Is a Year of Yeshiva in Israel a Scam?
Never one to shy away from the issues, Lion of Zion posts about criteria for choosing a school. . . . the yeshivah year in Israel . . . is one of the biggest scams of the Orthodox community. Here is a post about how most programs for girls expect them to make their own Shabbat arrangements.
And Haveil Havalim is up at DovBear.
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Leora Said,
June 3, 2009 - 11 Sivan 5769 @ 12:52 PM
Would it be “bad” of me to use this opportunity to advertise the new girls program at Mitzpeh Netofa called Midreshet Netofa? If it’s still available in 11 years, maybe I’ll send my daughter there. Of course, it helps that my cousins live on that beautiful yishuv.
mominisrael Said,
June 3, 2009 - 11 Sivan 5769 @ 2:32 PM
Why not? I just met an old friend who moved there after several years in the US.
tesyaa Said,
June 3, 2009 - 11 Sivan 5769 @ 4:18 PM
As I understand, there are almost no alternatives for a frum post high school year that is not seminary or yeshiva, whereas there are volunteer and other inexpensive options for teens who are not so observant. First of all, is my assumption correct?
While I think a year in Israel is incredibly valuable, why does it have to be an expensive seminary year?
Lion of Zion Said,
June 3, 2009 - 11 Sivan 5769 @ 5:32 PM
TESYAA:
when i went to israel back in the day, there was already a pretty solid concensus even in my very MO school that yeshivah/sem was the only option (i remember that bar ilan was strongly discouraged). a few friends and i went on what was a great bnei akiva program, Midrash U-Maaseh (unfortunately long since defunct). we spent the regular year in an israeli yeshiva, which was then supplemented by extensive touring and a few months volunteering on a kibbutz. like i said, we spent the same time in yeshivah as everyone else, but everyone else referred to us as being on a kibbutz program. it didn’t help that the name of the yeshivah actually was yeshivat hakibbutz hadati. until this day, when people ask where i was in israel, i simply respond that i went to an israeli yeshivah. if they press me, i just say it was a small yeshivah in the middle of nowhere (true) that they’ve never heard of. otherwise i have to explain the whole kibbutz thing. anyway, i imagine that consensus is even stronger today.
as of 10 year ago bnei akiva still had large hachshara programs from europe, south america and south africa. my brother went with hachshara. if it’s still around, presumably a non-conformist and independent-minded american (obviously only if possessed with bnei aliva leanings) could tag on
Leora Said,
June 3, 2009 - 12 Sivan 5769 @ 6:04 PM
Thanks for allowing my comment. Turns out, it partly answers Tesyaa’s question, in that here is a program that is only part learning (other parts are working, hiking and doing art and theatre).
My post on Midreshet Netofa was rejected by our local Yahoo group for being “advertising.” They prefer “Need a ride to Brooklyn” kind of posts. Boring.
And, yeah, I went Hachshara many moons ago. Only a small part was learning in a seminary, but that was the part I disliked a lot, and I ended up leaving at that point. The kibbutz part and the kibbutz learning were good. No idea what Hachshara is like today. In the 1950s it was spending a summer on a farm in New Jersey (I think my father did that).
tesyaa Said,
June 3, 2009 - 12 Sivan 5769 @ 6:20 PM
The socially acceptable choices seem to be seminary or skipping seminary, but not Israel in some other format. The problem is that what’s socially acceptable determines which types of programs are available. I want my kids to spend a year in Israel, and if there are no other options it will have to be the seminary route.
Abbi Said,
June 3, 2009 - 12 Sivan 5769 @ 7:16 PM
I went to Brovendar’s in my day (early 90′s) and I was miserable with the learning. I ended up spending hours shopping at the shuk and cooking in my apartment kitchen, writing in my journal and generally being a nerdy introvert.
I interviewed for M and M and had a lot of friends who went. I spent many shabbatot with them on Kibbutz and really wish I had done that. It was a great program.
Lion of Zion Said,
June 3, 2009 - 12 Sivan 5769 @ 11:13 PM
ABBI:
it was a great and unique program, but as i remember not all the girls liked it as much as the guys. we all loved the yeshivah, but some girls really disliked orot (the girl’s school).
so you might have been better off in brovenders. at least you could sneak away to all that jerusalem has to offer. in orot you would have been stuck in elkana
mominisrael Said,
June 3, 2009 - 12 Sivan 5769 @ 11:36 PM
Tesyaa, I can’t think of any such programs offhand. The Conservative movement has Nativ, which is half a year in Hebrew U or the Conservative yeshiva, and half a year on Kibbutz Saad (a kibbutz hadati) or volunteering.
LOZ wrote: “when i went to israel back in the day” Um, Tesyaa and I are a lot older than you!
Leora, it’s not like spam. But community list moderators have it tough!
Mark Said,
June 4, 2009 - 12 Sivan 5769 @ 8:15 AM
Each of my sisters (a few years younger than I am) declined the seminary route and instead went to Bar Ilan for a year. One met her husband (a truly wonderful guy, and an ehrlich yid) there, got engaged on Purim, and then were married the next year after Shavuot (yes, a very long engagement). My other sister met her husband there as well, but didn’t start dating until a few years later in the USA.
I spent various periods of time in Israel. The most memorable was a few months at Kibbutz Rosh Tzurim just one hill away from Yeshivat Har Etzion. I arrived much earlier than the rest of the volunteers and stayed much later. I was also the only one to really work hard, shoulder to shoulder, with the members of the kibbutz. And that includes waking up with them every morning at 3:30am to get enough work done before the heat of the day (anyone who knows me, knows that 3:30am is often when I go to sleep, not wake up!). I also took a few interesting courses at Bar Ilan one summer. One other time, I stayed at Yeshivat Yamit in Neve Dekalim and volunteered at a yishuv nearby for about a month. Oh, and I also did guard duty at the fish ponds of Sdei Eliyahu for a few nights on a different trip. There were other trips, but it’s a long time ago, and they are somewhat jumbled in my mind.
I sort of regret not going to yeshiva, not because of all the “fun” I might have missed, but because I think I would be more frum today had I done it. My brother went to Yeshiva for a year, and he is [so far] more frum than I am.
Baila Said,
June 5, 2009 - 13 Sivan 5769 @ 9:25 AM
Bnei Akiva has a new year-in-Israel program called “tafnit”–(www.bneiakiva.net/tafnit/). It is similar to the old Hachsharah program, which I am a proud graduate of. I have said this before: Hach was always looked down upon because it was co-ed and wasn’t a full year of learning. People assume that there was lots of partying because it was co-ed. The truth is we were very carefully supervised, probably more so than our friends in the seminaries at the time.
Hach was for me a year of enormous growth and maturity, both in terms of my Judaism and love of Israel and as a human being in general.
and Mark, why can’t you be more “frum” if you want to be? We were about 20 kids on Hach my year. 25 years later we run the gamut from “very frum” to not at all. Most of us here in the middle and I think, happy where we are.
RaggedyMom Said,
June 8, 2009 - 16 Sivan 5769 @ 3:42 AM
While I went to seminary for a year, I was able to flesh it out a bit with a great month-long program run by BA called Tochnit Nissan on Kibbutz Shluchot – there were several kibbutzim in the program. It was a great experience. I think I’d have been very happy to have done something that incorporated more of that, over the course of the whole year.
mominisrael Said,
June 9, 2009 - 17 Sivan 5769 @ 11:14 AM
RM: That sounds like fun.