The importance of the “seminary” institution in Israel’s Charedi society can be understood from its very name. Officially, the title “seminary” applies to 13th-14th grades (or 5th-6th grade in internal Charedi parlance), attended by most girls after completing their high school studies from 9th grade and up. So powerful, however, is the halo surrounding the “seminary,” that the entire secondary education system bears its name. Rather than simply going to school, a Charedi 9th-grader will go to “seminary.”
Despite this place of honor, and notwithstanding the well-established public status enjoyed by seminary principals, seminaries have had to deal with a challenge they are still unfamiliar with: competition. The education certificates that seminaries offer – officially, after all, these are “teaching seminaries” – have long since fallen out of favor with students, who are now primarily interested in professional tracks that allow them to make a decent living. In this field, competition is tough, both from institutions offering vocational training and from Charedi colleges offering academic degrees.
Ostensibly, seminaries are aware of this challenge and respond by offering more tracks for professional training. But a deeper look shows that despite a multiplicity of tracks, the professional training offered by seminaries is sorely deficient. Kollel students pay a fortune out of their empty pockets to provide their daughters with a remunerative profession within the protected framework of the seminary, and two years later discover, to their great dismay, that the certificate their daughter received is barely worth the paper it’s printed on. After two exhausting and expensive years, the girl comes out empty-handed, unable to realize her studied field in the professional world.
Kollel students pay a fortune out of their empty pockets to provide their daughters with a remunerative profession within the protected framework of the seminary, and two years later discover, to their great dismay, that the certificate their daughter received is barely worth the paper it’s printed on.
What are the existing failings when it comes to professional training offered by seminars, why are they so widespread, and is there any hope of overcoming them? I will try to answer these questions in this article.
Professional Training: Expensive and Worthless
The irrelevance of the conventional “teacher training” tracks for young girls is abundantly clear to parents today. Consequently, after many years during which thousands of girls forcibly studied education without an iota’s intention to work in the field, teaching seminaries finally exempted students from learning anything about education. This exemption is sometimes limited to students who have particularly burdensome majors such as computer programming; sometimes, it will be given wholesale to anybody on a non-teacher track. Whether they study education or not, the great majority of seminary students concentrate efforts on their professional track, which is their great hope for a respectable livelihood down the line.
Unfortunately, however, behind the well-designed and elegantly glossy prospectuses laying out the professional tracks on offer often lies severely deficient teaching. I will provide some examples. Two of the largest seminaries in the country recently launched a “virtual reality” program, ostensibly providing the tools for entering a specialist and sought-after field. In one seminary, however, the teacher appointed to oversee the course is qualified to teach an entirely different graphics field, while in a second seminary, interested parents were told the course teacher had herself signed up for a professional virtual reality course. Teachers at the specified course would certainly be surprised to learn that the certificate they were handing out to students was, in fact, a credential for her to teach the field.
Another well-known seminary in the center of Israel is aggressively marketing a major in “graphic design.” The main teacher is a graduate of the same seminary whose experience in the private sector amounts to zero. She completed her graphics studies some years before, and now teaches whatever material she studied. It goes without saying that students acquire knowledge of programs long since obsolete, know nothing about searching graphic databases online, and, lacking updated knowledge, would not be accepted as candidates to work on a free newsletter. The only employment they can find is the one their teacher has: They can also teach outdated graphics at Charedi seminaries.
Even when an effort is made to bring in teaching staff possessing relevant skills and training, seminaries still tend to fall into the kind of traps purpose-made for people lacking knowledge in the relevant field. For instance, at some seminaries teaching digital illustration the entire course is taught by a single, albeit authorized, teacher. Although the course is (unjustifiably) spread over two years, requiring far higher tuition than an equivalent course outside the institution, students are nonetheless exposed to one style of illustration alone, and sometimes to only one graphics program.
While a digital illustration major was offered to students, parents who sought to learn about the staff discovered there were no authorized teachers at all. By her own admission, the course coordinator had no experience in the field. How, exactly, would teachers be recruited? Heaven knows
The situation above is nevertheless better than what one could find at a large Jerusalem seminary: While a digital illustration major was offered to students, parents who sought to learn about the staff discovered there were no authorized teachers at all. By her own admission, the course coordinator had no experience in the field. How, exactly, would teachers be recruited? Heaven knows.
Poor training does not prevent seminaries from promising certificates left and right. Some of these are seminary-only certificates – documents lacking any validity or relevance on the job market. Other certificates are authorized by the professional teaching the field. A graduate of an imagery course, for instance, will receive a certificate courtesy of Sarah Cohen. The great majority of potential employers have, of course, never heard of Sarah Cohen, and have no respect for a certificate she endorses. Sometimes the con is greater still: students are promised professional training – hydrotherapy is a good example – in a field that requires formal certification (from the hydrotherapy association of Israel). Although there are seminaries that do offer the relevant certification, others promise a certificate from an irrelevant fly-by-night body – a worthless piece of paper.
