Orthodox Judaism keeps the traditional laws and customs as they were handed down, in communities from Hasidic to Modern Orthodox.
The name arose in nineteenth-century Germany and Hungary as traditionalists defined themselves against Reform. It spans the Hasidic and Lithuanian yeshiva worlds and Modern Orthodoxy, and holds the written and oral Torah to be binding and divinely given.
The tree's references for this branch: Britannica: Orthodox Judaism · My Jewish Learning: Orthodox Judaism · Wikipedia: Orthodox Judaism.
Lineage: Israel and Judah: the First Temple›Second Temple Judaism›Rabbinic Judaism›Orthodox Judaism
Orthodox Jews keep the Torah, written and oral, as it has been handed down, and hold that its law binds in full. The name came into use in nineteenth-century Europe, as Jewish communities responded in different ways to religious and social change.
The pressure came from emancipation. As European states opened their citizenship to Jews, some Jewish communities changed their worship and set aside parts of the law, and the traditionalists answered. In Hungary, Moses Sofer of Pressburg, who died in 1839, took a phrase from the laws of the harvest and turned it into a motto against innovation, and his yeshiva trained a generation to hold the line 13,12. In Germany, Samson Raphael Hirsch took a different road: Torah with the way of the land, meaning full observance together with a secular education and a place in the wider society, and in Frankfurt he built a community that stood apart from the reforming one 14,15,12.
Alongside both stood the yeshiva world of eastern Europe, which had begun before the argument did. The yeshiva at Volozhin, founded in 1803, made full-time Talmud study a life rather than a stage, and its descendants are the great study halls of today 22,12. Hasidic communities, which have their own branch on the tree, are counted within Orthodoxy. Religious Zionism grew from Abraham Isaac Kook, the first chief rabbi of Jewish Palestine, who read the return to the land as part of a redemption 17,12. And after the Holocaust destroyed the yeshivas and Hasidic courts of Europe, survivors rebuilt them in New York, Jerusalem, London and Antwerp, which is why so much of Orthodox life today traces to a handful of towns that no longer have Jews in them 20,12.
See it on the family treeOrthodox Judaism holds that God gave the Torah at Sinai, in writing and by word of mouth, and that both are binding for all time. Jewish law is not a matter of choice or of period, and only a qualified authority may say how it applies to something new.
The written Torah and the oral Torah are held to come from one Giver, so the rabbinic tradition is not an addition to Scripture but part of what was given 9,10,12. Maimonides' Mishneh Torah and Joseph Karo's Shulchan Arukh, with its later glosses, are the codes through which the law reaches daily practice, and a posek, a decisor, rules on cases the codes did not foresee 7,8,3. Where Conservative Judaism holds that halakhah develops and may be developed, Orthodoxy holds that it is applied, and interprets the verse forbidding addition or subtraction as a limit on changes to religious law 9,12,23.
The communities differ over how much of the surrounding world to take in, and that is the main line inside Orthodoxy rather than a difference about the law itself. Modern Orthodox Jews hold full observance together with university, professions and, for many, religious Zionism 21,5,3. Haredi Jews order life around Torah study and keep a greater distance from secular culture, with their own schools and their own leadership 20,4. Sephardic and Mizrahi Orthodox communities keep their own rulings and customs, shaped in the twentieth century above all by Ovadia Yosef 24,12. All of them hold the same law to be binding.
Orthodox life is shaped hour by hour. Men pray three times a day, ideally with a quorum; the Sabbath stops work from Friday sunset to Saturday night; the kitchen is kosher; and children learn Hebrew and Talmud from a young age.
The prayers are in Hebrew and follow the traditional order, and in the synagogue men and women sit separately, divided by a mechitza 9,12,1. Sabbath observance means no work in the categories the tradition defines, so no driving, writing, cooking or use of electricity, and the day is given to prayer, meals, study and family 1,9. Kashrut governs which foods may be eaten and keeps meat and milk apart, and the laws of family purity govern marriage 1,10. Study is worship: a page of Talmud a day, the cycle that finishes the whole of it every seven and a half years, and evening study after work are ordinary in Orthodox communities 2,4. Boys and girls are taught in separate schools; the Bais Yaakov network, which Sarah Schenirer began in Kraków in 1917, expanded formal Torah education for girls 18,12.
Orthodox Jews read the Hebrew Bible in Hebrew, always with the traditional commentaries beside it, above all Rashi. English editions are for understanding rather than for use in prayer, where the Hebrew stands.
