Yeshiva Fundamentalism: Piety, Gender, and Resistance in the Ultra-Orthodox World

Abstract

Ultra-Orthodox (or haredi) Judaism is a closed society and its leaders and institutions have developed effective defenses against the prying of journalists, social scientists, and even the police (at least in Israel). This makes Nurit Stadler's study unique, for she has managed to persuade young Torah students to recount their stories, and through them she has penetrated a world of doubts and anxieties. The book's thesis is that ultra-Orthodoxy in Israel contains serious inner tensions, and that these tensions are expressed in disparate pressures for change, especially from the young generation. The symptoms of change are revealed in the unhappiness expressed by the young students—usually in their late teens and early twenties—who talked to her. They resent the prohibition on serving in the army because they want to contribute to Israeli society. One can also detect a predictable frustration in the face of the extreme longevity of the leadership of the yeshiva world, which blocks the young from taking initiative.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 73 citations exist upstream.