Our mission is to create a vibrant Jewish future led by a new generation….” However, the Orthodox Jewish world is led primarily by elderly scholars not by a new generation of young people and certainly not by people who are new to Torah observance. For the most part, the rest of us are told to follow the leaders, particularly in the part of the Orthodox world to which the rabbis of Meor identify. Promises of leadership are common with cults. It tempts the ego. The Unification Church (aka the Moonies) promised individuals that they would be leaders of countries in the future after their movement took over the world. The leadership ploy is as problematic as the promise of “Judaism on their terms.”
There are many problems with dishonest outreach. Firstly, it contradicts a tenet of Orthodox Judaism. In the book of Exodus, God told Moses that he would redeem the Jews from Egypt at midnight. But Moses told the Egyptians that it would happen around midnight because he feared that the Egyptian clocks might be a bit off, and they’d accuse Moses of being dishonest. So even to the slave owning Egyptians whom God was assaulting with plagues, Moses endeavored not just to be honest but to make sure that he wasn’t even accused falsely of dishonesty. He did this on the very night when he led the Jews out of Egypt! So it’s very nice if someone wants to save non-religious Jews from their secularity, to save them from their Egypt so to speak, but he needs to be honest with them. Zechariah the prophet said, “These are the things that you should do: speak the truth, each man to his neighbor; execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates.” (Zechariah 8:16) The Gemara says that “the seal of the Holy One, Blessed be He, is truth.” (Yoma 69b). With truth being a core value in Judaism, one shouldn’t bring people to Judaism with deception.
Secondly, once a relationship starts off with dishonesty, more of the same tends to follow. As Sir Walter Scott wrote, “Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.” Trickery is ubiquitous in this world, in business, in politics, even in our personal lives. One has to demand integrity not only from others but from one’s own mind. Once you allow somebody to deceive you repeatedly in important areas of life, your mind gets scrambled. It’s not just that you wouldn’t have joined the group if you knew what was involved, it’s that your continued participation in your own steadily advancing degradation hinges on your mind being confused. The trickery makes you vulnerable to more trickery until your entire relationship with your new handlers becomes toxic. They become like mythical figures rather than real people. They grow bigger and bigger, and you shrink smaller and smaller. Your mind becomes mystified. You become like a dependent and trusting child as they feed you their fantasies. However, you are not trusting a loving parent who is bound to you for life but rather a self-serving stranger who has no qualms about using you up and tossing you away. In this state, you can damage your life in terrible ways. This is particularly true of young people. The message here is that you walk away from people who are being dishonest with you. They claim to be offering you the truths of life, and yet they are practicing dishonesty from the outset. You will not find the truths of life with such people.
Thirdly, there is the problem of turning people off. The great majority of people (I’m guessing it’s 90-95% or higher) attend the outreach events but don’t adopt Orthodoxy. What happens if their one encounter with Orthodox Jews left them feeling misled? They came in for leadership training or pursuit of heritage and got religious proselytizing. And how many of their friends hear of the experience? So an organization that boasts of contact with 10,000 people may have dissuaded 50,000 people from ever considering Orthodox Judaism.
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