Unorthodox Social Distancing

Jewish and American culture has long benefited from -- and been fixated on -- the ex-Orthodox. Last century, ex-Orthodox men like Abraham Joshua Heschel and Mordecai Kaplan inspired new spiritual and religious movements, while ex-Orthodox women from Henrietta Szold, the founder of Hadassah, to politico Bella Abzug shaped our communal, and national, politics. In this century, the ex-Orthodox influence is everywhere in culture, as the obsession with "off-the-derech" memoirs and TV series like Unorthodox and My Unorthodox Life make clear. There has never been a time when those who began in the Orthodox world, then took their learning and passion into less strict, even secular, realms, did not inform Jewish destiny.