“No Candy Store, No Pizza Shops, No Maxi-Skirts, No
Makeup”: Socializing Orthodox Jewish Girls Through
Schooling
Leslie Ginsparg Klein
The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth, Volume 9, Number 1,
Winter 2016, pp. 140-158 (Article)
Published by Johns Hopkins University Press
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/hcy.2016.0012
For additional information about this article
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/611010
Accessed 17 Jun 2017 05:42 GMT
LESLIE GINSPARG KLEIN
“NO CANDY S TORE , NO PIZ Z A SHOPS,
NO MA XI-SKIR T S, NO MAKEUP”:
SOCIALIZING OR THOD OX JE WISH
GIRLS THROUGH SCHOOLING
W
hen students at Bais Yaakov Academy, an Orthodox Jewish girls’ high
school in Brooklyn, New York, returned to school in the fall of 1974, they found
themselves subject to some new rules. “This is the year of knee sock,” students
recalled in their yearbook, “Unfortunately, we can’t wear them anymore . . . no
candy store, no pizza shops, no maxi-skirts, no makeup.” From that point on,
much to their chagrin, students would have to wear stockings or tights to school
everyday. They would no longer be allowed to attend school wearing makeup
or the fashionable maxi-length skirts. They would be forbidden from patronizing certain neighborhood restaurants and stores, locations that lent themselves
to coed socialization, even outside of school hours. Across town, students at
another Orthodox girls’ high school, Beth Jacob High School, discovered that
the school did not want them frequenting movie theaters and only wished to
accept students that did not have a television in their home.1
These changes, although not wholeheartedly accepted by students, did not
come unexpectedly. Orthodox Jewish girls’ school leaders had long formulated
their rules and policies in accordance with the dictates of the community’s rabbinic leadership. Since the inception of widespread formal Jewish education for
girls in the early twentieth century, Orthodox rabbinic and community leaders
used schooling as the main method by which they transmitted their values
and prescriptions to the next generation of girls. Schools replaced parents as
the primary arbiters of proper values, behaviors, and beliefs. But over time,
particularly in the decades between the 1960s and the 1980s, the definitions of
what constituted appropriate conduct and practice for Orthodox Jewish girls
changed. During those years, the leadership’s directives, which emphasized
modest dress, a separation between the sexes, and a rejection of American
Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth (v9.1) © 2016 by Johns Hopkins University Press
Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth
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popular culture, particularly focused on teenage girls. As fashion, dating, and
popular culture are hallmark elements of teenage girl culture, the reality that
schools created policies that reflected the messages of the rabbinic leadership
became especially salient. Shifts in the policies of the Orthodox rabbinic leadership impacted girls’ schools, resulting in a narrowing of conceptions of proper
conduct for Orthodox teenage girls. While school would prove to be an effective means for socialization, Orthodox girls did not blindly follow the dictates
of religious authority figures or categorically accept everything they were told.
Rather, they actively engaged in the socialization process, influencing how it
developed and impacted their lives.
Orthodox girls were not naïve to, nor unaware of, the socialization process
going on around them. Even as they ultimately adopted the new behavioral
standards and values, they still commented on, critiqued, expressed dissatisfaction with, and poked fun at their school leaders and the religious changes
they sought to impose. There were indeed instances, albeit few, of outright
student rebellion. However, more frequently, students expressed cynicism and
irreverence towards religiously motivated changes to the rules. Additionally, at
times they succeeded in circumventing the rules, most notably with regards to
American popular culture.
As much as their school leaders tried to shut it out, girls were not impervious to the culture around them. Although school leaders presented Orthodox
Jewish culture and American popular culture as diametrically opposed to one
another, girls integrated aspects of American youth culture into their lives while
remaining committed to their religious community. Therefore, even within a
rigidly traditional and highly regulated society, girls still claimed some latitude.
They used this autonomy to craft their own standards of behavior and their
own unique youth culture, which melded elements of American popular and
youth culture with traditional Jewish culture. This was possible because school
leaders did at times adapt their expectations to student desires.
The study of Orthodox girls and their education is important on a number
of fronts. First, it enriches and complicates historians’ understanding of agency
among teenage girls. When historians discuss agency, they typically refer to
acts of overt or covert rebellion. The story of the changes in the education of
American Orthodox Jewish girls in the 1960s through 1980s demonstrates that
agency does not have to connote rebellion. Bais Yaakov students were, in general, active agents in a socialization process they ultimately accepted, although
they did at times resist mildly. Even as Orthodox Jewish girls adopted changes
in behavior and attitude advanced by their school and community leaders, they
were not passive dupes of the system, blindly following orders.
