The View from the Ladies’ Gallery: Women’s ‘Official’ Life in the Community

This chapter documents and analyses women's activity in and experience of formal public worship in the synagogue. The synagogue is central to the performance of male religious obligations, but much less so to the performance of women's religious duties. Many observant women rarely attend synagogue, even if their fathers, husbands, brothers, and sons go every week. Women have mixed feelings about synagogue attendance. Some find it essential to their experience of the sabbath, and some are resigned to their synagogue experience. Women traditionally play no or very little role in life-cycle celebrations. At some synagogues, women's participation is actively discouraged. Women held formal titles in the synagogues of ancient Rome, but there are no further instances of this until the twentieth century. Most Orthodox women emerge from the Jewish educational systems with little competence in reading Hebrew or in studying classical texts. Women find it hard to place acquired knowledge in a wider context, and tend to describe themselves as 'not very learned', ignoring their often immense expertise in areas of domestic knowledge, such as the running of a Jewish household. Women's lack of confidence, text-based knowledge, and training has prevented them from becoming Jewish educators. This survey of women's activity and experience in the 'official' communal sphere clearly illustrates the different attitudes and strategies of the three groups identifiable in the London Jewish community: Haredi, Modern Orthodox, and traditionalist.

Roots of Educational Segregation

Chapter 2 traces the causes of educational segregation between Arabs and Jews, and it elucidates its sustainability through the weakness or failure of those prominent educators who sought another outcome. First, it surveys British inability or reluctance in addressing the question of educational segregation. It then underlines the important albeit marginal role of missionary education and existent institutions of mixed education. Then it critically examines Zionist voices that envisioned Hebrew education as a mechanism of Arab–Jewish rapprochement, followed by a discussion on Jewish educators who crossed the boundaries of educational segregation and the price they paid for it. The chapter ends with an analysis of Arab educators’ views on educational segregation.

Towards the Future: Religious, Educational, and Cultural Reconstruction

This chapter assesses how the Jews of France, Belgium, and the Netherlands dealt with the unprecedented religious, educational, and cultural needs of their diverse constituents. The sharp increase in the number of alienated and unaffiliated Jews was a source of deep concern to rabbis and religious educators. In response, Orthodox institutions initiated liturgical changes that they hoped would make religious services more attractive. Liberal Judaism also made new inroads. Many young Jews had lived through the war years without any access to Jewish learning or Jewish communal life. In addressing the needs of this ‘lost’ generation, local Jewish educators not only had to develop innovative pedagogical techniques, such as informal classes, public lectures and discussion groups, and the use of radio, television, and film but also had to find ways of reintegrating young people into Jewish and general society. Thanks to funds received from the Claims Conference in the early 1950s and with the assistance of teachers and curricula supplied by American and Israeli agencies, Jewish pedagogues, rabbis, and administrators in western Europe not only formulated creative strategies to educate children, but also set about training new administrators, spiritual leaders, and schoolteachers.