None of this prevents the seminaries from charging sums far higher than the value of the professional training they provide, as though they were a private academic college
None of this prevents the seminaries from charging sums far higher than the value of the professional training they provide, as though they were a private academic college. Until recently, seminaries justified this high price by granting students both professional training and a teaching certificate. Recently, however, on the instructions of leading rabbis, seminaries began to “permit” interested students to forgo the teaching certificate and focus on their professional studies alone, the idea being both trying to stem the tide of students turning to academia and assisting parents with their finances. Did the seminary’s price tag go down as a result? Unsurprisingly, no. When several parents sought to register their daughters for the profession-only track at the large and prestigious seminaries, they were told this is possible, but that girls must also learn the full scope of religious studies. When parents agreed and asked about the cost, they were given a sum almost equivalent to the price for the full conventional track. These seminaries effectively sought to benefit from both words, ensuring students continue their studies with them (rather than leaving for academia) and maintaining their profit margins.
A System Struggling to Change
Several factors play into the sorry state of professional training at most seminaries. These include consistently amateurish management, a desire to maintain the privileges of existing seminary staff, and the lack of a real incentive to change.
This dearth of professionalism is prominent in the appointment of “track coordinators” whose connection to the relevant profession is coincidental at best. Rather than qualified individuals, the coordinators are simply teachers the seminary is interested in promoting and rewarding. This leads to such bizarre situations as a “journalism track coordinator” who has barely written a “letter to the editor” or a “digital illustration track coordinator” who doesn’t seem to know the first thing about the subject. These appointments are not necessarily driven by bad motives, but they characterize a clique interested first and foremost in looking after its closest members while failing to understand the harm caused to students by appointing such inappropriate staff to lead a professional course.
Raising the standard of seminary tracks is no easy feat. It requires appropriate appointments, harder work from all involved, and a great deal of money. Most seminaries simply do not see the justification for such investment and effort, which comes at the expense of existing staff they wish to support, and which may even cut into their profit margins.
In some cases, there is even a clear financial interest in the seminaries’ opposition to change. As we know, the only degrees seminaries shy away from are those with an academic flavor. Seminaries have a clear and strident line against academic degrees, which is often backed up by rabbinic proclamations. However, even when solutions were offered that could allow proper academic training (though without receiving the degree itself), seminaries did all they could to torpedo the project. For instance, a project was recently established for girls to study the Open University’s computer science curriculum, including learning courses equivalent to 72 credits – a threshold considered sufficient by market research for finding high-level employment. As part of the project, the demands of a particular seminary were all met, allowing the seminary to conduct registration and to teach the material internally. Ultimately, however, the fact remained that the seminary stood to lose income from its own programming track if the project went ahead. After rabbinic approval was received, the seminary thus laid down a totally impossible demand: that the Open University would not be able to register students’ credits. Of course, no academic institution can take responsibility for a study program without recording courses taken and credits earned. The program was duly scrapped.
Girls are taught that leaving the seminary, even to study in a totally Charedi atmosphere, jeopardizes their spiritual future (and the shidduch, of course). Leaving the seminary is an unforgivable sin
Bottom line, whatever the primary motives, there is no doubt that seminaries are an excellent example of institutions that find it very hard to change. This tendency sometimes touches remarkable heights of absurdity. One seminary consistently refuses to open an architecture track, claiming that this is a “male profession.” Instead, the seminary aggressively encourages students to register for the programming major, which is of course a “female profession.” Other seminaries claim that introducing accounting studies is an absolute red line, though veteran Charedi seminaries have been offering accounting for years without protest. One might think that such arguments are unwise – students can surely choose to leave the respective seminaries and take their studies elsewhere. Seminaries, however, rely on intense indoctrination which ensures most girls stay put. Girls are taught that leaving the seminary, even to study in a totally Charedi atmosphere, jeopardizes their spiritual future (and the shidduch, of course). Leaving the seminary is an unforgivable sin.
This final point is worthy of some elaboration.
The True Burden of Guilt: Parents
Blame for the lack of professionalism endemic to Charedi seminaries cannot be laid entirely at their feet. Everyone knows that seminaries are hardly the only institutions that stagnate, promote their own people, or look out for their bottom line. Usually, however, institutions will pay a price for their failures, and the concern for doing so incentivizes change. This does not hold true for seminaries for a simple reason, namely, that parents, at least in the eyes of the seminaries themselves, are a captive audience. For most parents, there are ostensibly no alternative other options. Even the transfer of a girl to another seminary is made extremely difficult by an extensive network of internal alliances between principals. If they choose to refrain from registering their daughter at any seminary, the sword of matchmaking will hover over their heads. The form teacher will ensure their daughter is warned of this day in, day out.
