IJII

Dr. Marc B. Shapiro holds the Weinberg Chair in Judaic Studies at theUniversity of Scranton. His most recent book is Studies in Maimonidesand His Interpreters. This article appears in issue 7 of Conversations, the journal of the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals.

Orthodox Jews like to claim that they adhere to an unchanging tradition of laws and beliefs. Based on this understanding, it becomes possible to decide who "is in" and who "is out;" that is, who is part of the Orthodox camp and who must be placed in a different denomination. The term "Orthodox" itself, which is not part of traditional Jewish vocabulary but actually comes from the Christian lexicon, was adopted in order to distinguish different types of Jews. Yet what exactly defines so-called Orthodoxy is not so easy to pin down.

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