We, the undersigned rabbis, representing three generations of American Orthodox leadership, are deeply concerned at the many ways in which Open Orthodox rabbis and leaders have divided the Orthodox community by unilaterally violating normative Orthodox laws, customs and traditions.

Of the many points in Rabbi Asher Lopatin's opinion piece ("Orthodox and here to stay"), to which many people will take exception, one point in particular cries out for clarification because the future of Rabbi Lopatin’s movement hinges upon it. Rabbi Lopatin, president of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah and a leading standard-bearer for Open Orthodoxy, decries the "flurry of activity recently within some ultra-Orthodox circles to try to declare that elements of the Orthodox community are no longer part of the Orthodox world."

All of us are members in good standing or identify with the Rabbinical Council of America, an organization associated with the Orthodox mainstream. We are devoted to bringing people closer to tradition through authentic Torah teaching and practice, not to reading people out of it.

But if Open Orthodoxy's leaders feel some distance developing between themselves and mainstream Orthodoxy, they should not be blaming others. They might consider how they themselves have plunged ahead, again and again, across the border that divides Orthodoxy from neo-Conservatism. Why are they surprised to find themselves on the wrong side of a dividing line?

Rabbi Elie Abadie, M.D.

Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein

Rabbi Yisroel Bendelstein

Rabbi Heshy Blumstein

Rabbi Kenneth Brodkin

Rabbi Chaim Crupar

Rabbi Ephraim Epstein

Rabbi Ilan D. Feldman

Rabbi Dov Fischer

Rabbi Arie Folger

Rabbi Cary Friedman

Rabbi Dr. Barry Freundel

Rabbi Shaul Gold

Rabbi Jay H. Goldberg

Rabbi Chaim Goldberger

Rabbi Avrohom Gordimer

Rabbi Howard Katzenstein

Rabbi Hillel Klavan

Rabbi Eric Kotkin

Rabbi Louis Langer

Rabbi Phil Lefkowitz

Rabbi Yaakov Luban

Rabbi Jacob B. Mendelson

Rabbi Yerachmiel Morrison

Rabbi Yehuda L. Oppenheimer

Rabbi Steven Pruzansky

Rabbi Mitchell Rocklin

Rabbi Gidon Rothstein

Rabbi Larry Rothwachs

Rabbi Eliyahu Safran

Rabbi Fabian Schonfeld

Rabbi Yoel Schonfeld

Rabbi Dov Schreier

Rabbi Max Schreier

Rabbi David Shabtai, M.D.

Rabbi Shmuel Singer

Rabbi Zecharia Sionit

Rabbi Leonard Steinberg

Rabbi Gil Student

Rabbi Neal Turk

Rabbi Yaakov Wasser

Rabbi Elisha Weiss