Why do US Jews leave Orthodoxy? A new study tries to map out the reasons

A new survey of American Jews who have left Orthodox Judaism asks tough questions of the community as it describes the complicated web of factors causing people to leave the fold.

Published by the Orthodox Union (OU), one of the Orthodox world’s most prominent organizations, the survey’s conclusions call for synagogues and schools to adopt more inclusive mindsets, for rabbis to look out for children on the fringes and for parents to establish clear expectations with love and support.

One of the study’s biggest surprises was that many of the surveyed individuals who left Orthodoxy remain connected to the community.

“We found that many of the people we spoke with were not alienated or angry,” said the study’s lead researcher, Moshe Krakowski, Director of Doctoral Studies at Yeshiva University’s Azrieli Graduate School of Jewish Education, in an interview with The Times of Israel. “Often, people expressed a mix of positive and negative feelings. That has important implications because many still maintain close ties within the Orthodox community after leaving and may want to continue to participate in some capacity.”

Of the respondents who said they felt very little or no connection to Orthodoxy, most said it was because they felt alienated by the Orthodox community’s responses to them following their change of lifestyle, the report noted.

In the first of a two-part study, the OU’s New York-based Center for Communal Research (CCR) conducted in-depth interviews in 2023 with 29 men and women, ages 18 to 43, who had previously left Orthodoxy. Participants primarily lived in the US and came from Modern Orthodox, Yeshivish, Chabad, and Hasidic backgrounds.

Orthodox Jews comprise about nine percent of the 7.5 million Jews located in the United States, or approximately 700,000 people, according a 2020 Pew Research report.

The CCR is a wing of the OU that attempts to “empower the Jewish community with data” so the community can make informed decisions. “We help Jewish organizations translate evidence into action,” states its website. Therefore, the survey also included a clear call to action despite the small sample size.

“This type of study can’t be used to quantify data for a population, but it is a common tool in the social sciences to uncover key narratives about how people experience certain processes,” explained Yossi David, head of the lab for Communication and Social BIAS (Beliefs, Ideologies, Affect, and Stereotypes) Research at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. “It’s a way to go in-depth on a topic and probe for new facets.”

A broader follow-up survey based on the findings will seek to quantify the data and present a big picture of the challenges, Krakowski noted.

The findings provide insight into attrition trends in North America and to a lesser extent, Europe but not necessarily Israel, Krakowski noted. “There are so many different factors and relationships operating there,” he said.

Major trends

The survey identified several common threads that appeared frequently in the interviews. Significantly different trends were discernible between those coming from liberal modern-Orthodox communities compared to people from stricter right-wing religious communities, Krakowski noted.

“Every case is different, but in Modern Orthodoxy, boundaries are often somewhat porous,” Krakowski said. “There often isn’t a great deal of control over how people act, and that means that it’s easier to drift away or slide out from engagement.”

One participant who is no longer religious described part of the drifting process as follows: “The first thing that happened was, I used to wait six hours between [eating] meat and milk, and then six hours turned into three, and three turned into one, and [eventually,] I just rinsed out my mouth with water.”

Meanwhile, in more religious communities, you can often see the opposite extreme, he said. “People say that rigid community expectations and structures leave them feeling confined and constrained, and that causes them to want to leave.”

There is plenty of overlap between different categories, and many subjects from Modern Orthodox backgrounds also talked about feeling constrained, Krakowski noted.

Participants from Modern Orthodox and Chabad backgrounds complained about the treatment of feminist issues more than did those raised Yeshivish and Hasidic. Other complaints included attitudes of superiority toward others and the treatment of the LGBTQ community within Orthodoxy.

Additional risk factors included issues of belonging and stability.

“For everyone we spoke to, there was some degree of not quite fitting in at communal institutions,” Krakowski said. “For example, going to a school that is much more religious than your family is, or much less religious, or being the only Hasidic kid in a non-Hasidic school. This sort of misalignment showed up again and again.”

“That doesn’t mean that anybody who goes to school that’s misaligned with them is going to leave orthodoxy, but it is something you have to look at and think about in a deeper way,” Krakowski added.

My teacher said that if you read Harry Potter, then it’s like you served avodah zarah [committed idolatry], and I was like super OCD, so like I went to my room for a few hours and said viduy [confession prayers]

Religious inconsistency within the family was another important factor that was uncovered in the survey.

“We saw a lot of cases where parents became religious who weren’t previously, or those who became very right-wing after initially being more liberal, or vice versa,” Krakowski said. “Sometimes it was even a change that occurred before the child was able to understand. This can make it feel like Judaism isn’t stable, and can have a significant impact, especially when it happens rapidly.”

