Rabbi Jack Riemer, founding chair of the National Rabbinic Network (and a former advisor to President Bill Clinton), appreciates Rav Shmuly's calls to action in the upcoming anthology "Jewish Ethics & Social Justice."  From Rabbi Riemer's review, which appeared in the Florida Jewish Journal:

Shmuly Yanklowitz is a long overdue and a much needed new voice within Modern Orthodoxy. His message is very simple — that righteousness counts at least as much as ritual — and therefore, Judaism must speak out on the moral issues of our time. That may seem obvious to some of us, but it is a radical statement within some parts of Orthodoxy.

For example, when the scandal at the kosher meat packing plant that violated the child labor laws was in the headlines, Orthodoxy lost the opportunity to speak out loud and clear in favor of Social Justice. Instead, it was perceived as being concerned only about the fine points of kashrut. I even know one Orthodox Jew who seemed more worried about the fact that the Jewish protesters against this meat packing plant entered a church to meet with the immigrant workers than he was with the need to fight for the justice on their side.

Yanklowitz's book is a collection of his essays, stating what he believes the Jewish tradition has to say on the social issues of our time. He raises and strives to answer such questions as: What does halachah have to say about the health care battle that is now going on in Congress? Or what does halachah have to say about the need for prison reform? Or what does halachah have to say about corporate ethics or about global warming?

You may, and I sometimes do, disagree about his position on some of these questions, but if you are a serious Jew who respects halachah, you must surely deal with these questions. If you don't, then the Torah becomes a trivial pursuit, unrelated to the world in which we live.

I hope that we will receive more such insights from Yanklowitz in the future and I hope that many more Orthodox voices like his will be heard on these matters. If there are, then we can proudly say that the Torah cares about the moral issues of our time. But if people like Yanklowitz, and if the questions that he and others like him raise are ignored within Orthodoxy, that will be a terrible Hillul Hashem, that will damage the image of Judaism in the eyes of those who do not believe that we should ever have to choose between justice and Judaism.

More info about Rav Shmuly's forthcoming book can be found @ www.JewishSocialJustice.com