Dynamics of Isolation and Integration in Ultra-Orthodox Schools: The Epistemological Implications of Using Rabbeim as Secular Studies Teachers

Abstract

This article explores the complex dynamics that take place in ultra-Orthodox schools as they attempt to maintain a contra-acculturative stance toward secular knowledge, while providing students with the necessary tools to become functioning members of society. Using two case studies, this article looks at how the recent practice of using Rabbeim as secular studies instructors in elementary schools might reflect broader communal and cultural changes in ultra-Orthodox attitudes toward the integration of the secular and the religious.

Notes

¹Boys' and girls' schools in this community are entirely separate, and there are significant differences between them. Due to difficulty of access, my research deals entirely with boys' schools. Other work that treats girls' schools in this community includes S. Bechhofer's analysis of the Bais Yaakov girls school movement (2004), S. Levine's ethnography of a Lubavitch girls' high school (2003), and Safer's examination of middle school girls' construction of identity (2003).

²A note regarding Lubavitch: Lubavitch is often seen as more open to the secular world than other branches of ultra-Orthodoxy, as the Lubavitch movement appears to actively engage in many aspects of secular culture. This engagement, however, is generally restricted to the “kiruv” (outreach) context—where Lubavitchers are actively trying to draw non-Orthodox Jews into Orthodoxy. In the clinical interviews conducted for this research, Lubavitchers did not reflect different attitudes in this area than did members of other groups; they fully rejected the intrinsic value of secular knowledge, and affirmed a strong commitment to deliberate isolation from secular culture. In fact, the Rabbeim and administrators at Lubavitch tended to reject the value of secular knowledge in the school day more strongly than participants in the other two schools.

³I have presented the differences between Rabbi Schulman and Mrs. Weiss as an insider/outsider contrast, but there is another obvious distinction between the two: Mrs. Weiss is female, while Rabbi Schulman is male. Based on my overall observations of these schools, gender is in fact not the primary source of differences in student behavior. I chose to compare Mrs. Weiss' and Rabbi Schulman's classes for this study because they taught similarly aged students. However, other classes that I observed, which were taught by modern Orthodox, non-Orthodox, or non-Jewish male teachers, had the same problems as Mrs. Weiss' class. In fact, I was asked by one of the schools not to observe a particular class—taught by a male instructor—that I had wanted to include in the study, because it was so out of control, and the students so aggressive with the teacher, that the administration was both embarrassed and afraid that my presence might create too much of a disruption for the teacher to handle. Every time I passed the door of that classroom, I heard loud screaming, and saw students running in and out of the room.