Young Israel
| National Council of Young Israel | |
|---|---|
| Theology | Orthodox Judaism |
| President | Farley Weiss |
| Chairman | Robert Levi |
| Region | United States and Canada |
| Headquarters | 50 Eisenhower Drive, Paramus, New Jersey |
| Origin | 1912 205 East Broadway, New York City |
| Congregations | 135 |
| Members | ~25000 affiliates |
| Official website | www |
The National Council of Young Israel (NCYI) or Young Israel (in Hebrew: Yisrael Hatza'ir, ישראל הצעיר), is a synagogue-based Orthodox Judaism organization in the United States with a network of affiliated "Young Israel" synagogues. Young Israel was founded in 1912, in its earliest form, by a group of 15 young Jews on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Their goal was to make Orthodox Judaism more relevant to young Americanized Jews, at a time when a significant Jewish education was rare, and most Orthodox institutions were Yiddish-speaking, and oriented to an older, European Jewish demographic.
Today, Young Israel continues to promote Orthodox involvement of modern American Jews, while also advocating for the issues most relevant to its members, including support for Israel and Religious Zionism, and Jewish prisoner support.
Early in the 20th century, American Jews were striving primarily for social and economic advancement, often leaving their religious observances behind. Because most jobs required working on Saturdays, observance of the Jewish Sabbath was rare, as were many other traditions. At the same time, the Reform movement had been expanding rapidly for about 40 years, and with its relaxed religious codes, secularly-educated leadership, and English orientation, attracted an increasing number of young people away from the folds of Orthodoxy.
A group of young Orthodox Jews decided to do what they could to make Orthodox Judaism more relevant to their peers, and combat the wave of assimilation by Jews into Reform and secular American society. It developed informally with two programs, one for education and one for worship.
The group developed a Friday night (Sabbath) lecture series in 1912, given in English. This was a major innovation in the Orthodox world. They were initially advised by rabbis Israel Friedlander and Mordecai Kaplan on topics and speakers. However, this was the time period when the Conservative Judaism movement was just starting to break away from Orthodoxy, and Friedlander and Kaplan were early students and faculty of the Conservative Jewish Theological Seminary. The JTS rabbis sought to use Young Israel to establish a youth platform for the Conservative movement, and until the end of World War I, the organization had two groups, the firmly Orthodox, and the more liberal group that worked with the Conservative rabbis.
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