As I walked around Disney World with my family this week, I was amazed at the number of Modern Orthodox Jews I saw mingling with Disney characters from Mickey Mouse to Stitch. Everytime I spotted a kipa or bandana, I would poke my 18-year-old daughter and whisper "tribe members on your left." By the end of the day, she was bruised.

While the liberal branches of Judaism welcome modernity, Orthodox Judaism shuns the modern world in favor of tradition. In between these two approaches to Judaism, Modern Orthodox Jews in America today strive to find a way to live traditionally in the modern world. How have Judaism's Modern Orthodox succeeded simultaneously to embrace modernity and cleave to tradition?

While visiting my sister in Atlanta, I read through Atlanta's local Jewish newspaper. About 70,000 out of Atlanta's 125,000 Jews are unaffiliated according to the newspaper. This made me wonder, “Why be Jewish?” in America today when it is so comfortable to just be American. Why drive to the Jewish Community Center rather than the local Fitness Center, why celebrate Hanukkah when your co-workers are having Christmas parties, and why enroll your kids in Hebrew school when the neighbor's kids are going to soccer practice?

Anti-Semitism, the Holocaust, and Israel used to be effective motivators, but they no longer speak to young, unaffiliated American Jews. Do you think that a “new story” has to be uncovered and marketed to invigorate Jewish life in America today?