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Mevater
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 Thu, Jan 14 2010, 8:49 am
How accurate is this?
Study of a closed society
By Miriam Shaviv, January 14, 2010
Chasidic girls in New York dressed up at Purim
By Ayala Fader
Princeton University Press £15.95
When a man passes her in the street, “Gitty”, a Chasidic girl from New York, says she steps aside. A young male Torah scholar should not be distracted by “hearing the sound of her pumps as she goes by”. The streets, she says, “belong to the men”.
How does Chasidic society inculcate such beliefs and behaviour into its young girls? This is the question framing Mitzvah Girls, an ethnographical study by Ayala Fader, who teaches anthropology at Fordham University in New York. Fader, a non-observant Jew, spent 10 years visiting Boro Park, a strictly Orthodox area of New York, focusing on the everyday interactions between mothers and daughters, teachers and their female students. As a result, she provides a compelling and intimate picture of a society largely closed to outsiders, tracing the girls’ upbringing from early childhood until marriage, though she occasionally drifts into dense, academic language.
Chasidic girls are taught from an early age to “fit in”. Mothers practise positive reinforcement, rewarding respectful behaviour. Meanwhile, they systematically ignore questions perceived as challenging to authority.
Teachers emphasise that their students are “daughters of a King” — that is, God — and accordingly must behave modestly. Rebellion against rabbinic or male authority is treated as a rebellion against God. And there is a strong emphasis on the need to avoid being like “the non jews”, commonly portrayed as vulgar and less civilised.
A consistent moral framework is drummed into the girls. Real freedom, they are told, comes through the self-discipline of suppressing one’s own desires in favour of the Torah and the good of one’s family.
The larger theme is the Chasidic struggle with modernity. While every effort is devoted to protecting their daughters from mainstream society, mothers must also equip them to navigate it; it is the women who are expected to support their husbands, pay the bills, and take the children to the doctor.
Fader argues that Chasidim are not, actually, “pre-modern”. Rather, she says, they take what they need from the modern world and put it to a Jewish purpose. Thus, mothers consciously use modern theories of child-rearing — paradoxically, in order to bring up what Fader calls “non-liberal” children. Chasidic women read “self-help” books — which direct them to put their trust in God.
The problem for Chasidic society, however, is that even as they pick and choose elements of modernity that suit them, they still portray the outside world as wholly negative to their followers. When young Chasidim realise that “non jews” and secular culture are not as useless as they have been taught, they are vulnerable to a crisis of faith. The phenomenon of Chasidic drop-outs has become particularly apparent in recent years. The internet is now an amenable host to forums for “lapsed Chasidim”.
This would not have been apparent during Fader’s research in the late 1990s. Still, when she showed her own wedding photographs to a Chasidic woman, the latter said: “‘I thought by those kinds of weddings....’ Then she stopped herself and said: ‘But you’re not like them. They’re so cold, like you see in the movies’. She made a face of disgust, implying that ‘they’ have weddings that are all for show, involving no real familial feelings.”
One can only imagine the shock if it dawned on her that Fader was not a radical exception and that Chasidic society has no monopoly on caring, morality — or, indeed, Yiddishkeit.
Miriam Shaviv is the JC’s foreign editor
http://www.thejc.com/arts/book.....girls
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shalhevet
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Thu, Jan 14 2010, 9:02 am
All these studies have the same problem - they are viewing a frum way of life through the lens of non-Jewish/ non-frum eyes/ values.
Just as examples: we view an unmarried couple holding hands as against halacha, giving into their taiva etc. Non-Jewish values see it as natural, absolutely innocent today and prudish not to do it.
We view halacha as Hashem telling us how to live our lives. They view rules they can't logically understand as stifling, restrictive etc.
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bubby
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Thu, Jan 14 2010, 9:03 am
Isn't this Ms. Fader a "lapsed" Frum Jew? iirc, I read an article about how she goes back to BP to see her very frum family. I may be mixing up 2 different stories, though.
Technically, I suppose some aspects of this article are accurate, but the tone is condescending & insulting. Either way, don't we have enough Hashgafa issues on this site without going into the rights & wrongs of different communities? Live & let live...that applies to everyone, frum & not frum. Just don't force your views onto me, or insult me for mine. I don't see the point of posting this, as it will undoubtedly cause dissent in the ranks. Maybe it belongs in controversial topics, so the anti-Chassidim can have some fun?
