Hebrew University goodwill rejected by opponents to Haredi program of academics

When attempting to make changes to society, at times it can be difficult to rectify the discrepancy between making the changes while staying true to the ideals one believes in and between making the changes in a way that will actually get them implemented even if it means giving up on some of those ideals. At other times it can easily be a symptom of short-sightedness. At other times it can even be indicative of ulterior motives.

I believe there is a time for cold-turkey and implementing a change all the way to the end. I do not believe that applies when trying to change an entire community and society. I believe goodwill and compounding small changes will go much further than trying to make massive that will face much greater opposition in their implementation.

I have seen all sorts examples of the above in the attempts to get the Haredi community more into the army. Sometimes there is goodwill and society is willing to make compromises towards the ultimate goal. Such happened when the army created Haredi units, such as Nahal Haredi and Shachar - the army, part of a society that believes in equality of women, for example, was willing to create an all male unit in order to get haredim into the army. And the haredim responded in kind, with unprecedented numbers increasingly entering the army from year to year.

Other times, further integration was met with less goodwill. People insisted on not harming the status of women in other bases where such units were considered for establishment, and then similar progress was curtailed.

Another example is a current situation involving academics. In addition to getting more Haredim into the army, society has been demanding that solutions be found to get more haredim into the workforce, and to get more haredim educated with general education.

To that end, the Hebrew University devised a program that would be tailored to the needs of the haredi community. They recently announced the intent to create an academic program specifically for haredim that would be gender-separate.

That is called goodwill, and given time, such a program could attract many haredi students looking for a general education and the eventual career.

Unfortunately, others are less interested in goodwill and prefer to not give up on their ideals even a bit, even at the risk of being less successful at making those changes to society.

Hundreds of people, including faculty members and students, have signed a petition opposing the Hebrew  University's idea. They say that being the host, or sponsor, of a gender-segregated educational program would harm the integrity of the university. They say that the university is founded on openness and mutual respect - everybody is invited to attend, whether he or she is haredi or not, if they meet the acceptance criteria. Requiring gender-segregation is the invalidating of other people - the University does not need to adapt to the Haredim, but the Haredim need to adapt to the University. If the University is not appropriate for them, they need not come to learn there, according to the opponents to the idea under consideration.

This is an example of pig-headedness and maybe even bad-will. Pig-headedness, and definitely not bad-will, will not advance the changes to society that are necessary and under scrutiny. Goodwill will. They might want to stick to their ideals and not "harm women" in the process of making change, but this will only guarantee that nothing will change. The plan under consideration is not to turn the entire university gender-separate, in order to attract haredim, but to have one program under it's auspices that will be gender-separate. Why can't the university operate a program that meets the cultural needs of the community it is trying to cater to? All in all, their approach and opposition is a bad idea - it is stubborn pig-headedness that at best will leave everything the same and not do a thing for finding a solution to the problem at hand.


(source: Mynet)

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