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SOCIALIZING ORTHODOX JEWISH GIRLS THROUGH SCHOOLING
These Orthodox girls also serve as an example of an alternative form of
youth culture. Living in the 1960s and 1970s, when counterculture and antiauthoritarianism were so popular among youth, these girls demonstrate that
American youth culture was not monolithic. Multiple forms of youth culture
existed, including ones that did generally conform to the expectations of adult
community leadership. The history of girls in Bais Yaakov contributes to the
literature on the role of schooling in the socialization of girls and in the creation
of girl culture. It expands the chronological parameters of that literature, much
of which focuses on earlier time periods, and reminds us of the importance of
including girls’ voices in studies of their socialization. It explores major themes
of girls’ history, such as socialization and notions of girls’ passivity and satisfaction, in a very different and previously unstudied population, revealing
the existence of multiple, parallel models of twentieth-century girlhood. With
respect to girls’ perspectives, yearbooks proved to be a valuable source as they
contain students’ responses to new rules, their reactions to the messages they
received from administrators and teachers, and their impressions of their high
school experience. Further, because yearbooks are approved and potentially
censored by the school, they indicate what kinds of critique and resistance
Orthodox school leaders considered acceptable.2
The study of Orthodox girls’ lives also contributes to a better understanding of the history of Jewish Orthodoxy and religious education. Histories of
Orthodoxy, especially those related to education, tend to focus on men, the
yeshiva (an institution of higher Jewish learning for men), and the all-male
public leadership. However, considering that the Orthodox community had
strict gender roles and expectations, the male experience was certainly not representative of that of women and girls. Including the female experience requires
a reexamination of the history of Orthodoxy. Further, historians often note a
shift to the right in Orthodoxy, to stricter observance and insularity, during the
1960s and onward. A study of Orthodox girls’ education explains how and why
that shift occurred. It also explains how, in a strictly segregated community, the
words of the all-male leadership were transmitted to girls and shows how some
girls and women responded.3
BAIS YAAKOV AND THE ORTHODOX JEWISH
COMMUNITY IN TWENTIETH- AND EARLY
TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY AMERICA
Both Bais Yaakov Academy (BYA) and Beth Jacob High School (BJHS) were
Bais Yaakov schools. Founded in Poland in 1917 by a seamstress named Sarah
Schenirer and transplanted to America in the late 1930s, Bais Yaakov was the
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143
first widespread school system for Orthodox girls. Much of the educational
ideology of Bais Yaakov schools derived from its affiliation with Orthodoxy,
the most traditionally observant branch of Judaism. Orthodoxy believed in an
uncompromising obligation to keep Jewish law, such as observing the Sabbath
and kashruth, the dietary laws. Orthodox Jews believed that continuity of the
Jewish community held preeminent importance, and considered dating and
socializing outside the faith and engaging in premarital sex absolutely forbidden. Orthodoxy was not monolithic, and there were certainly Orthodox Jews
for whom Bais Yaakov schools were either too religious or not religious enough.
Bais Yaakov typically attracted Yeshivish Orthodox Jews, who considered roshei
yeshiva, the rabbinic heads of yeshivot (plural of yeshiva) as their religious leaders and the primary deciders of Jewish law. In the postwar American Yeshivish
Orthodox community, sending a child to a single-sex Jewish day school became
a nearly universal practice, and Bais Yaakov became the central institution of
girls’ education. Yeshivish leaders invested the schools with the authority to
manage girls’ religious education and socialization. BYA and BJHS, as the only
Bais Yaakov high schools in New York established before 1960 that still exist
today, lend themselves to a study of change over time.4
In the 1960s, Yeshivish Orthodox leaders and educators began to fear new
threats to their community, which resulted in significant changes in Orthodox
girls’ education. They perceived that American society had loosened its standards of public morality, particularly in terms of appropriate sexual behavior,
and that those changes were reflected in and popularized by popular culture.
With Orthodoxy’s emphasis on the continuity of community and the family
unit and its strict prohibition of premarital sex, leaders found these changes
particularly disturbing. In response, they called for increased isolation from
secular culture and advocated greater observance of Jewish law, specifically
those areas of Jewish law believed to be threatened by the perceived changes in
public morality.5 This prompted the leaders of Bais Yaakov schools to add rules
and policies that redefined appropriate behavior and religious observance in
areas related to dress, secular American culture, and male-female relationships.
They intended these strong measures to repel the perceived threats to their
students’ religious training.
