Orthodox Judaism

By Rubab Jaffari
 Orthodox Judaism believes that both the Written and
Oral Torah are of divine origin, and represent the word
of God. This is similar to the view of the Conservative
movement, but the Orthodox movement holds that
such information (except for scribal errors) is the
exact word of God and does not represent any human
creativity or influence. For the Orthodox, the term
Torah refers to the Written Law
 Orthodox Judaism maintains the historical
understanding of Jewish identity. A Jew is someone
who was born to a Jewish mother, or who converts to
Judaism in accordance with Jewish law and tradition.
Orthodoxy thus rejects patrilineal descent as a means
of establishing Jewish identity. Similarly, Orthodoxy
strongly condemns interreligious marriage.
Intermarriage is seen as a deliberate rejection of
Judaism, and an intermarried person is effectively cut
off from most of the Orthodox community. However,
some Orthodox Jewish organizations do reach out to
intermarried Jews
 Holocaust
While some assert that the majority of Jews killed
during the Holocaust were religiously Orthodox,
numbering 5070% of those who perished,
researchers have shown that Jewish Orthodoxy was
waning at the time, consumed by the Jewish
Enlightenment, secular Zionism, and the socialist
movements of pre-war Europe