From a letter of Maran HaRav Shteinman, which was signed by all gedolei Yisroel: "Girls and women should not go to study in institutions which are not according to the spirit of chachomim, in which academic studies are taught or preparation for these studies.
"Especially when the teachers there are not qualified to teach bnos Yisroel and neshos Yisroel, including people who are not shomrei mitzvos."
The Admorim of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah wrote: "They should not enter within the chareidi education system and studies for bagrut or academic degrees... Bnos Yisroel should not study in universities, colleges, institutes or any educational framework in which they study for bagrut or academic degrees."
The opinion of Maranan Gedolei Hador shlita about academic study is clear: They warn against study in colleges, and see these studies, as expressed by HaRav Chaim Kanievsky, "Total destruction of the entire investment made in girls' education over many years."
There is a deliberate effort to entice chareidim to get an academic education, with clear and definite goals. The purpose is to subtly but significantly change the chareidi community. They want to temper the current chareidi aspirations and make them more like secular Israelis. No more aspirations of a Torah home, with intense yiras Shomayim and tznius. These are their explicit targets.
Basic Concepts
First, we must understand the structure of the academic studies setup in Israel:
The ultimate authority supervising the subject of academic studies in Israel is the MaLaG, or the Council of Higher Education. This body is responsible for studies in all universities and colleges, adjoined by a subsidiary body called VaTaT, or the Committee for Planning and Allocation. This body deals with funding for higher education, a budget which encompasses a sum of some six billion shekels a year.
Every five years the Malag outlines an agenda for the upcoming five years called, `The Five Year Plan.' Beginning in the year 2000, these programs have incorporated plans for introducing chareidim into the world of academia. This year saw the end of the previous Five Year Plan and the commencement of the new one. This text of the plan includes the following question:
Who is interested in having chareidim join the sphere of academia?
It turns out that introducing chareidim into this field of education is not a natural process but a complex program divided into various goals and funded as required.
"In 2010 the Malag's Committee for Planning and Funding, in conjunction with the Treasury Ministry, formulated a promotional plan... to increase the accessibility of higher education to minority sectors and chareidim..." (From, "Clarifications regarding the Malag agenda to integrate the chareidi population into advanced studies")
"This represents an unusual decision whose primary goal is to change the present situation... This change is of top national priority. It must be remembered that graduates of chareidi secondary educational institutions have not been exposed to students from different streams of the population, cultural differences and different lifestyles."
(This was from Malag's statement in the Knesset meeting from the 21st of Shevat, 5774.)
Several lines later they explain that their objective is not only to provide an academic degree for any given profession but: "This is the necessary approach to encourage the assimilation of the chareidi public into the general society."
In a discussion between the members of the Committee for Planning and Budgeting under the auspices of the Council for Higher Education in 5773, its chairman, Professor Manuel Trachtenberg, said the following: "...this is a difficult process involving two worlds (the secular academic society and the chareidi sector) which would not have met otherwise, but I believe that we are on the right track."
A government document suggests being patient until the goal of assimilation is achieved: "The emergence [of the chareidi public] from its totally sheltered seclusion to the light of brilliant sunlight... should take place gradually. It is difficult to eradicate decades of isolation and separatism... We find ourselves at the beginning of a process requiring patience and which is directed at creating concrete changes in the chareidi society, an unprecedented process of historic scope." (From "The Law of Equalizing the Burden" in an official government reply to the High Court)
So we see that the seemingly innocent enrollment of any Bais Yaakov graduate in college studies is part of that "unprecedented historical step," geared to exposing her to "the brilliant sunlight," and its impact constitutes a danger that is equally "an unprecedented historical scale," precisely in the words of the law. It is the Malag's hope that "concrete changes will take place."
In its introduction to its program, the Malag explains that various difficulties have caused it "to seek other ways to integrate the chareidi sector into the golden triangle of army - higher education - the Israeli work place." The colleges are merely one side of this `golden triangle'.
Malag says that it uses various tools to achieve its goals. These include generous financial incentives, setting up special institutions that are run according to the rules of chareidi society and recruiting from within the community.
"The wrapper in which the studies take place is chareidi... those whose responsibility it is to recruit students and to ensure that the institutions are run according to chareidi expectations are from the community. This guarantees that the institutions do not generate protests. (Professor Nechemia Lev Zion of the Florsheim Institute)
It is stressed repeatedly that these chareidi study frameworks will not have academic independence, but will be under the control of one of the universities and of Malag.
The Malag's Agenda for the upcoming Five Year Plan
The hope reflected throughout the lines of the Malag document places a heavy responsibility on each of us. This is what it states:
"It is to be remembered that the higher the number of chareidim incorporated into academia, the better prospect there is of more traditional religious right wing groups joining this trend."
Therefore, even studies in so-called kosher places serve this purpose perfectly. This is not a "natural process" and not "adjusting to reality." This is the implementation of a deliberate social agenda. We are the prime players in it. Someone is resolutely determined that we regard this as a great favor and opportunity, a survival gesture, as if our livelihoods are dependent upon them.
The starting point of those who determine the Malag's policy is that "the need for separate structures (for men and women) lessens as the chareidi student advances in his studies." (A quote from a policy memo of the five year plan, 5777-5781)
From their experience, even if at the beginning of the road there is a demand for separation, by the end of the process, things have changed. In other words: academic studies are an educational melting pot that changes one's life-view.
Malag documents speak for themselves: "During these years, the chareidi student is exposed to worlds connected to the profession he is studying and to lecturers from a different background. Therefore by the end of his course, he is more ripe for contact with the outside world."
Thus, in the new Malag's program for the upcoming years, from 5777 - 5781, they already require the chareidi students to acquire a second academic degree that will be earned within a secular university.
Perhaps chareidim will not go for a second academic degree? Malag has a simple solution for this: "In an effort to encourage continued studies... we recommend a program of targeted scholarships for such specified advanced degrees."
The scholarships will do the work for them.
Malag sees tznius and separate classes as a "problem" that has to be solved. In the recommendations for the current five year program: "No directives will be issued as to standards of dress or other issues of tznius... enforcement will be increased... (to ensure that tznius is not imposed on anyone)"
The goal is clear: it is opposite and hostile to any spirit of kedushoh, and aims to undermine all the educational efforts of girls' education.
The point of these quotations is to expose what lies behind the effort to reach out to chareidim with academic institutions. Despite the fact that there are currently some institutions which meet all the criteria for chareidi education, the baal habayit is watching and he knows what he is working towards.
Further articles on this subject are planned.