RAISING STANDARDS AND LOWERING HEMLINES
During the 1960s and onward, Bais Yaakov school leaders increasingly stressed
the laws of modesty. Yeshivish rabbinic leaders advocated that women and
girls strengthen their observance of the laws of modesty as an antidote to the
popularization of fashions and behaviors they considered sexually provocative
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SOCIALIZING ORTHODOX JEWISH GIRLS THROUGH SCHOOLING
and inappropriate. One rabbi wrote that “the most powerful preventative to
moral laxity in Jewish life” was “the principle of Tznius, of modesty in dress,
in speech and in social conduct.” The laws of modesty, or tzniut, as defined by
the Yeshivish community, required girls and women to wear skirts that covered
the knees, necklines that covered the collarbone, and sleeves that covered the
elbows. Additionally, girls and women could not wear pants or tight-fitting
clothing. Leaders believed that observing modesty would protect the Orthodox
community from the sexual permissiveness of American society.6
In their early years, Bais Yaakov schools did not have a strict dress code
to enforce these laws. A picture from a late 1940s BJHS fundraising pamphlet
displays a group of students sitting around a table wearing short sleeve shirts
and skirts that revealed their knees. At that point, the school did not appear
concerned with modesty and students’ dress.7
But in the 1960s and onward, schools increasingly addressed concerns
over students’ dress. In the 1964 BJHS yearbook, school founder and leader
Rebbetzin Wichna Kaplan warned against the prevailing attitudes towards
modesty: “As students of Bais Yaakov . . . your dress should be completely modest and not reflect only a token effort. . . . Do no [sic] seek hetairim [leniencies in
Jewish law].” Kaplan recognized that the Orthodox community did not widely
observe modesty and that it had to contend with popular fashion trends that the
school did not consider appropriate.8
The potency of messages related to modesty increased over time. In 1970,
BJHS Assistant English Principal Estella Swerdloff warned students against
the potential punishment they could incur from God for not observing the
laws of modesty: “Here (in America), we are called upon to sacrifice very
little for shabbos [Sabbath], for kashrus [kasruth], for tznius [modesty]. . . . Let
us battle with those forms the yetzer hora [evil inclination] has taken in our
times—materialism, immorality, immodesty, disrespect for parents and teachers, defiance of G-d.” Swerdloff connected the need to strengthen observance
of modesty to what she considered the immoral character of American society.
She characterized American culture and counterculture as the embodiment of
the evil inclination, the greatest spiritual enemy of the Orthodox Jew, and she
challenged students to battle those influences. Additionally, Swerdloff equated
dressing modestly with observing the Sabbath and kashruth, two fundamental
observances in Orthodoxy.9
Along with ideological messages, Bais Yaakov schools strengthened their
dress codes, requiring students to dress in accordance with increasingly stricter
interpretations of the laws of modesty. For example, while showing the leg below
the knee did not violate the laws of modesty, the Yeshivish community instituted
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145
stricter expectations. Therefore, schools mandated that students wear knee socks
instead of bobby socks, and then ultimately required students to wear stockings.
Bais Yaakov schools also forbade slits in skirts and limited the wearing of makeup,
neither of which were explicitly forbidden by Jewish law. BYA additionally prohibited students from wearing the very long maxi-skirts, a style that certainly covered
the knees, but leaders considered too trendy. Rules banned clothing considered
immodest not only because of Jewish law, but because of convention.10
As another measure to ensure modesty, Bais Yaakov schools instituted
uniforms. While exact styles differed from school to school, uniforms generally consisted of button-down blouses and mid-calf length pleated skirts. By
the late 1980s, uniforms had become a nearly universal practice in Bais Yaakov
schools and the defining mark of a Bais Yaakov student. Yocheved Z’havzvi, a
BJHS administrator, stated that the school had two main purposes in requiring uniforms. First, Z’havzvi said, parents found it difficult to “keep up with
the Joneses in buying clothes.” The school, sensitive that not all parents had
money to spare, hoped uniforms would quell the need for students to compete
with each other over dress. The second reason related to modesty. “We had our
perfect tznius [modesty] rules in school with the uniform. In other words, if we
didn’t want too many buttons open around the neck it was easier to institute it
with the uniform.” Instead of contending with students who wished to break
the dress code, schools solved the issue with uniforms.11
In the 1982 BJHS yearbook, students took note of the school’s increased
imposition and enforcement of dress code rules. They commented sarcastically,
“To avoid being kicked out do your daily routine—check your hair, collarbone,
knees & slits, knees & slits, eyes & cheeks, slits.” Students feared that breaking
these rules could lead to expulsion, a sentiment that did not appear in earlier
years. An article in the school’s alumnae bulletin from the same year illuminates the source of the students’ fears. It touted that “special emphasis and
