T he Times of Israel reports that “in what appears to be a rebranding — or de-branding — effort the leadership of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah [YCT] is distancing itself from the term ‘Open Orthodoxy.’ ”
Granted that the rationale given by the school’s president is that it wanted “to focus on the important work we are doing in the Orthodox community and beyond… rather than focus on a label that… has become a distraction.” But I’d like to think YCT may be belatedly acting on the counsel I helpfully offered the Open Orthodox (OO) movement back in 2016: “My suggestion is to drop the “Open” moniker unless you want to continue to look foolish when you ‘the people from Open ’ threaten lawsuits against those who tell the truth about what you’re up to.”
Of course dropping Open and being known simply as Orthodox simply wouldn’t cut it either and so I floated a few alternatives like “New Age” and “Hope and Change” (both already taken) and Morethodoxy (which wouldn’t work because I noted “are you folks really about Morethodoxy — or Lessthodoxy? When was the last time you guys said a non-female Jew must do more of anything?).
My final pick was “Heterodoxy.” I conceded that although technically “it applies to the non-Orthodox comrades-in-arms into whose arms you’ve run as you flee Orthodoxy only that crank Kobre uses the word in that sense (and I doubt his ultra-Orthodox readers even know what it means along with most of the words in his columns). The beauty of this name is that it contains the raison d’être of your entire movement: Heter.”