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Chloe
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Thu, Jan 14 2010, 9:06 am
| Quote: | | Rebellion against rabbinic or male authority is treated as a rebellion against God. |
Rebellion by anyone, male or female, against their rabbinic authority is considered rebellion. Rebellion against male authority??? Oh please.
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louche
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Thu, Jan 14 2010, 9:20 am
Any study of any group by an outsider not of the group is inherently flawed to an extent. The subjects being studied are self-selecting, in that only some members of the group will be willing to participate in the study. That subgroup may not necessarily reflect the values, thought processes and attitudes of the larger group. Are they a yotze min haklal that is melamed al haklal, or a yotze min haklal hamelamed al atzmo?
In a study of this type I would expect the "yotze min haklal" to in fact be melamed al atzmo and to be the more liberal, less traditional elements within the group rather than the opposite. But maybe not. Maybe the women in the study davka saw themselves as Defenders of the Faith and Party Line. There are biases on both sides of the desk.
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rydys
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Thu, Jan 14 2010, 9:25 am
"The problem for Chasidic society, however, is that even as they pick and choose elements of modernity that suit them, they still portray the outside world as wholly negative to their followers. When young Chasidim realise that “non jews” and secular culture are not as useless as they have been taught, they are vulnerable to a crisis of faith. The phenomenon of Chasidic drop-outs has become particularly apparent in recent years. The internet is now an amenable host to forums for “lapsed Chasidim”."
unfortunately, this part is very true.
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Yocheved84
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Thu, Jan 14 2010, 9:28 am
Thanks for sharing this. I'm going to order a comp copy (through work) and see this for myself.
Such studies are always tough to do--if you're an "insider," you're accused of bias. If you're an outsider, you're accused of not being fully versed in the culture or "getting it."
Bubby: Do you have the article that speaks of her losing frumkeit? It would add a unique dimension to this story.
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Mevater
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Thu, Jan 14 2010, 9:42 am
Whether the study is flawed or not, the following statement is more true than false, in many cases that I'm aware of:
When young Chasidim realise that “non jews” and secular culture are not as useless as they have been taught, they are vulnerable to a crisis of faith.
When the young kids get older and meet good people in secular society, they often feel like they've been lied to and secular society was maligned. (All/most non jews are on drugs... all/most non jews/secular Jews are unfaithful......all/most non jews/Secular Jews have no morals... all/most non jews/secular Jews live unsatisfying lives......all/most non jews/SJ have an ulterior motive when they're nice to you... and the list goes on... all things that our children are told by many of their role models- teachers, principals, parents)
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bubby
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Thu, Jan 14 2010, 9:54 am
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Yocheved84, as I said, I'm not 100% sure she is a lapsed frum girl. I think I read about this person on Vosizneias, but I'm not sure if I'm getting 2 different people mixed up. It's just that the name seems familiar.
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pina colada
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Thu, Jan 14 2010, 10:01 am
| Mevater wrote: | How accurate is this?
When a man passes her in the street, “Gitty”, a Chasidic girl from New York, says she steps aside. A young male Torah scholar should not be distracted by “hearing the sound of her pumps as she goes by”. The streets, she says, “belong to the men”.
TOTALLY FALSE
Chasidic girls are taught from an early age to “fit in”. Mothers practise positive reinforcement, rewarding respectful behaviour. Meanwhile, they systematically ignore questions perceived as challenging to authority.
FALSE AGAIN
Teachers emphasise that their students are “daughters of a King” — that is, God — and accordingly must behave modestly. Rebellion against rabbinic or male authority is treated as a rebellion against God. And there is a strong emphasis on the need to avoid being like “the non jews”, commonly portrayed as vulgar and less civilised.
A consistent moral framework is drummed into the girls. Real freedom, they are told, comes through the self-discipline of suppressing one’s own desires in favour of the Torah and the good of one’s family.
NEVER HEARD OF THIS ONE
The larger theme is the Chasidic struggle with modernity. While every effort is devoted to protecting their daughters from mainstream society, mothers must also equip them to navigate it; it is the women who are expected to support their husbands, pay the bills, and take the children to the doctor.
IN THE CHASIDISH WORLD, IT IS USUALLY THE MEN WHO ARE THE BREADWINNERS. MAJORITY OF CHASIDISH WOMEN DO NOT WORK OUTSIDE THE HOME. (BILL PAYING, EACH COUPLE DECIDES WHO WILL BE IN CHARGE)
Fader argues that Chasidim are not, actually, “pre-modern”. Rather, she says, they take what they need from the modern world and put it to a Jewish purpose. Thus, mothers consciously use modern theories of child-rearing — paradoxically, in order to bring up what Fader calls “non-liberal” children. Chasidic women read “self-help” books — which direct them to put their trust in God.
