What's in a name? On the term "Modern Orthodoxy" in Israel

"Eizehu Chacham? Halomed Mikol Adam (Who is smart? He who learns from all people)" - Avot 4:1

Today I discussed blogging about Modern Orthodoxy with a colleague at work. While interested, she recoiled from the word "orthodoxy", stating that she preferred the tried and true "dati le'umi" (national-religious) instead. While I suggested a few alternatives such as "dati moderni" (modern religious) and "dati leumi moderni" (national modern religious), I had to concede that she had a point. Thinking it over, I realized that this might not be the best term to describe MO in Israel.

There are two reasons for this. The first is that the word orthodoxy (pronounced "ortodoxia" in Hebrew) is not very friendly-sounding; in fact it's quite scary when you think about it (it has a tough, German ring to it). Moreover, Orthodoxy is a term used more often by its opponents than its adherents (who preferred terms like "Torah-true"), both when it first came on the scene in Europe and nowadays. Its purpose was, then as now, to seperate adherence to halakha from the term religion, with the idea that they are merely one religious strain among many. While "Orthodoxy" as a concept is well-established and comfortaably used in America, its use here is of relatively recent vintage. Until a couple of decades ago, you were either Charedi (ultra-Orthodox), "religious" (moderate Halakhic/Orthodox), traditional or secular. Conservatives and Reforms were identified by strain, religious Jews were not. Now, when it IS used, it is almost always meant as a term of derision and distance, as in "I'm not one of THEM". I have to wonder whether it would be playing into the hands of such people by using that term, so harsh to the untrained ear, to describe our world-view.

The second reason is that most non-English speaking Jews in Israel have little to no understanding of what Modern Orthodoxy is. What understanding they have is often skewed. For instance, in the comprehensive Hebrew language website on Israeli society, Modern Orthodoxy is identified almost exclusively with would be known in America as the "hard left" of MO - academics like Profs. Noam Zohar and Moshe Halbertal, Ne'emanei Torah Ve'Avodah, and so on. The problem is not that there IS a hard-left wing, but that anyone identified with "Modern Orthodoxy" would be immediately "tagged" as such, thus delegitimizing them in the eyes of others (like the "neo-Reform" slur).

All this may sound like pointless semantics; in truth, it is anything but that. Keep in mind that if we want to be more than a small, insignificant American curio in these parts, we are going to have to do more than win "hearts and minds" among the Hebrew-speaking religious Jews in Israel. We will eventually need to gain both visibility and legitimacy in the general popular (Hebrew!) Israeli discourse, and like it or not, "labels" and "user-friendliness" count for a lot here.

So should we still stick with Modern Orthodoxy and change the public perception of it? Or maybe we should try another term? Suggestions are more than welcome.