Well the other day, I received an email from Aish HaTorah that contained the graphic above. Now that I am 30, I am too old for many of the programs that Aish HaTorah offers anyway -- but it is still nice to look. My introduction to Torah obeservant Judaism was essentially via Aish HaTorah. And I know that Aish HaTorah is essentially a haredi organization. However Rabbi Noah Weinberg, zt'l, was an incredible visionary; and has been a positive influence on so many Jews -- bringing Orthodox Judaism to the table of many of us who would have never given it a chance to begin with (myself included). However Aish HaTorah shows you that you can be a working professional, without a yeshiva education, and/or have serious questions about Judaism and still make the move to become frum.So I guess the above program sort of surprised/disappointed me. I am currently working on my MBA; but the program clearly states that it is for men. I did not save the other portions of the email, but there was a "Fabulously Feminine" program advertised right below this one. You get a tour of NYC and you get to go....well, shopping. The target age group for the [men's] MBA program is 22-28; for the women's program is 18-25. Ok. So what about those Jewish young women who are in or out of college....majoring in engineering, business or perhaps pre-law? I am sure they would appreciate a professional program for females....and not simply a themed shopping trip.
Let me back up, and say that this is not a criticism of Aish HaTorah, chas v'shalom. But it is a frank examination of the methods of kiruv. I personally know of a few Jews who where not brought up frum and went to secular college. They made a very quick, and pretty seamless jump right into Yiddishkeit during their early to mid-twenties and B"H, and fitting in their respective communities well. But there is the question of those who either have not made that jump so completely, so seamlessly -- or those whose time of becoming frum happens later, during the late 20s or early 30s. This situation is especially problematic for women.
Jewish women who are not religious tend to be pretty passionate....about something; usually it is their career. So how do you even approach such women, with the scenario of the Torah-observant lifestyle? The usual method is to bring the prospective Jew into a frum home, so they can see the positive influence of Torah and how it can enrich the family/Jewish home life. A young professional Jewish man may feel very encouraged by this glimpse at a more stable home environment than the alternate has to offer. But a professional woman may see this as a disregard of her many years of work and dreams of being a working professional.
What was told to me, and it is very true, is that plenty of Orthodox Jewish women are working professionals. However a good number of these professional Orthodox women still married relatively young ("young" by secular standards). The few who are single may humbly admit that they would give up the career for a marriage and family any day. For a woman who was born frum, this is a cultural nuance that they have been familiar with for many years. Also, there tends to be a narrow range of professions among these frum working professional women. Many therapists and psychologists. A doctor or an attorney here or there. Many education professionals. Some computer professionals. However frum women in male dominated careers are not so common. This includes the positions for MBAs, engineers, or skilled labor positions. So what does a young Jewish women who has a Master's in Sports Management feel when faced with the usual paths towards becoming frum? With a potential baalat teshuvah or gioyeres, this may come as a big culture shock; perhaps too big.
I do not have a solution; only a personal wish -- which is simply for kiruv organizations to make more of an effort to work with the true lives of young Jewish adults; women especially -- and not tailor programs on such limited terms. In my case, I am spending tens of thousands of dollars on working on getting my MBA. I think this is worthwhile; I wish that there were Orthodox Jewish organizations who were supportive of this cause (I have yet to find a network of frum Jewish women MBAs). Being a working professional woman in the business world is not in and of itself at odds with Torah observance. My priorities are always first and foremost my Jewish home (oh the jobs I have turned down because I knew I couldn't get off Shabbos & Yontif...B"H, I have a great job in terms of time flexibiity). So please, acknowledge that women like myself are just as welcome within Orthodox Judaism. Without this effort to accomodate, I don't think most secular Jewish women will feel the compulsion to make 'the leap'.
Posts
4 comments:
In general, if I am running a religious outreach program I am not going to be expending a lot of effort on people over the age of thirty. I know that my ideal target is old enough to be out of the house and outside of the control of his parents and young enough to still be single. In essence I want people in their early twenties. Most people who are thirty are already married or have kids. They are not in the market for major lifestyle changes.
Izgad I disagree; American Jews who are not religious tend to marry later and have fewer children (see this link for detailed statistics). Also if you are looking at a woman who pursued a course of study that involved professional post-secondary training, then they are not going to be "on their own" and working until around the ages of 25 to 28.
But bringing these women to frum home is the show of reality of being frum and being frum always orients arount building a family. And yes, many professional women are battling also with the fact that they might want to have children at some point, that is not being addressed in this post. And the real dilemma lies in to have or not to have a family/work. Well unless you get a stay home dad, which is also an option.
Another thing is that if you only concentrate on your career during productive age and when get older, what is your future?
And though women just as good as men, only they are equipped to give birth. And yet our soap opera culture tells them to immerse into career as if they will always be 20 never 50 or 60 and never will need to think about family also. I think it is only healthy to let these women see the pluses and minuses of typical married even frum life and if they don't choose it, then they made their true choice. Although just to take them for teamed shopping only is a degrading thing.
Remember the real jewels are not just the ones who shine on the rope, they also ones that scream and stink a lot need care and diaper change, so they will take care of you, when YOU are old, and only to work for hanging shining jewels is another extreme I would not suggest to any one.
Remember, not only those women, but men too will get to 65 or 85, the only option they will have is to leave all of those riches behind and go to a nursing home to the mercy of residence nurses with no one to visit them, so should it be only then that we tell them about the fact their hard work is down the drain anyways, because she had to sign off her property to nursing home and forgot to work on another set of jewels who just might have paid her visitations or take even better care of her and at such an age they can't even change anything? Or should we introduce it to them early, while the choice is still theirs?
Look, money is important and women without career is medieval to me but it comes to a point of yet other extreme that some of our modern women are suffering from is not thinking about the fact that achievement is not only measured in $ while it is important, money is not everything, it is only due to our soap culture that measures everything that way. And are we here to say that a good mother is below human being, then lets look to people , who were brave enough to give us birth...
I conclusion, I think it is a good idea that these women are reminded of the fact that there is another pursuit should be arranged before retirement, and its a valuable one too.
Jewpublic I hear what you are saying and I agree...
But the equation is not one-sided. I career woman can make up her mind to be a mother, but she cannot force men to build a home with her. The question is, how do you digest into the frum community women who were/are working professionals? These are women who come from the secular world that yes, is broken in how it presents the feminist agenda as more important than the biological need to become a mother. But you can't disparage them for their thinking and choices that they made before they explored the possibility of becoming frum. And that, my friend, is exactly what seems to be going on here.
Just because a woman is a working professional and successful does not mean that she feels her career is the have-all, end-all. More than anything, kiruv groups need to recognize this. Take a group of secular Jewish women who are doctors, and lawyers, and MBAs and real estate gurus, and bring them together with other successful frum women so that they can then see how to reconcile being a working professional and building a bayis neiman b'yisrael. My point of this post is to point out that this is a crucial opportunity that is being missed. And it has the potential to make many young Jewish women keep their distance from Yiddishkeit.
Post a Comment