The first time I met my future mother-in-law, a professor at Columbia University and a longtime resident of the Upper West Side, she asked me in a challenging tone: “Why do you keep kosher?” I had been dating her daughter for all of two weeks and wasn’t looking to get into a theological or philosophical discussion, so I flippantly replied, “Because I’m a Jet.” I didn’t realize it at the time, but in my invocation of the Stephen Sondheim lyric from West Side Story, I was defining myself as a member of what was to become, over the ensuing quarter century, one of the fastest growing and most dynamic segments of the American Jewish community. Call it “Social Orthodoxy.”
Just like those Jets roaming the streets of Hell’s Kitchen together, I was “never alone” and “never disconnected.” Whether in synagogue or summer camp, making Shabbat dinner with friends or traveling through Israel, I always felt “home with your own” and “well protected.” Being Jewish meant being a member of a club, and not just any club: a club with a 3,000-year-old membership, its own language, calendar, culture, vast literature including histories and a code of law, and, of course, a special place on the map.
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