About the OU

Each and every day, countless Jewish individuals around the world are positively impacted by the work of the Orthodox Union, with its array of religious, youth, social action, educational, public policy and community development services, programs and activities.

• The OU's kosher supervision label, the , appears on over 500,000 products manufactured in 83 countries, making the OU the world leader in kosher certification. Learn more.
• The OU synagogue network embraces over 400 synagogues across North America, providing professional guidance to their rabbinic and lay leaders. Learn More.
• The OU's community engagement division touches the members of our community with programming that enriches their daily lives. Learn more.
• The OU represents the interests of its entire constituency in Washington and around the world through its Institute for Public Affairs. Learn more.
• The OU's youth movement, NCSY, has chapters in 39 US states, in Canada, Israel, Europe and South America, reaching over 35,000 Jewish teens each year. Learn more.
• The OU's national support network for Jewish individuals with disabilities, Yachad, champions their inclusion in Jewish life. Learn more.
• The OU's campus program, JLIC bolsters the commitment to Torah study and observance of thousands of Orthodox students in secular colleges. Learn more.
• The OU Job Board retrains thousands of individuals each year for new careers, and brings employers and job seekers together, changing lives for the better. Learn more.
• The OU's book publishing division, OU Press, publishes books of both serious and popular scholarship, as well as Jewish liturgy. Learn more.
• The OU's popular quarterly magazine, Jewish Action, explores the people, ideas and trends integral to Jewish life today. Learn more.
• The OU's Alumni Connection program fosters continuing relationships with thousands of NCSY graduates as they find their place in Jewish life. Learn more.

These are only the headlines—please browse our site to discover all the ways in which the Orthodox Union, the world's largest Jewish resource, enhances Jewish life.

Mission

The mission of the Orthodox Union is to engage, strengthen, and lead the Orthodox Jewish Community, and inspire the greater Jewish community.

Strategies

To fulfill this mission, the Orthodox Union:

• Promotes and supports an infrastructure that enables Orthodox Jews to lead "full" Orthodox lives;
• Sponsors programs and initiatives that inspire and empower Jewish adolescents;
• Convenes community leaders and institutions to identify needs and pursue strategies to address them; and
• Protects the interests and promotes the values of the Orthodox Jewish community in the "public square."

History

In 1898, Dr. Henry Periera Mendes, the spiritual leader of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in New York, established the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America. More readily known today by its shorter name, the Orthodox Union, or simply by its initials "OU," the nascent organization was founded with 50 congregations from across the United States and Canada with several formidable goals: to unify the fragmented traditional ranks of Jews, to provide a strong political voice for Torah Judaism and to halt the frightening trend of assimilation among New World Jews. The OU's early concerns – advancing Shabbat observance, battling missionaries who preyed on Jewish public school students in the pre-Yeshiva days, and struggling to effectively transmit Jewish heritage to a new generation of youth – reflected the then fragile condition of American Orthodoxy.

As American Orthodoxy stabilized, the OU pioneered programs to assist in the Orthodox synagogue and community, easing the path for the flood of Jewish immigrants who would arrive in the ensuing decades. In 1924, the OU undertook a monumental, unprecedented endeavor: the creation of the first nonprofit, communally sponsored kosher certification. In the years to come, the OU symbol would become renowned throughout the world and ultimately the revolutionize the kosher food industry.

The World Wars caused the OU to organize relief undertakings, cater to the religious needs of the Jewish servicemen in the American army and work with other Jewish organizations to awaken the American public to the menace of Nazi Germany. With the miraculous birth of Israel, the OU committed itself to strengthening and protecting Israel's spiritual, political, and economic well-being. In the decades since the founding of the Jewish State, the OU has been involved with issues such as the peace process, international terrorism and Israeli MIAs and POWs.

Addressing the ever-challenging threats of intermarriage and assimilation, the OU created the National Conference of Synagogue Youth (now known simply as NCSY), an innovative and dynamic outreach movement for teenagers. Reorganized in 1959, NCSY spurred the birth of the North American Teshuva Movement, reversing the fate of thousands of individuals, hundreds of synagogues and communities and of American Jewry in general.

Underscoring the responsibilities to the disabled segment of the Jewish community, the OU created Yachad and Our Way, the only national Jewish programs offering religious, educational and social opportunities for youth and adults with developmental disabilities or who are deaf or hearing impaired.

Expanding its international agenda in the 1970s and 1980s, the OU served as a pivotal force in the epic struggle to free Soviet Jewry and set out to ensure the safety and security of Jews throughout the world. With the collapse of communism, the OU was among the first to provide an outreach infrastructure in the Ukraine, bringing hundreds back to their Jewish roots. On the domestic front, the OU, through the Institute for Public Affairs (IPA), continued to defend Jewish civil rights and vocalize the concerns of Orthodoxy in Washington.

During the past century, the Orthodox world has been guided and enriched by the OU, an organization that is today the world's foremost leader in kashrut supervision, Jewish outreach, advocacy for the disabled, synagogue services, adult education and political action. As the face of Orthodoxy continues to change, the OU is ever-committed to its original goals of unifying, representing and strengthening traditional Jewry.