Wednesday, January 10, 2007

On the “un-educating” of Israeli Chareidi women, part 2—discrimination, not just against women

See part 1 here.

Bolding added by me.

Here's an excerpt from the original article from Haaretz:

"The rabbis were mostly infuriated by the psychological subjects in the teaching programs. Freud and Western psychology had always been a red rag to them.

The absence of ultra-Orthodox lecturers with academic degrees in diagnostics and consulting required bringing in lecturers from "outside" the community. Yated Neeman's women's supplement, Bayit Neeman, blasted the trend of bringing in lecturers from the "Sephardi faction" and even "completely secular" ones, warning of the women students' defilement."

Haredi Women Crying Foul Over New Education Restrictions

“For some reason, we have found, in recent years, that courses are taught by foreign lecturers,” ran an editorial in Beit Ne’eman, Yated Ne’eman’s women’s supplement. “Some of these lecturers belong to the Mizrahi stream, and others, to great shame, are secular through and through ... there is danger here of contamination.”

(Note: Some say that Sefardim and “Mizrachim” [B’nei Edot HaMizrach, Children of the Communities of the East] are the same group, others disagree, but all agree that they’re not Ashkenazim.)

Does anyone else see attitudes bordering on racism in these statements?

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm with you on how unfortunate this news is, BUT the way I understand it, by Mizrachi the article may be referring to the Mizrachi-Bnei Akiva-type Modern Orthodox movement - meaning the teachers are Orthodox but not a level of Orthodoxy that is acceptable to or considered legit by some of the Chareidi groups.
Mizrachi is the usual way this faction and its affiliated movements are referred to in Israel.

Wed Jan 10, 07:59:00 PM 2007  
Blogger Shira Salamone said...

Raggedmom, I certainly hope you're right.

On the other hand, A) Don't these people *care* that their word choice makes them sound racist?, and B) I hate all this bleeping divisiveness--an Orthodox Jew is an Orthodox, with or without a black hat/sheitel, and the idea that one Orthodox Jew can "defile" or "contaminate" another is an outrage and an insult, in my opinion.

Wed Jan 10, 09:08:00 PM 2007  

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