Filling the gap

Haredi Hebrew U. student Yoni Etzioni explains why he has chosen to become a dentist, even in the face of his rabbi’s ambivalence

By PEGGY CIDOR
Yoni Etzioni521 (photo credit: courtesy)
Yoni Etzioni521
(photo credit: courtesy)
Born in Bnei Brak, Yoni Etzioni was slated to become a typical student at a Lithuanian yeshiva in Israel. Although he attended a junior high school yeshiva where he could also study the regular curriculum of English and math and take the matriculation exams, nothing indicated that he would ultimately veer from the expected course of his life. Today Etzioni is still haredi, but his lifestyle does not at all reflect the strict religious milieu in which he was born and raised.
Etzioni, 30, is married and has a young daughter. His resume includes six years of intensive Talmudic studies at two of the most prestigious Lithuanian yeshivas – Hebron and Mir. But today he is a dentist and is studying for his master’s degree in neurobiology at the Hebrew University and the Hadassah University Medical Center. In a way, Etzioni represents many young haredim who remain faithful to the ultra-Orthodox way of life but choose to leave the yeshiva or to reduce the time they spend there in order to get an academic education or vocational training and join the workforce. For Etzioni and many others like him, the Kemah Foundation is the key to making that happen.
Established by the Joint Distribution Committee and the Economy and Trade Ministry, Kemah is dedicated to ensuring that haredi students have every opportunity to acquire the training and qualifications necessary to enter the workforce and earn a viable living. The foundation also encourages the government and employers to provide the necessary support, be it financial, or encouraging the appropriate changes in the workplace to accommodate haredi employees.
“My parents enrolled me in a high school where we took the matriculation exams,” says Etzioni, in-between classes at the Hadassah Dental Medicine School. “Until recently, I was sure that my life would always be connected to studying Torah at the yeshiva. The change in my life was made possible because I had the key to entering the academic world. But I knew right from the start that I wouldn’t take that step just for the sake of having a career or earning a lot of money. What I needed was an intellectual objective,” he says.
Etzioni stresses that despite the heavy workload required for his studies at the university, he makes sure to allow himself enough time to study Torah whenever he can, mostly on Shabbat. But, he admits, “This is far from the depth and the resources required by steady hours of studying every day the way I did at the yeshiva. In fact, I try not to end even a weekday without devoting at least a short time to studying Torah. I feel that I really need it.”
Responding candidly when asked what took him from the safe and secure environment of the yeshiva to a life where he has to earn a living, Etzioni explains that it created a kind of equilibrium for him to divide his life between Torah and academic studies and research. For him, the real turning point was his decision to pursue a master’s degree in neurobiology, which will enable him to dedicate himself to research and not just get a job as a dentist, important as that may be.
Etzioni is not a rebel is his community. Before he made the decision to leave the yeshiva and turn to academic life, he consulted the rabbis at his yeshiva in addition to seeking and receiving his parents’ blessing. For the rabbis, things were more nuanced. Etzioni says that he was determined to move on, but he still attached importance to the rabbis’ position regarding his choice. He says he didn’t encounter any serious objections, but he was asked what his real motive was.
“I felt that my choosing the medical field was an advantage.
I could sense that choosing something as significant as one of the medical disciplines was well accepted there,” he explains.
As for the kind of reception he gets at the university, Etzioni says that in the first couple of years, he could feel the kind of looks he was getting.
“I was a kind of stranger in the eyes of the non-haredi students, who are the quasi-majority, especially during the years of clinical studies. But after a while, they got accustomed to me, and I got used to them as well,” he says. “On the other hand, when haredi patients come to the clinic, I see how relieved they are to see someone like me here. If, for example, male patients do not want to be treated by a female, I explain the rules, but at least I can do it with a lot of empathy. I understand them, and I guess I help both sides overcome many stereotypes.”
Etzioni and his wife and daughter live in one of the university’s dormitories for married couples.
“It is a mixed population of students – Jews and Arabs and religious and secular,” he says. He adds that the place has enabled him and his wife to open their home to guests on Shabbat “to help religious students who stay here on Shabbat,” he says.
“But the truth is that most of our social connections and environment are secular,” he admits. “When I visit my old yeshiva from time to time, I know that I look at it and the students as an outsider. I realize now that you can’t combine the two worlds equally. If you want to live 100 percent Torah, yeshiva is the place.”
Etzioni concludes by saying that in his eyes, the financial aspect is important. “Up until recently, I could manage on my wife’s salary; but now, since we made the decision that I would go for a master’s degree and do research, I would not have been able to do it without the support of the Kemah Foundation.” •