ABSTRACT
Ultra-Orthodox Jews, termed Haredim in Hebrew, are fundamentalist Jews committed to particularly strict interpretation of Jewish religious law. Concentrated in large cities in the United States and Europe, they comprise a small but unknown percentage of the Jewish people worldwide. The first step in the process was the establishment of a number of colleges for Haredi women, which avoid challenging the values of the Haredi community. A prime example is the Haredi College for Women in Jerusalem. The psychological contents of social work education were viewed as alien to Haredi concepts of human behaviour. All in all, the findings tell the story of a relatively small vanguard of women who went on to pursue an academic education, which until very recently no Haredi woman and very few Haredi men in Israel had done. A related concern that the interviewees reported was that higher education for girls stood in opposition to the value that Haredi society places on family.
