"Any discussion about the study material is explosive, including the core
subjects. Other seminaries teach "secular" subjects, but there the
girls are not allowed to matriculate. For many years this ban was
enforced due to the steadfast view taken by the leader of Lithuanian
Jewry, Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, against higher education. The great
separatist maintained that matriculation would break down the barrier to
the university - which is why the number of Haredi girls' schools
offering matriculation studies can be counted on one hand."
For haredi girls, a chance to graduate high school, previously taken away, is now slowly returning. Tamar Rotem reports in Ha'aretz:
…[Darkei Sarah] is in its third year, but only this year will it really begin to grapple with the target it set itself, when 11th-graders take their first matriculation exams.…
The compulsory curriculum includes six weekly hours of science and six hours of computer sciences, as well as matriculation studies in subjects such as Bible and literature. One student says she didn't expect the studies to be of such a sophisticated level: "I went through some crises," she admits, "because in my previous Beit Yaakov the level was much lower." She adds that after a year of hard work she feels she has reached the level of her class.
"These girls will one day support their families [while their husbands study Torah and Talmud],” [Darkei Sarah’s principal Sima] Valess says, in a way that could not possibly suggest that they will follow independent careers. It is apparently important to her to emphasize how much the school's line is Haredi, lest anyone suspect that they are teaching values unsuitable for a Beit Yaakov.
However, Darkei Sarah is revolutionary if only for its attempt to teach the regular national religious school syllabus and not the Haredi version. For example, in literature they study the writings of S. Y. Agnon, Haim Sabato and songs by the Hebrew songstress Zelda, whom other Haredi children have not heard of - not to mention international literature, such as Ernest Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea."
"The potential for friction between the religious outlook and the study material is great and constantly challenges us," admits the principal. For example, she cites the decision not to include certain books that use language deemed "inappropriate for our girls' ears."
The civics curriculum is also approved by Valess. "We emphasize the duty to obey Jewish law, before any discussion about democracy or the law," she says.
Any discussion about the study material is explosive, including the core subjects. Other seminaries teach "secular" subjects, but there the girls are not allowed to matriculate. For many years this ban was enforced due to the steadfast view taken by the leader of Lithuanian Jewry, Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, against higher education. The great separatist maintained that matriculation would break down the barrier to the university - which is why the number of Haredi girls' schools offering matriculation studies can be counted on one hand. They are mainly in the Haredi periphery (Haifa, Rehovot, Petah Tikva), far from centralized Haredi supervision.…