Only Female Haredi Professor In Israel Appointed Dean Of School At Zionist Orthodox University

Does this appointment, announced yesterday, signify progress in the haredi community, a new appreciation among its ranks for higher education and science? Absolutely not. Here's why.

Malka Schaps

Only Female Haredi Professor In Israel Appointed Dean Of School At Zionist Orthodox University
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com   

She is allegedly the one and only haredi female in Israel who is a full professor, Ha’aretz reported, and she has now been appointed as the dean of Bar Ilan University's Faculty of Exact Sciences – the first haredi women in Israel to ever be appointed a dean at a mainstream Israel university.

Does this appointment, announced yesterday, signify progress in the haredi community, a new appreciation among its ranks for higher education and science?

Absolutely not.

Why?

Because of who Professor Malka Schaps is and how she lives.

A mathematician, Schaps is also an author whose books are published by an Orthodox publishing house and marketed to a largely female haredi US-based demographic. But Schaps – who lives in Bnei Brak with her husband David Schaps, a professor of classical studies at Bar Ilan, and their children – writes those books under a false name, Rachel Pomerantz – arguably because, in part, the modesty squads and haredi enforcers who operate in Bnei Brak would not appreciate them. (Haredi communities in Israel are often much more strict and limiting about what American haredim consider “kosher” entertainment.)

Schaps maiden name was Mary Elizabeth Cramer, and she converted to Judaism before marrying her husband in 1986 – the year the two graduate students immigrated to Israel.

In other words, Schaps got her education as a non-Jew and her husband got his as a non-Orthodox Jew – the haredi school system and the haredi community played no role in the education, training or career choices of either of them.

Comments

[Jeff]

Incredible. All that education, and this is the life they've chosen - and I'm sure they're held up as "proof" that a superior intellect will always choose the Toyreh way of life.

I wonder - are they educating their children? If not, how can they justify it while making their living as academics? If so, how do they come to terms with the fact that they're living in a subculture in which their children's chances for making shiddachim are virtually nil?

How do they even find anyone to talk to in that world?

[Jeff]

Oh my God, she got her doctorate at Harvard. Just shoot me.

Someone spent a fortune on her education, and she took up a slot that could have gone to someone who doesn't want to live in the Middle Ages. What a f*cking waste.

[rebitzman - $101 to read my posts]

Now that you've outed her and her pen name, I wonder how long it will be before some random rabbi nullifies her conversion........

[David]

Which Charedi sub-cult does she belong to?

[dh]

None of which is any excuse for her failing to brush her teeth.

[Yochanan Lavie]

I agree with Shmarya's analysis. Nevertheless it's a nice achievement.

[Lawrence M. Reisman]

There will always be exceptions to the rule, and the exceptions are growing in number. My youngest daughter is a product of the haredi school system (Bais Yaakov of Brooklyn elementary, Masores Bais Yaakov high school) and is finishing an honors program major in physics at Brooklyn College. She intends to go for a PhD in astrophysics. She spent the past summer at the Goddard Space Center doing research on x-ray bursts from a neutron star. And she's not alone. Her best friend is a pre-med from Monsey who went through the haredi school system there, and another was a married woman in a bedekte sheitl who majored in chemistry and was accepted to the PhD program at Rockefeller University. The examples are rare; the system does not encourage it (although to be fair, they did not spend a lot of time or effort discouraging my daughter, either). But they do exist, and they will increase, even if at a glacial pace.

[Lawrence M. Reisman]

To Rebbitzman and David: David & Malka Schaps were very close to the late Bostoner Rebbe of Boston, whom I believe was involved in her conversion. She is, by the way, a descendant of Dolley Madison, wife of our 4th president, from her first marriage.

[Jeff]

>>The examples are rare; the system does not encourage it (although to be fair, they did not spend a lot of time or effort discouraging my daughter, either). But they do exist, and they will increase, even if at a glacial pace.

Posted by: Lawrence M. Reisman | October 03, 2013 at 09:30 AM

1. How is it even possible to go from a Bais Yaakov to a graduate program in astrophysics? I can't imagine they give the girls even the basic prerequisites.

2. How do you deal with your community's overall disdain of secular education (and what I imagine to be the criticism of you for educating her)?

3. If you people are intelligent enough to value education and to be able to produce a doctoral candidate in physics, why do you remain in the Haredi world? Why not be Modern Orthodox? Why remain in a world in which education is being accepted "at a glacial pace"?

[Lawrence M. Reisman]

Jeff:

1. She had three years of high school science and three years of high school math. Given her general intelligence, it was enough to prepare her for calculus, college chemistry, and college physics (the introductory BS physics course at Brooklyn college requires one semester of calculus first.) And by the way, most Bais Yaaov high schools offer the basic prerequisites; it's just that most girls aren't that interested.

2. We generally ignore whatever disdain exists (it's not as strong as you think, outside of certain hasidic groups). And by the way, we have never been criticized to our face by anyone, nor are we aware of very much behind our backs. One of my daughter's teachers did ask her, "Do you think there's a place for a frum girl in physics?" We all got a good laugh out of it.

3. Why the Charedi world? Because for all its faults, we like it better. When I find a significant number of modern orthodox who are not only passionate about their Judaism (which very few are) but can appreciate a late Beethoven string quartet, a Jean Renoir film, or have a normal, informed discussion about history, I might think there's some place for me there. Until then, I prefer a quasi-double life with the Chareidim.

[rebitzman - $101 to read my posts]

@Lawrence

My point was and is intent ended to be a slap at the recent practice of Haredi leaders in Israel of nullifying conversions (regardless of who performed them) simply because they don't like the lifestyle of the individual.......and in the face of normative hallachah which holds that conversion cannot for any reason be reversed.

Dr Schaps.......I greatly respect

[Lawrence M. Reisman]

Rebbitzman:

I agree with you about the practice of nullifying conversions. However, it was started by arch-Zionist and Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren in the early 1970s. Putting all that aside, on a political basis, it would be very difficult to nullify a conversion in which the Bostoner Rebbe, a member of the Israeli Moeszes, was involved.

[Jeff]

"When I find a significant number of modern orthodox who are not only passionate about their Judaism (which very few are) but can appreciate a late Beethoven string quartet, a Jean Renoir film, or have a normal, informed discussion about history"

Well, I can't speak to the former (although I feel I've seen it among the left wingers), but regarding the latter, there have to be plenty of Modern Orthodox who meet your requirements. Most top tier universities (including the Ivy's) now have sizable MO contingents, and I know people who'd fit the bill here in Boston - and Boston is not a very Jewish town. There must be scads in cities like New York or Los Angeles.

If you want your daughter to marry a Haredi boy, how will you arrange a shiddach? Surely her education will be seen as an impediment (not to mention a sign of questionable yichus, although being non-Hasidic, I guess they wouldn't use that term)?

"Until then, I prefer a quasi-double life with the Chareidim."

I can't begin to understand this. It makes my head hurt. I can't even understand how educated people with a taste for the arts would find Haredi-style Orthodoxy a tenable belief system (I have enough trouble not regarding the Modern Orthodox I know as anachronistic and regressive).

[Lawrence M. Reisman]

Jeff:

As you say, you can't begin to understand. Then don't try; just accept that's how it is. As for my daughter's getting married, so far, she has shown no interest. When her time comes, she'll decide who and what she wants in a husband, and we'd be damn fools not listen to her. We listened to our other four daughters when they told us what they were looking for in a husband.