Steven M. Cohen properly refers to Charles Liebman as “the esteemed social scientist of contemporary Jewry” (“Lessons Learned From Orthodoxy’s Dramatic Growth,” Dec. 11). He also writes that American Orthodoxy “has largely shed those who may be considered ‘nominally Orthodox,’ as Samuel C. Heilman and I termed such Jews back in the 1980s.” In fact, exactly a half century ago, in 1965, Liebman specifically wrote about the nominally Orthodox — he used the term — in the long, masterly essay titled “Orthodoxy in American Jewish Life” that was published in the American Jewish Yearbook.
Liebman and I shared an office at Yeshiva University in 1961, and as far back as then he referred to both the nominally Orthodox and the marginally Orthodox in the frequent discussions that we had.
Manhattan
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