The text is the Masoretic one, and the Torah is read in the synagogue from a handwritten scroll on the annual cycle 9,12. A printed chumash prints the Hebrew, a translation, Rashi's commentary and often others, and the two most used in English are the ArtScroll Stone Edition and the Koren Tanakh 12,1. Because Scripture is read through the oral Torah, an Orthodox reader takes a verse's meaning from the tradition of interpretation rather than from the words alone, which is why study means Talmud and codes as much as Bible 7,8,9. Read here: the pointed Hebrew of the Leningrad Codex, the Modern Hebrew Bible, and the JPS translation of 1917, a Jewish English version in the Tanakh's own order. The versions guide sets out what each Jewish movement reads.
Free to read here: JPS TaNaKH 1917, תנ״ך, Leningrad Codex, the Modern Hebrew Bible. The full note on which Bible Orthodox Judaism use, with sources ›
These passages illustrate themes discussed in this profile; they are not a survey of members' favorite verses. Each is quoted from the JPS TaNaKH 1917 and links to its chapter. You can explore the text for study or personal reflection; memorization is optional.
And he took the book of the covenant, and read in the hearing of the people; and they said: 'All that the LORD hath spoken will we do, and obey.'
All that the LORD hath spoken will we do, and obey. The order of those words, doing before hearing, is the classic Orthodox description of accepting the Torah.
Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you.
Ye shall not add unto the word, neither shall ye diminish from it. The verse behind the conviction that the law is applied rather than revised.
Moses commanded us a law, an inheritance of the congregation of Jacob.
Moses commanded us a law, an inheritance of the congregation of Jacob. Twelve words, and traditionally the first verse a Jewish child is taught to say.
But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in His law doth he meditate day and night.
In His law doth he meditate day and night. The verse under a world in which full-time Torah study is a life rather than a stage.
Train up a child in the way he should go, and even when he is old, he will not depart from it.
Train up a child in the way he should go. Orthodox communities put their money and their best people into schools before anything else.
Orthodox Judaism is the youngest and fastest growing part of the Jewish world. Its share rises sharply among younger people, and its communities are concentrated in Israel and in a few cities elsewhere.
Pew found in 2020 that 17 percent of American Jewish adults under thirty identify as Orthodox, against 3 percent of those aged sixty-five and over, and that 11 percent of the youngest group are Haredi, against 1 percent of the oldest 11. Large families and schooling that keeps children inside the community account for most of that difference 11,20. In Israel, Orthodox Judaism is the only Judaism the state rabbinate recognises for marriage and conversion, a restriction challenged by other Jewish movements 12,10. Institutions carry the communities: the Orthodox Union certifies kosher food and runs youth work, the Rabbinical Council of America and Agudath Israel represent different parts of the world, and Yeshiva University trains Modern Orthodox rabbis 1,3,4,5.
The heaviest loss was the Holocaust, which destroyed the yeshivas, Hasidic courts and whole towns of eastern Europe where this world had lived. The communities of today were rebuilt by survivors 20,12.
Haredi Jews are Orthodox. Orthodoxy includes several communities committed to the binding authority of Jewish law, and Haredi communities are the part that orders life around Torah study and keeps most distance from secular culture, with their own schools, dress and leadership. Modern Orthodox Jews are equally observant and take a fuller part in secular education and work 20,21,12.
Because the tradition prescribes it for prayer, following the practice of the Temple, and Orthodox communities keep it. The divider is called a mechitza. Outside the synagogue, Orthodox families live together as families; the separation is about the prayer service and, in many communities, about schooling 9,1,12.
From sunset on Friday to nightfall on Saturday, the categories of work the tradition defines are set aside: no driving, writing, cooking, shopping or handling money or electricity. What is left is prayer, three meals, study, sleep and family. Orthodox Jews describe the restrictions as what makes the rest possible 1,9.
It holds the same law from the same source, and it has plainly gathered customs, codes and commentaries in the meantime, from the Talmud to the Shulchan Arukh of the sixteenth century to rulings on questions modern life invented. The claim is continuity of law and authority, not that nothing has been written since Sinai 7,8,9.
A woman who cannot remarry because her husband will not give her a get, the religious document of divorce, which under Jewish law only he can give. Orthodox rabbis have responded with prenuptial agreements that make refusal costly, and many now decline to officiate without one, but the problem is not solved and it is discussed openly inside Orthodoxy 19,6,3.
Numbered references link the account above to its sources. These include the tradition's own documents and outside reference works. The review status below distinguishes source checking from completed member and scholarly review.
BibleVerse. “Orthodox Judaism: where they came from, what they hold, and the Bible they read.” bibleverse.site, version 2026-09-09, https://bibleverse.site/denominations/orthodoxj/
Awaiting review by a member of the tradition. First published 2026-09-07; last changed 2026-09-09. Years before the common era are written BCE, and after it CE, as Jewish readers write them.
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Twelve words that a Jewish child is traditionally taught first, and that this whole world exists to keep saying.
Moses commanded us a law, an inheritance of the congregation of Jacob.