Anyone interested in fundamental changes needs to focus on the public rather than on the institutions. Ultimately, parents pay a fortune for studies that lead nowhere. They are the ones who need to stand firm against the seminaries and demand real professionalism. So long as they open their wallets without asking questions or making inquiries, nothing will change.
Time and again, parents of seminary students experience the most absurd stories. A seminary in one provincial town required that a specific 12th grader sign a commitment to continue her higher education in the same institution – a school whose choice of tracks are decidedly slim. The penalty for not doing so was denying her the honor of acting as a counselor for lower grades. The student signed. Her parents did not intervene. Little do they know that she is about to embark on a track the very thought of which drives her to despair. Another couple related how they sent a daughter to study both programming and another expensive track at a cost of 24,000 NIS a year – an enormous sum for a Kollel family whose daughter is not eligible for any seminary scholarships. They justified the decision by telling themselves that an additional track could translate into additional income. The daughter herself? All she wanted was to be a nurse. She will now work very hard over two years for studies she has no intention of utilizing and will start studying for the profession of her choice at the age of 21.
The unfortunate fact of the matter is that many parents are aware that the seminary is not doing its job when it comes to professional training, but nonetheless wish their daughter to stay there at any cost
Examples such as these abound, pointing to a parental rather than an institutional failing. We, as a society, seem to consider seminary tuition as nothing more than babysitting dues or perhaps a marital down-payment, so that we hardly care where the money goes – even when we need it desperately. The unfortunate fact of the matter is that many parents are aware that the seminary is not doing its job when it comes to professional training, but nonetheless wish their daughter to stay there at any cost. I cannot expect parents to change their state of mind, which is deeply entrenched in society, overnight; yet there is still much we can do.
If only twenty parents would pressure a seminary to bring in better-trained teachers and an updated curriculum for the courses it offers, the seminary is likely to cave. Generally, however, this never happens. Parents are simply submissive to the seminary’s decisions and level of education, even when these are totally out of synch with the current demands of workplaces. If the seminary keeps offering amateurish majors with untrained teachers and this meets no protest, why should anything change? Parents need to investigate the track, encourage their daughters to discuss the matter with graduates searching for employment, and ensure relevance. Without such minimal due diligence, parents effectively sentence their daughter to work for the minimum wage, while paying a fortune they do not possess as protection against the “matchmaking threat” (though boys, as we know, are themselves looking for girls with well-paid jobs).
It doesn’t make sense.
No Longer a Captive Audience
The institution of the Charedi seminary has a glorious history. Already in the 1930s, the first seminaries were established in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem to provide a response to the demand in the Charedi education system for teachers whose outlooks match the character of the school. Later, what began as a true educational mission became the only acceptable path for a future Kollel wife: professional training that allows her to provide for a Charedi household. Yet, demographic and economic changes within the community have had their effect. Today, the entire community agrees there is a need for many and varied training tracks for women whose income perpetuates the flourishing Torah world.
Even today, changes they are forced to make are far from sufficient, and seminaries give an impression of doing the bare minimum rather than showing real commitment to the employment future of students
Despite this, seminaries have always been too slow to change. Even today, changes they are forced to make are far from sufficient, and seminaries give an impression of doing the bare minimum rather than showing real commitment to the employment future of students. It is true that fundamental changes are not simple. Convening huge events and singing heroic songs against academia is simpler than enacting far-reaching reforms. But the path of least resistance is not necessarily the path of shortest distance, even from the seminaries’ perspective. Data show that over the years 2014-2020, the number of Charedi students in academia rose by 43%. Ultimately, many of the girls find themselves in academic institutions of some form, even if this means that the time and tuition of seminary years go to waste. So long as seminaries do not supply the skills and credentials for graduates to make a good living, the numbers of girls in academia will only increase. The losers will be parents who wasted their money and students who wasted their time, only to reach an academic institution after a frustrating year of unemployment at home.
There is no Charedi institution at which professionalism and transparency are as hard to come by. Many principals operate under the belief that social pressure is still the best way to ensure registration to their institutions. But they are not blind and deaf. When critical discourse on the nature of the professional training in seminaries is heard loud and clear in their offices, they will be forced to take action. The seminaries are aware – even if they refrain from stating it – that there are enough entirely Charedi options, rabbinic backing included, that students can choose between without being stained by the “heresy of academia.” Parents – us – must take advantage of this new situation and stop acting like a captive audience. We need to insist that seminaries think about the employment interests of students at least with the same seriousness with which they think about their own standing.
Is there a seminary problem or a ‘shidduch system’ problem? If parents – and young adults – stopped thinking that they were spoilt goods because they made a choice at the age of 18 (18!!) not to waste two years of their lives and thousands of $$ in seminary fees – perhaps matters would improve. It is a shidduch system problem, not a seminary problem, and the seminaries are cashing in on it!