David Singer z”l

TRADITION was saddened by the news of David Singer’s passing last week. Singer z”l served as the longtime director of research at the American Jewish Committee, and as its editor of the American Jewish Year Book. From that perch he saw his task as helping the American Jewish community study and understand itself; and for his part he was an extremely insightful, if often critical, observer of his own Modern Orthodox community. When he took up that task in the early 1970s he was among the pioneers of examining trends in American Orthodoxy, which had only just begun to disprove prognosticators’ predictions of doom. He was also among the first to publish scholarly analysis of the teachings of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, whose role was so central to that Orthodox resurgence.

A 1990 First Things essay, titled “The Orthodox Jew as Intellectual Crank,” profiled Yeshayahu Leibowitz and Baruch Kurzweil as exemplars of how Orthodox thinkers respond to modernity when swimming against the stream of convention. Singer concluded: “To be a crank is a relatively simple matter; to be an Orthodox intellectual crank is a much more complicated undertaking.” He might have been speaking of himself.

An infrequent but provocative contributor to our pages, David Singer authored the following items now housed in the TRADITION Archives:

“Rav Kook’s Contested Legacy” (Spring 1996)
Singer examined the struggle over Rav Kook’s legacy, contrasting Modern Orthodox interpretations that emphasize his openness to secular culture with messianic Zionist readings that stress redemption and territorial nationalism, showing how his complex thought sustains competing claims.

Symposium Contribution: “Reflections on the Six Day War After a Quarter Century” (Summer 1992)
Singer offered highly critical reflections on the unimpressive response of all segments of Jewry to the Six Day War, and was horrified that the 1967 events of such great magnitude left so paltry an impact on American Jews.

 “Is Club Med Kosher? Reflections on Synthesis and Compartmentalization” (Fall 1985)
Reflecting on whether an Orthodox Jew vacationing at Club Med represents religious compromise or integration, Singer explored sociological theories of compartmentalization versus synthesis, arguing that Modern Orthodoxy can comfortably incorporate modern leisure without guilt.

“The Case for an Irrelevant Orthodoxy: An Open Letter to Yitzchak Greenberg” (Summer 1970)
Singer responded to R. Irving (Yitz) Greenberg’s call for a more accommodating Orthodoxy, arguing instead that Orthodoxy should preserve principled distinctiveness—even if it appears socially “irrelevant”—to maintain theological integrity and resist assimilation to contemporary culture pressures.