One respondent with parents from non-Orthodox backgrounds said, “When we moved to [a city in the Midwest], I all of a sudden realized that people thought we were weird. And so I think mostly we ended up befriending other families that the community saw as weird.”

When we moved… I all of a sudden realized that people thought we were weird. And so I think mostly we ended up befriending other families that the community saw as weird

One woman recalled a trauma learning in a high school where educators placed violations of strict communal values on the same level as the most egregious sins.

“My teacher said that if you read Harry Potter, then it’s like you served avodah zarah [committed idolatry], and I was like super OCD, so like I went to my room for a few hours and said viduy [confession prayers],” she said.

Religious figures were found to hold surprising sway in the lives of the interview subjects.

“We didn’t ask about this explicitly, but a lot of people spoke about the influence of rabbis and other religious authority figures,” Krakowski said. “A bad experience with a rabbinic authority who sort of represents Judaism for you can create a real sense of upheaval that makes you want to leave. Some described a sense of disgust when experiencing something that felt hypocritical, like when someone rich was treated differently than others.”

On the other hand, Krakowski noted, many subjects also talked about the powerful impressions made by rabbis who supported them or served as positive role models.

Finally, trauma, such as the death of a friend or loved one, or physical or sexual abuse can play an important factor, Krakowski noted.

Different approaches to culture

One factor that didn’t come up as a risk factor was exposure to popular culture and social media. Many respondents expressed negative perceptions of secular society and materialism, the survey found.

“Surprisingly, this didn’t come up in the interviews that way we might have thought,” Krakowski said. “It’s not like social media is a sort of force that sucks people into a world that pulls them away from orthodoxy. But it might play a part in a broader process of slipping away.”

In this sense, these influences act more as a facilitator than a root cause of attrition for Orthodox Jews in the US, Krakowski said.

That’s different than the situation in Israel’s ultra-Orthodox community, noted Ben-Gurion University’s David, who studies Haredi attrition in Israel in addition to his work on data analysis.

“You can’t compare these findings. The communities are too different,” David said.

In Haredi society, David said, “the data shows there are two main forces causing people to leave their communities — things pushing you out and things pulling you in.”

Sometimes, people leave ultra-Orthodox society because of a factor that forces them to seek change, such as a lack of respect for women, problems with acceptance for converts and the newly religious, or intolerance between different sects or ethnicities, David said. In other cases, former Haredim are pulled into secular society by an exposure to culture and the modern world or a need to learn core topics not taught in Haredi school systems to train for a profession, he added.

In these communities, access to technology is considered a more significant factor for attrition than in the US, David said.

Confronting challenges

Many of the challenges of raising children to follow their parents’ religious practices are universal, Krakowski noted.

“Prior research has found that parents who set clear normative expectations for their kids tend to see them follow in their paths more than parents who leave their kids to figure things out on their own,” Krakowski said, drawing upon research conducted by the University of Notre Dame’s National Study of Youth and Religion.

Most of the study’s participants described strong connections to Orthodox traditions and practices, often because they had fond memories or because they remained important to them and their families.

One respondent said, “I like the cultural side of it. I don’t have any problems with it. I feel like most people who stop being religious, usually, it’s coming from a place of either being hurt or angry, and I don’t have any of that.”

I like the cultural side of it. I don’t have any problems with it. I feel like most people who stop being religious, usually, it’s coming from a place of either being hurt or angry, and I don’t have any of that

The OU recommended that parents consider how their children experience these rituals and work to build positive associations. Parents should also express love and support for their children, provide a sense of stability regardless of the children’s life choices, and work to help kids develop a healthy sense of agency and trust in themselves.

Meanwhile, rabbis and community leaders are advised to learn to understand and empathize with community members and learn how to identify warning signs and engage with people who are questioning as early as possible.

“Questioning starts early,” says CCR Principal Researcher Rachel Ginsberg. “Waiting until the end of high school to evaluate whether students are connecting is too late. Listening, validating concerns, and offering space for exploration is critical.”

The study recommended that synagogues and schools adopt more inclusive mindsets and foster tolerance for others’ differences, welcoming those who leave and keeping the door open for their return.

It also suggested that community support of families with religious misalignments, especially for converts and the newly religious, may help prevent attrition. Identifying the appropriate ways to do so will require a broader communal conversation, it said.

The challenge, said OU Executive Vice President Rabbi Moshe Hauer, is whether people within the Orthodox community are willing to change their behaviors.

“If we truly want to make meaningful, positive change regarding American Orthodox Jewish attrition,” he said, “All of us will do well to read this report, study it, and take a long and honest look in the mirror.”