SELF HELP BOOKS-NOT IN MY SOCIETY
The problem for Chasidic society, however, is that even as they pick and choose elements of modernity that suit them, they still portray the outside world as wholly negative to their followers. When young Chasidim realise that “non jews” and secular culture are not as useless as they have been taught, they are vulnerable to a crisis of faith. The phenomenon of Chasidic drop-outs has become particularly apparent in recent years. The internet is now an amenable host to forums for “lapsed Chasidim”.
This would not have been apparent during Fader’s research in the late 1990s. Still, when she showed her own wedding photographs to a Chasidic woman, the latter said: “‘I thought by those kinds of weddings....’ Then she stopped herself and said: ‘But you’re not like them. They’re so cold, like you see in the movies’. She made a face of disgust, implying that ‘they’ have weddings that are all for show, involving no real familial feelings.”
One can only imagine the shock if it dawned on her that Fader was not a radical exception and that Chasidic society has no monopoly on caring, morality — or, indeed, Yiddishkeit.
Miriam Shaviv is the JC’s foreign editor
http://www.thejc.com/arts/book.....girls |
CAPS IS WHAT I ADDED IN. TOTALLY OFF, BLATANTLY WRONG.
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chocolate moose
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Thu, Jan 14 2010, 10:06 am
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I'm sick of these studies. They make us look freakish.
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Mevater
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Thu, Jan 14 2010, 10:08 am
[quote="pina colada"] | Mevater wrote: | How accurate is this?
When a man passes her in the street, “Gitty”, a Chasidic girl from New York, says she steps aside. A young male Torah scholar should not be distracted by “hearing the sound of her pumps as she goes by”. The streets, she says, “belong to the men”.
TOTALLY FALSE
........................................................
CAPS IS WHAT I ADDED IN. TOTALLY OFF, BLATANTLY WRONG.
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My comment here applies to all of the statements you dont agree with:
Are you Chassidish/Yeshivish? I'm not Chassidish but I have many relatives who are and while it might not be 100% accurate, the article rings more true than false. Outsiders are NOT projected in a favorable light at all.
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pina colada
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Thu, Jan 14 2010, 10:12 am
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I have yet to meet a chasidish woman who feels men own the street.
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amother
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Thu, Jan 14 2010, 10:16 am
The part about the wedding photos PULEASE!
chasidim have a monopoly over feelings, huh? that what they are taught along alef bais and parsha
Get a life!
Not in monroe, new square or any chasidish enclave I am familiar with.
The ones in EY I would guess are pretty much the same.
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Yocheved84
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Thu, Jan 14 2010, 10:19 am
In looking over this thread again, part of me wonders if we should be looking at the quotes within the author's intended context--not in how a reviewer and subsequent editor took them out. I'm not doubting the veracity or journalistic integrity of the review, but perhaps it's better to evaluate the book on its own.
For what it's worth, the publisher's website has a PDF of the first chapter:
http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9064.html (at top of page)
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amother
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Thu, Jan 14 2010, 10:20 am
Common Mevater, you really believed this is accurate?!! I'm a real born & bred BP, chasidish woman, raised in a very diverse family (so I'm open minded enough) & was not raised to believe that the streets belong to men! this article reminds me of the crazy documentary "A Life Apart, Hasidism In America" they make chasidim seem like a cult. I hate it 
| Quote: | | A consistent moral framework is drummed into the girls. Real freedom, they are told, comes through the self-discipline of suppressing one’s own desires in favour of the Torah and the good of one’s family. |
PUHLEEEEZ
| Quote: | | Chasidic women read “self-help” books — which direct them to put their trust in God. |
Chasidim???!!! Self Help Books? Who fed her with this senseless info?
I think this article pokes fun at YIddishkeit not only at chasidim. & orthodox or "regular" jewish weddings are warm? The choson kallah emrace? kiss in public?! At least by the chasidim the couples dances holding hands! I call that warm! (Yeah, I know it has a Higher meaning but warm nontheless)
If you need a good documentary please spend 10 years in normal happy funloving chasidisha homes like the one I grew up in. I don't feel supressed, segregated or humiliated in no way B"H. Todays Chasidim run very close in line with the Litvaks so make sure you get your facts clear.