enforcement of tznius [modesty] regulations, at a time when the outside world
is raging with immorality, has resulted in the continued high tznius [modesty]
standards of our girls. The students’ modest dress and behavior in and out of
school is B.H. [thank God] a pride to the Bais Yaakov movement.” Following the
Yeshivish leadership, BJHS presented the rules as a protective measure against
what it perceived as the immorality of the surrounding society. The rules represented more than a school dress code; they defined parameters of belonging to
Yeshivish Orthodox girlhood. Accordingly, school leaders required students to
follow these standards both inside and outside of school.12
In 1983, BYA students wrote a song for their yearbook that summarized and
poked fun at the dress code regulations that Bais Yaakov schools had imposed
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over the previous few years, many of which tried to prevent drawing attention to the sexuality of girls’ bodies. The school prohibited wearing shirts with
names written across the front and skirts with detailing on the front or back
pockets, which could draw an onlooker’s eye to the girls’ chest, pelvic area,
or rear end. The school outlawed blatantly visible makeup, and students used
the word “ex-communicated,” a term with strong religious connotations, to
describe potential punishment.13
The last part of the song reveals attitudes of the students and parents to the
changes in Yeshivish society. The final verse read,
Imagine the thanx [sic] we must be giving
For otherwise the school would be in for a storm
Parents calling and that’s no joke the principals would admit
We have the rules we have and they are very fit
For Bais Yaakov which we attend
While at times students actively critiqued and lampooned the new regulations,
they acknowledged that they expected such rules of a Bais Yaakov school and
considered them appropriate. They also recognized that their parents, following
the Yeshivish leaders’ dictates, wanted them to be attending schools that implemented these rules. To remain desirable to the Yeshivish population, school leaders had to adopt these higher standards. To be considered moral, reputable and
a pride to their community, girls had to adopt them as well. Students certainly
could not change school rules or communal expectations, but they did not blindly
follow them either. They expressed agency both in their choices to poke fun and
in their ultimate decision to accept the higher standards as “fit” for them.14
Bais Yaakov policies certainly proved successful in imposing proper dress
in school. Up until the middle of the 1970s, Bais Yaakov yearbooks included
pictures of girls not dressed in accordance with Jewish law as interpreted by
the Yeshivish community. Class pictures in the BYA yearbooks, which typically
had one row of students seated, reflect the increased standards of modesty. The
number of students in class pictures with their knees showing while seated
declined from nine of eleven in 1976, to four of eight in 1977, to one of ten in
1978. In the 1983 yearbook, every student in the front row wore a skirt that
covered her knees while sitting; indeed, no exposed knees appeared anywhere
in the yearbook. By the late 1980s, schools required students to wear skirts that
fell four inches below the knees, to ensure that students’ knees be covered no
matter how they sat. 15
The increased emphasis on modesty affected policies regarding yearbooks as
well. Rabbi Yosef Rosenblum, a local Yeshivish leader whom Kaplan consulted
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147
on issues regarding the school, found copies of the BJHS yearbook circulating
in his yeshiva’s high school dormitory. He did not think it modest for a girls’
school yearbook to be passed around a boys’ dormitory. He asked the school to
stop printing individual graduation pictures of the students, as he thought that
without the individual pictures, boys would not be so interested in seeing the
yearbook. The school acquiesced. Instead of having the senior portraits in the
yearbook, it put class pictures in the yearbook and issued a separate volume
with individual pictures, only printing enough copies for the students in the
class. That did not entirely stop the graduation pictures from being circulated
among boys, but it greatly limited the number of available copies.16
Modesty theoretically applied to both men and women. Traditional Jewish
law instructed men to refrain from looking at immodestly dressed women
and women to refrain from dressing in a way that could incite desire.17 But
in the 1960s and 1970s, male Yeshivish leaders framed modesty as a female
issue. The rabbinic leadership overwhelmingly directed the messages on modesty to women, instructing them to amend their dress. Similarly, when Rabbi
Rosenblum discovered BJHS yearbooks in his yeshiva’s dormitory, he expected
the girls’ school to change its policies in order to prevent the male yeshiva students from seeing girls’ pictures. Female BJHS students lost the ability to have
individual pictures in the yearbook in order to “protect” male yeshiva students.
This approach to modesty shaped girls’ experiences regardless of the gender of
the school administrators. One would expect that the administrators of BYA,
men schooled in yeshivot, would follow the views of the heads of their yeshivot.
