The Orthonomics Podcast

Jacob Kornbluh is the senior political reporter for the Forward. Kornbluh, a member of the Hasidic community in the Borough Park neighborhood of Brooklyn, covers politics with a Jewish angle and regularly interviews government officials, political commentators and security experts on issues that matter to the broader Jewish American community. He previously worked as a national politics reporter for Jewish Insider, covered the 2013 NYC mayoral race for the Yeshiva World News, and was featured by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency as one of the top Jews to follow on Twitter. In this episode, we discuss his unique role in Jewish/Orthodox world reporting and some of the seminal issues he has covered, including the Orthodox world’s political views, reactions to coronavirus restrictions, secular education mandates in yeshivas, and more. ----- The Nishma Research Pesach Survey! And now, for something completely different: we’re undertaking a timely broad survey dealing with Pesach … the first such survey ever conducted. If you would like to participate in the survey, it will be online through April 9, at: https://survey.alchemer.com/s3/7774034/The-First-Ever-Pesach-Survey. Results will be available before Pesach at http://nishmaresearch.com/social-research.html.

Baruch Lytle is an African American Orthodox Jew from Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and he identifies as a Satmar Chasid. 

He describes his conversion to Judaism as the defining moment of his life and greatest accomplishment.  He is also an award-winning journalist, having written nearly 200 articles for the largest Jewish newspaper in America, The Jewish Press.   

In 2023, he won the Simon Rockower Award – the Jewish journalism version of the Pulitzer – for Excellence in Journalism. His favorite writing assignments deal with self- improvement, and he has worked extensively with the developmentally disabled at agencies throughout New York State. 

In this episode we discuss his personal religious journey, and some of the interesting issues in the Orthodox community that he has covered. 

Baruch and I also discussed our recent Orthodox Political survey, and I discussed the variations within Modern Orthodoxy and the “silo effect”: 

Report – A Survey of Orthodox Jewish Political Attitudes and Behaviors: Haredi and Modern Orthodox Sectors 

Article – Despite What Some Want to Believe, Modern Orthodoxy is Indeed Politically Split 

 Some of Baruch Lytle’s Jewish Press articles referenced in this podcast: 

Study Finds Frum Jews Financially Secure – And Stretched 

The State of Orthodox Singles: It's Complicated 

Interview with Middle East Intelligence Expert Avi Melamed 

Book Review: The Ultimate Guide to Understanding Antisemitism 

Michael Feldstein is a keen observer and commentator on all aspects of the Orthodox Jewish community, and his weekly columns in the Jewish Link newspaper draws an enthusiastic readership. His upcoming (January 2024) book, "Meet Me in the Middle," is a collection of 75 of his essays and, in this episode, we discuss five of them:

• Prayer, Politics and the Pulpit

• The Changing Geographic Face of Orthodoxy in America

• The Culture of Fear in Orthodoxy

• Time for a Jewish Vocational School

• Seven Things I Would Change about Jewish Weddings

In our "What Do You Want to Know?” segment, we expand on our brief conversation about living in a smaller Orthodox community. Here is a LINK to our study of the cost of Orthodoxy, and check out page 46, where get into the smaller town cost data.

We want to hear from you, so you can contact us at this link to offer comments and questions about the Jewish community: http://bit.ly/areas-of-interest

Thanks to Leora Trencher for designing our logo, and to Elana Trencher and Aliza Levy for their audio support. Orthonomics is produced by Scott Kahn of JCH Podcast Productions (http://jchpodcasts.com).

This episode is an exploration of a pioneering study of people who have left the Orthodox community, as we examing  journeys, practices, beliefs, identity, community and relationships, across Chasidic, Yeshivish and Modern Orthodox segments of the population.

In this episode, we review many highlights of this study, including:

1. Why People Leave Orthodoxy

2. How Do They Now Identify Jewishly? What Have They Held Onto?

3. What About “Double-Lifers”?

4. How Are Their Family Relationships? What are their Levels of Acceptance?

5. How Widespread Is This Phenomenon?

6. Final Thoughts and Reflections … In Their Own Words:

– a) Many people don’t well understand those who have left, or may leave, their Orthodox community of origin. What do you want to tell people about this group?

