A special conference dealing with the challenges facing the nuclear family today took place Monday at the Orot Israel College of Education in Elkana, a religious college for women which grants both bachelors and masters degrees. The College's Teacher Training Department has recently joined forces with the MIdreshet Yaakov Yeshiva teacher's program for men in Rehovot, but the campuses are separate and this conference's audience was the women's student body and guests.
Arutz Sheva TV attended the event and spoke with Orot Israel's Rabbi Yona Goodman about the conference, reviewing the sessions on the topic of equality between men and women today in religious society, and the issue of observant parents dealing with children who "left the path" and became non-observant.
Chief' Rabbi of Ramat Gan, Rabbi Yaakov Ariel, the first speaker, reminded the young women in the audience to put Jewish family values first, stressing the importance of balancing women's roles - while suggesting providing daycare in higher education facilities - and summarized the advance of women's rights in religious and famly courts. MK Tzipi Hotoveli (Likud), who is observant, decried the problem of young women with advanced degrees in the religious community who find that some of the men see this as a threat because their education is narrower. She also cited the increasing demands of the workplace that often leaves parents coming home too late to enjoy family life.
Sessions on varied aspects of family issues included a report on educational programs on family life for teens which are now taught in yeshivas as well as girls' schools, research on the attitude of adolescents to equal roles for wives and husbands, the growing problem of non-marrieds, agunot (women whose husbands do not grant them a divorce), family violence and how the family is portrayed in the media.
A lecture by a Yemenite academic on early marriages in the Jewish community in Yemen prior to emigration to Israel elicited much comment from the audience (see picture), as did the speaker whose doctoral research showed that matchmakers' clients are unduly selective when it comes to accepting dating suggestions.