Association For Jewish Outreach Programs - Connection With Haredi Judaism

Connection With Haredi Judaism

While AJOP's founders, such as Sanford Bernstein, Rabbi Ephraim Buchwald and Gerald Weisberg were firmly rooted in the Modern Orthodox world, AJOP's membership has been heavily drawn from the mostly Haredi world. The Haredi dominance of AJOP is exmeplified by its acceptance of Rabbis Yaakov Perlow and Shmuel Kaminetzky as its chief rabbinical sponsors. So much so, that one of Agudath Israel of America chief spokesman, Rabbi Avi Shafran has spoken out on its behalf:

On January 16, the Association for Jewish Outreach Programs (AJOP), with which hundreds (yes, hundreds) of Orthodox outreach organizations are affiliated, will begin its annual 5-day convention; it will be the group's sixteenth such annual gathering. Among AJOP's members are a large number of community kollelim -- or Torah-study centers -- that offer study-partners, lectures and discussion groups to the Jewishly educated and non-educated alike. Such kollelim thrive in places like Phoenix, Des Moines, Norfolk, Boca Raton, and Palo Alto, not to mention larger cities like Atlanta, Dallas, Seattle, Memphis, Chicago, Miami, Philadelphia and Cleveland (and many more -- including locations in South America, Canada and Mexico) "I Have a Dream," Jewish Law Commentary, Am Echad resources.

Shafran was responding to a critique published by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs by Chaim Waxman called "Changing Jewish Communities: Winners and Losers in Denominational Memberships in the United States":

With these developments, the haredim (ultra-Orthodox) have apparently gained self-confidence that manifests itself in greater assertiveness. For example, whereas at mid-century religious outreach was the province of the modern Orthodox, with the haredim being somewhat suspicious of ba'alei teshuva (the newly religious), by the end of the century the haredim were heavily engaged in religious outreach. Some of the frameworks include the National Jewish Outreach Program (NJOP), the Association for Jewish Outreach Programs (AJOP), with which hundreds of Orthodox outreach organizations are affiliated, and the Orthodox Union's National Conference of Synagogue Youth (NCSY). Many of these were initially modern Orthodox but are today staffed by haredim.