Religion: Jewish Counterreformation

... Go on, be wed.

And tear out my beard and uncover my head.

Tradition!

They 're not even asking permission ...

One little time I pulled out a thread And where has it led? Where has it led?

—Tevye, in Fiddler on the Roof

The unraveling of Orthodox Jewish tradition during the past two centuries has been marked by considerable pain, but by a sizable amount of success as well. The most notable example is Reform Judaism, which today represents roughly one-third of some 3,000,000 religious Jews in North America. Last week 3,500 Reform...

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