The silent revolution

A father opens a haredi yeshiva high school in Jerusalem that also teaches English, math, music and sports

By PEGGY CIDOR
Bezalel Cohen (photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
Bezalel Cohen
(photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
Bezalel Cohen, a soft-spoken young haredi man, is the force behind a revolution evolving within ultra- Orthodox society. His present project, the Hachmei Halev yeshiva high school for Jerusalem haredim, will be the first haredi junior high school framework in Jerusalem to include general studies alongside the traditional Talmudic studies.
At the recent two-day retreat of the Matanel Foundation, of which he is a grantee this year, Cohen explains that he was motivated by the need to provide better opportunities for his son. As such, he is constructing the foundation for a significant change in the educational solutions available to the capital’s young haredim.
For the moment, his initiative has not been openly criticized by the haredi leadership, but it is far from being warmly welcomed, and it is yet to be seen whether this bold step will have staying power. The first challenge, of course, is whether haredi families will send their sons to the new institution.
Cohen – who has been involved in some important steps that part of haredi society has been taking to reform itself in the areas of employment and higher education – is not aware of the irony that his project is taking place in a location that, not so long ago, was at the center of haredi-secular tension in the city.
During the first half of 2008, friction emerged between secular and haredi residents in several locations, notably in the Kiryat Hayovel neighborhood.
One struggle was over a plot of land adjacent to the yard of the Mae Boyar High School. The plot was, in fact, closer to the neighborhood of Bayit Vagan, which was becoming predominantly haredi, and in the larger fight between the secular and haredi groups over the hegemony of the local council, haredi council leaders attempted to grab the plot for the establishment of a haredi school. Mayor Nir Barkat, then the opposition leader on the city council and a candidate in the November 2008 elections, led part of the protest against this project – and one of his first steps on being elected was to freeze the plan to split the plot between the Boyar School and the haredi project.
Almost five years have passed since then, and today, the local council has been split in two – a non-haredi council for Kiryat Hayovel, and a haredi one for Bayit Vagan. As for the plot, it has been handed over to Cohen’s institution. This time, the haredi project is a welcome one among certain people in official education circles – including those from the municipality’s education administration and from the Education Ministry, who are in favor of Hachmei Halev’s inclusion of subjects such as math and English in its official curriculum.
After studying for about a decade in two of the most prestigious yeshivot in the haredi world, Ponevezh and Mir, Cohen left the yeshiva world – but not because he wanted to leave haredi society as a whole. On the contrary, he left the yeshiva benches, where everyone had predicted he would have a prestigious future, because he wanted to save haredi life from what he defines as “an eternal loop of degenerating poverty” – something he was convinced he wouldn’t be able to do without changing his daily life in a sweeping way.
A few years ago, the 38-year-old father of six, who was born and raised in the Lithuanian haredi stream, started to investigate ways to improve that society. He was invited to work on a project at Malben/JDC, where he led programs to bring haredi men into the employment market. After a while, he received an invitation to study at the Mandel School for Educational Leadership.
However, his first real opportunity to use the tools he had gained and to implement a substantial change came when haredi issues touched him on an even more personal level.
As a married yeshiva student Cohen was condemned to face the poverty that often accompanies being a fulltime student with a large family. To him, there seemed to be no escape from this way of life. On top of that, he recognized the growing frustration of some of the younger students, who didn’t fit into the rigid atmosphere of those exclusively studying Talmud day-in and day-out.
“These youngsters eventually left the yeshiva [world], or at least stopped studying seriously. From there [they went on] to a severe crisis, including quitting the haredi way of life and society – with all the implications in terms of dropping out, even delinquency,” he explains.
CONSIDERED AN expert on the current needs of haredim, Cohen predicts that if haredi society doesn’t find a way to reduce its poverty, growing numbers of its members will simply leave the haredi way of life. In his view, this touches not only on the education system, which he believes must adjust its curriculum to prepare haredi boys for employment, but also on army service. He is convinced that up to 30 to 40 percent of young haredim who are of age, could ultimately serve, “as long as the whole thing is conducted in the proper way and done gradually.”
But these views were only thoughts that came out in talks with friends – until the problem knocked on his door.
“Our son was clearly not fit for a life totally dedicated to the study of Talmud,” he says. “When he reached the seventh grade, when usually the whole day is dedicated to Gemara [Talmud] studies, it was clear he wouldn’t be able to fit in, and we had to reconsider the whole situation from a very personal point of view. My wife and I had very few choices: to let him continue in this way and take the risk he would not be devoted to it, with all the serious consequences it could have – including, God forbid, leaving the haredi way of life – or to work on a solution more adapted to his tendencies and capacities. We chose the second option, and that is how the Hachmei Halev junior high school yeshiva was born.”
At Hachmei Halev, in addition to Talmud, students will have the opportunity to study English and mathematics, and even music and sports. As head of the new school, Cohen, who could have become the head of a Lithuanian yeshiva had he continued the normal course of his studies, will be renewing ties with his past potential, albeit in a different environment.
He points out that his solution will not only help young students remain in the haredi world, but also enable many of them to put their real skills into practice – since in haredi society, a boy who doesn’t devote his life to Talmud is considered to be on a lower stratum.
In fact, Cohen explains, “these are boys who do have studying skills for other topics – which we put on a legitimate level, for a change.”
He admits that his yeshiva is not a totally new concept, as there are already five such institutions – but none of them exists in Jerusalem. Moreover, there are only those five out of the 300 or so yeshivot for this age group, which is a tiny percentage.
Another crucial issue is the high tuition in those institutions, and Cohen’s first concern has been to make Hachmei Halev accessible to those from all financial backgrounds. For that, he needed some help from the Society for the Advancement of Education, which was established in Jerusalem in 1962 to help youth from disadvantaged communities across the country attain distinction in social, educational and leadership endeavors.
David Maharat, the society’s director, sitting at the same table as Cohen during a break at the Matanel retreat, says that the needs of Hachmei Halev couldn’t have been a better fit for his association’s mission. Born in Ethiopia, Maharat came to Israel in 1984 and is a founding member of the Steering Center for Ethiopian Immigrants. For him, nothing could be more natural than to grant support for Cohen’s project.
Hachmei Halev will open for its first academic year in the Hebrew month of Elul, and in the beginning there will be opportunities for students who are not local to spend Shabbat there.
In the future, Cohen plans to add full dormitory facilities.
There is no real advertising, but registration is already under way, since “knowledge goes from mouth to ear,” he says with a shy smile. “We didn’t even have to approach anyone on our own initiative so far.”
Asked if he is aware that Hachmei Halev will be operating on the site of one of the city’s most intense struggles between haredi and secular residents, he smiles again and answers that he knew nothing about that. He and his new yeshiva are certainly not part of any conflict of that kind, he says – they are, in fact, quite the opposite. •