– b) Looking back at your experiences, what if anything would you have done differently?

– c) In conclusion, what advice would you give to others who are considering leaving their Orthodox community, for a more modern lifestyle?

The full report and many of its contents are available at http://nishmaresearch.com/social-research.html. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to the section of files dealing with “Survey of Those Who Have Left Orthodoxy.”

In this episode, we first look at how Covid affected a shul and community, and we discuss with Rabbi Brander the creativity, innovations, and possible lasting changes that took place. 

We then discuss with a leading demographer the impact that Covid had on the Jewish community in terms of actual mortality and death statistics. While we are typically aware of things that happen within our community and within our families, there is only speculation as to how the community as a whole did. Dr. Staetsky will disclose his ground-breaking research on this topic. 

We want to hear from you, so you can contact us at this link to offer comments and questions about the Jewish community: http://bit.ly/areas-of-interest 

Thanks to Leora Trencher for designing our logo, and to Elana Trencher and Aliza Levy for their audio support. Orthonomics is produced by Scott Kahn of JCH Podcast Productions (http://jchpodcasts.com). 

In this episode, we speak with Benyamin Cohen, news director at The Forward, author of “My Jesus Year: A Rabbi’s Son Wanders the Bible Belt in Search of His Own Faith,” named one of the best books of the year by Publishers Weekly, “The Einstein Effect: How the World's Favorite Genius Got into Our Cars, Our Bathrooms, and Our Minds,” and a man of diverse and fascinating interests and explorations. 

 In our brief film discussion, I recommended “Fill the Void” as my favorite Jewish movie of the past decade. Check it out and let me know what you think. 

 In our "What Do You Want to Know?” segment, we discuss some findings from our just-released report “The Nishma Research 2023 Jewish Community Profile” - Beliefs, Practices, Attitudes and Priorities Across the Jewish Community With a Focus on U.S. Modern Orthodox and Haredi (Chasidish and Yeshivish) Sectors. Specifically, we discuss how some communal priorities have shifted significantly in recent years, and how there are some significant priority differences between the Modern Orthodox and Haredi sectors. 

We want to hear from you, so you can contact us at this link to offer comments and questions about the Jewish community: http://bit.ly/areas-of-interest

Thanks to Leora Trencher for designing our logo, and to Elana Trencher and Aliza Levy for their audio support. Orthonomics is produced by Scott Kahn of JCH Podcast Productions (http://jchpodcasts.com). 

In this episode, we speak with the noted Jewish world demographer Dr. Daniel Staetsky about population trends, particularly in the Haredi world. Dr. Staetsky is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (London), and has published widely on Jewish, Israeli and European demography and social statistics. He has written many popular columns in the Times of Israel. 

Many of the Orthodox community research studies we reference in this podcast are available and downloadable free at http://nishmaresearch.com/social-research.html.  These include our recent article “Nishma V’Naaseh?” and our just-released report “The Nishma Research 2023 Jewish Community Profile” - Beliefs, Practices, Attitudes and Priorities Across the Jewish Community With a Focus on U.S. Modern Orthodox and Haredi (Chasidish and Yeshivish) Sectors. 

In our "What Do You Want to Know?” segment, we answer a listener question that has been posed a few times, and we suggest that the question needs to be more nuanced if we were to pursue research on the issue raised. As presented to us: “Why does the Chasidic community refuse to provide a proper education for its students?” 

What Do You Want to Know? – We want to hear from you, so you can contact us at this link to offer comments as well as letting us know what questions you suggest we explore in future research: http://bit.ly/areas-of-interest 

 Thanks to Leora Trencher for designing our logo, and to Elana Trencher and Aliza Levy for their audio support.  Orthonomics is produced by Scott Kahn of JCH Podcast Productions (http://jchpodcasts.com).