Religious Children

B"H

I usually do not argue too much with my haredi friends but in case we do, it is about religious children. What really bothers me is that many haredi kids grow up outside Israeli society. They just live in their own religious neighbourhoods and hardly see any other people. Up to a certain age, they don't know anything about Israeli society. But who is getting the impression that it only concerns haredi kids might be mistaken. Also national religious children face the same problem.

Every week, I teach a small group of national religious children who go to the NOAM school. NOAM is a well – known national religious school with many branches all over the country. In order to get accepted at NOAM, the child has to be from a religious home. If the parents were born religious or became religious later in their lives, is irrelevant.
It goes without saying that the children have to dress modestly. Girls wear long skirts and shirts with long sleeves. Boys wear a kipa and long trousers, no shorts.
Girls and boys study in separate buildings due to modesty reasons. However, the main reason is that they study different subjects. Besides math, English, physics etc., boys study Talmud whereas the girls don't. The girls concentrate on Halachot (Jewish Law) and Torah.
In general, NOAM has a very good reputation but is rather expensive. After finishing NOAM, students are able to go to any university. Unfortunately, not many students do this, as they get married at a young age, and men are joining Yeshivot.

In haredi society, either chassidic or litvish, education is very different. There are exceptions but usually boys study at Talmud Torah and girls at Beit Yaakov. A Talmud Torah student should wear long black trousers and a white shirt. Beit Yaakov has its own school uniform: dark blue skirts and light blue blouses. Additionally, girls are not allowed wearing their long hair openly or wearing sneakers. I know a Chassidic girl whose teacher sent her home because she wore sneakers.
The classes are being taught in Hebrew whereas Yiddish is used in many chassidic community schools such as Satmar or Toldot Aharon. Already at a very young age, boys know whole passages from the Talmud by heart. I must admit that I really envy them.
Girls, of course, learn different things such as Halachot, how to run a household and Torah. They finish school at noon, much earlier than the boys. Haredi families have many children and it is customary that the elder children watch the younger ones. When the girl is coming home from Beit Yaakov she has to help her mother taking care of the household.

The issue I mostly criticize is that neither national religious not haredi kids have too much contact with other children at their age. It is very unlikely that national religious kids have haredi friends or vice versa. Or that religious kids have non – religious friends. Everybody just sticks to his own society.
Many chassidic such as Satmar only start learning the Hebrew language at the age of 14 or 15. Until then, they only know Yiddish in order to protect them from negative influences. I do understand their point, as non – religious could influence them let alone Christian missionaries who are not ashamed of trying to influence little children. However, it is sad that certain children or teenager cannot communicate due to the lack of the language, as the average Israeli does not know Yiddish at all.

I can also understand that religious parents do not want their kids having friendships with the non – religious. This would be rather hard, as one might talk about Shabbat and the other about eating cheeseburgers. What could be done is that religious schools can teach their students about the non – religious. Now this is mostly being done in a negative way like most non – religious are drug addicts etc.
Once I met someone who left the Chassidut Gur and he thought that the only way he can be accepted by Israeli society is by taking drugs. He told me that his teachers had told him so.

Some chassidim I talked to do agree with me but do not want to change the school system. Everybody wants to see his religious kids playing with other religious ones. And in haredi society no one would take the risk of rebelling against society, as each of them wants a good Shidduch for his child. Who ever wants to be accepted by the religious society does not make changes.