RAFAEL, the major defense contractor in Israel, has announced that they have developed a new project for which they have hired 14 haredi women who have recently completed their training as programmers. As part of the arrangement, they have created a completely separate workspace for the women, with their own kitchenette and separate suite of bathrooms. They are also planning to add a nursing room, as they expect that these young women will surely soon begin getting married and have children.RAFAEL's head of IT said that after they saw and were impressed by the quality of work and dedication of the haredi women in Modiin Ilit and other places, they decided to move ahead with this project. He also said that they are already seeing the benefits of hiring these women, even though the project only just began this month, and they are impressed with the work and dedication of these women, and expect the project to expand and hire more haredi women to join the team.
Way to go! I wish them all the greatest success. And it should become so common and regular that such news items should be standard occurrences and not make the headlines.
The other side of this story is that these women are generally (though not necessarily in this case) hired for less money, their number is to fill a quota and their prospects of promotion are non-existent. The Haredi community should be finding ways to give real job prospects to their womenfolk.
ReplyDeleteWhile they're at it they could also solve the problems of the menfolk who are still stuck in kollel instead of being able to fulfill the duties in their ketubot to support their families.
I am curious what criterion they use to define these girls as hareidi. Did it say where these girls were from? Which beis yaakov they went to?
ReplyDeleteAlso, did I understand correctly that these girls are single?! I find it hard to believe that real hareidi single girls would do this.
Can someone please explain to me how this social model works logistically? Do the working mothers only work part-time? Who takes care of the children? who cooks the meals for the family, does the shopping and laundry? I'm fascinated by how the chareidi world has seemingly undergone a values shift from what I was taught in BY (to aspire to be a mommy, morah and eishes chayil) to what currently exists: woman as wife, mother, primary wage-earner and home manager without a stay-at-home-spouse or additional household help. I can see this as doable with one or two kids, but chareidi families aspire for much larger numbers. I'm sincerely baffled.
ReplyDeletefoot - I didnt see it specified n any of the articles. what is clear from the statements is that at least some are single.
ReplyDeleteBTW, I have know a number of single girls that worked in these haredi centers for Matrix (over the years a few came to work at different times where I used to work. they would work at matrix for a couple of years and then start looking to find a job that pays reasonable money) . They were not yet married but already finished school and their courses.
why shouldnt they already start working?
So haredim are going to work! Wippy yeah!
ReplyDeleteAren't they supposed to make a living?
I can't believe that we're making a big deal of what should be obvious.
Enough, if someone's kid was skipping Shabbos meals to hang out with friends in the park down the street, and the kid started coming back to the table, wouldn't it be wise to make a positive (but not patronizing) comment?
ReplyDeleteIf we complain all the time that charedim are full of excuses to avoid the workforce, and then they (at least the women but whatever) make an effort to get on board - then we're supposed to just say "so what"?
A nursing room makes no sense unless they first build a daycare. Surely they don't expect women to put their babies in playpens next to their desks and get a full day's work done.
These women might be paid less money (though we don't know for sure), however, they are getting work conditions tailor made for their social/religious needs (I know many women who would kill for a nursing room of their own in the workplace. That's a huge issue in the US right now); they are able to build careers in the "real world" and have something else on their resume aside from Bais Yakov; most probably, if they are being paid at the low end of the scale for hi tech, it's probably way, way more than they would make teaching. I know, BTDT. Low end of hi tech is still 20 shekel more/hour than teaching, sometimes 30. And for the gogetters in the group, they can move on to bigger and better things, once they build up their skills.
ReplyDeleteSo, Rafi(S), I fail to see how this isn't a "real job prospect" for haredi women. If the job was cleaning these new, fancy offices, I could see where you're coming from. But that's not the case.