Chasidus is about serving hashem besimcha, spending time with the Rebbe, farbrenging, tishin. Chasius was born because of the way Jews in the days of Sabsei Tzvi felt. The Bal Shem Tov saw that yiddin needed to infuse more simcha & togetherness...That's chassidim!  L'chaim!
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amother
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Thu, Jan 14 2010, 10:25 am
LOL  I meant the couple/choson kallah, dance holding hands (by mitzvah tantz)
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freidasima
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Thu, Jan 14 2010, 10:29 am
I think that this book was discussed here before, I remember one of the posters saying that she was mistakenly quoted as belonging to Bobov when she doesn't.
In any case, from what I read about the author she actually works on language and that's how she did her study, her anthropological conclusions are secondary. And in any case, as far as I know she was always secular and never a lapsed frum woman, there have been articles published about her elsewhere that I read.
So here's the connundrum, as one of the posters wrote, if you come from the group you are biased, if you don't you don't know from anything. If you were once part of the group, let's say a girl from a formerly chassidic background, you have an "axe to grind". If you don't, you can be automatically labeled as being biased "against the group and what it stands for".
What I was once told by a friend who teaches sociology, is that the only way to truly study a group is to know their codes. And that is a problem. Now who would know the codes of the Chassidic world that she studied but isn't part of the group? Not just to "know the words" but to really get what they mean? In my eyes, and I'm not a sociologist (psychologists don't count here!) only someone who is frum, and not chassidic, but with a lot of understanding of the codes of the chassidic world. How can someone who isn't frum really get it? She can probably describe the issues, I remember learning texts like that in sociology classes, about tribes from here and there, Clifford Geertz is probably the best of the lot that I remember, but how can she really understand their deeper significance? It sounds superficial at best.
As for what she writes here, I've heard from more than one person the business about not wearing heels outside so that men aren't aware of your "tapping" so that's not made up. Chassidim may work abroad but here in EY they are just the Litvish, they learn, learn, learn. The rest I wouldn't know...
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amother
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Thu, Jan 14 2010, 10:39 am
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frieda sima, what do you mean by the last comment learn, they learn...
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cookiemilk
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Thu, Jan 14 2010, 10:44 am
I think the lure of investigating closed societies brings these so called acedemics to our towns and city, However I detect a tone of sarcasm and subjectivity in many of the studies.
I do not, on the other hand detect this disrespect and subjective tone in studies about Mongolian society for example where children are breastfed until they are six and family members take turns breastfeeding one baby, even friends do if the need arises. When I read about breastfeeding older children in magazines such as Mothering I detect respect and awe for practices of other cultures.
Likewise when I read about African family customs in the Saharah I am told by my professors that ancient custom is many times superiior to Western scientific thought. Yest when they write about Orthodox Jewish communities they find very little to admire.
Even though we have an extremely low crime rate and respect for human life as well as the elderly, that American society is increasingly isolated from. We have successfully managed to raise a majority of our offspring with a strong traditional value system and with morals and values that are increasingly rare in young society today, and they know it. Every time I pick up a parenting magazine they talk about how children need values to be successful, and that religion has its virtues since children raised to respect a Higher Power live healthier and more satisfied lives, and yet...
For my Child Development course at college I wrote an essay about the advantages of seperate schools for boys and girls. I also wrote about how relieving young girls of the pressures of boys and dating at a young age helps them to develop their true personalities and makes them more outspoken, secure adults. My professor loved my paper.
I think you can view any society through rose tinted or black tinged glasses. You can go anywhere to find dissatisfaction and confusion. The very same African baby wearing mothers are usually wearing their babies all day and night because the nutrition is poor and the babies cry out from hunger, so wearing them all day can help comfort them. Once you read it in context and go into the field to see the level of deprivation yourself, you realize that maybe baby wearing is less romantic and more desperate than white academics like to protray it.
We, as a religious value driven, society, are doing many things right with our children. They are mostly loved, protected nurtured and cared for. We have a right to preempt mtv and overrule the values on tv and in popular cuture with those we find superior. We have this right because we are the parents of these children and are responsible for their entry into adulthood.
There is more than one good way to raise the young in a society. Liberals are far from cornering the market on successful family life, read the memiors full of pain, divorce and drifting aimless angst.
In conclusion I will say, Native Americans are not all poverty stricken, alcoholic, child abusers; that is how the media loves to protray those living on reservations. Chasidim on the other hand are not all closed minded, cookie cutter versions of themselves. We should not pat ourselves on the back yet, but we are definately not off course at all.
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