Audrey Lichter is a long-time Jewish educator and community leader, and the founding Executive Director of the Chai Mitzvah program.

Audrey has worked in Jewish education for over 30 years, including as the founding principal of Yachad, the community high school in Greater Hartford, Connecticut. She has been active as a lay leader, received community awards, and has been involved locally and nationally in Jewish day school and educational initiatives. Her leadership background and deep experience in Jewish learning helped shape Chai Mitzvah into a program that emphasizes personal meaning and lifelong Jewish engagement.

She and her son Simon are the producers of a biweekly lecture series on Zoom called Scholar's Circle that features eminent scholars on topics relating to Israel, antizionism and antisemitism and the Middle East. Lectures are free and open to the public and can be accessed through the ChaiMitzvah website.

Chai Mitzvah offers a huge array of Jewish study opportunities, suited to men, women and teens across all of Judaism.

The books by Scott Shay that Audrey mentions are: Getting Our Groove Back: How to Energize American Jewry (2007); In Good Faith: Questioning Religion and Atheism (2018); and Conspiracy U: A Case Study (2021). More information is available at Scottshay.com.

Links to:

The ChaiMitzvah Website

The ChaiMitzvah Scholars Circle Section

The Nishma Research Jewish Study Summary

What people want to learn – 605 VERBATIM Responses

Miriam Moster has a PhD sociology, she is a Mellon Humanities Public Fellow and a Wexner Graduate Fellow. Her research explores Jewish communities, education, and the experiences of individuals navigating the boundaries of insular religious worlds. "Navigating the boundaries" means moving from one sector of Judaism and observance to another sector and lifestyle; and she has published widely on these topics.

Her work is distinguished by an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on sociology, narrative, and cultural studies to better understand how people view and construct their own personal identity and how they fit into a community.

In a wide-ranging conversation, we talk about adults who leave the observant community, the acceptance and value of research in the Haredi community, divorces and their impact on changes in religiosity and religious self-identification, Shabbat for singles, the greater acceptance and "mainstreaming" of therapy, and the dangers and cautions relating to therapy.

Thanks to the Halacha Headlines podcast and Dovid Lichtenstein for allowing us to share this important episode with the Orthonomics audience. Halacha Headlines is an excellent podcast, primarily aimed at the Yeshivish community but with important insights for all Orthodox Jews. It is available at all podcast platforms.

For further information about the issues discussed, go to http://amudim.org.

The Nishma Research Health Assessment Survey of the Orthodox community is available through January 18, 2026 at http://bit.ly/orthodox-health-2025.

You may send feedback or questions to mark@nishmaresearch.com.