But even female school leaders, like Kaplan, cast modesty as a female issue. She
too directed students to dress appropriately in order to not cause men to have
inappropriate sexual thoughts.18
SHUTTING OFF AND SHUTTING OUT TELEVISION
In addition to responding to Yeshivish leaders on issues of modesty, Bais
Yaakov schools reacted to their criticism of American popular culture. Leaders
viewed popular culture in general, and television in particular, as a major threat
to their community’s survival. They worried that Orthodox children and adults
would idealize characters on television who used drugs, engaged in premarital
sex or homosexual relationships, or acted violently, and that those behaviors
would become acceptable or, even worse, emulated. In 1969, a Yeshivish leader
stated, “This lust, this hedonism—imposed on us in the very air we move in,
the newspapers, the radio, G-d help us! the television—is a challenge that is
unprecedented in the whole history of mankind.” Rabbinic leaders explicitly
directed the community to limit its exposure to television.19 In the 1960s and
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early 1970s, many Bais Yaakov students had televisions and went to movies.
Accordingly, school leaders instituted rules that pushed students to disavow
American popular culture.
In the 1970s, BJHS began its fight against popular culture by prohibiting
students from attending movie theaters. Despite the rule, students continued
going to the movies. By the late 1970s, those students who still attended movies hid that fact from the school. Z’havzvi attested, “These things are done
secretly and I don’t know much about it, but they’ve definitely been done.”
This constituted one of the instances in which students resisted the changes
schools imposed and where the school leaders, to some extent, chose to ignore
the infractions.20
Bais Yaakov schools took a strict stance on television that affected previously open admissions policies. In the early years of the school, BJHS accepted
students from a variety of backgrounds, even those not in line with the school’s
ideology. A former teacher stated that BJHS “took girls who were not necessarily from the best homes, and transformed them into menschen [respectable
women].” Z’havzvi said that until the late 1970s, she did not know of the
school rejecting anyone: “We accepted the girls that did things that were not
al pi ruchanu [in accordance with our spiritual sensibilities].” With few Bais
Yaakov schools in existence, BJHS leaders felt responsible to accept all students
because they did not want rejected girls to attend public school as the alternative. However, as more Bais Yaakov schools opened, BJHS no longer felt that
responsibility.21
Accordingly, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Bais Yaakov schools adopted
stricter criteria for admissions. In 1978, Z’havzvi, then an assistant principal,
instituted interviews as part of the admissions process. The initial impetus
behind the interviews was to determine whether or not a prospective student
watched television at home. If an applicant’s family had a television, the school
encouraged the family to get rid of it. While BJHS deemed girls who watched
television as inappropriate for the school, Z’havzvi stated that BJHS stopped
short of rejecting all students with televisions: “It was a drastic change. We
had to go very slowly. And if a home had a TV but the children promised that
they wouldn’t watch or the parents said they had it locked in their bedroom or
something like that, at the beginning we overlooked it. We did accept the girls
anyway. Over time, we became more strict.” BYA, in a similar effort, added
a question to its application form that asked if the prospective student had a
television at home. School administrators suspected that certain parents lied,
checking the box that indicated they did not own a television when indeed
they did.22
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149
A 1982 BJHS alumnae bulletin publicized their updated admissions procedures and stated their purpose as “to assure that the ideals and aspirations of
each prospective student and her home will correspond with the Bais Yaakov
standards and hashkafos [ideologies], to enable B.Y. [Bais Yaakov] to continue
producing the fine caliber of students that it is noted for.” A girl who watched
television failed to meet the school’s criteria for being a fine caliber Bais Yaakov
girl, and a home with a television no longer qualified as a home with Bais
Yaakov standards and ideology.23
While Bais Yaakov school leaders in the 1970s advocated isolation from
an American culture that they viewed as dangerous, at least some students
did not heed their directives. They, like teenagers around them, took part in
popular culture and wanted to include that aspect of their lives in their yearbooks. Many mentions of television, movies, and secular music appeared in
the yearbooks. Sometimes these references appeared explicitly, but more often
students obscured them so that faculty advisors responsible for censoring any
inappropriate material in the yearbook might not recognize them. The references indicated that students had an attachment to secular culture and revealed
an expectation among the yearbook staff that their classmates would recognize
the allusions. They suggest that girls integrated American popular culture into
a Yeshivish Orthodox girls’ culture.
A page in the 1971 BJHS yearbook, the same volume that contained a faculty
statement describing American society as a place where “a spirit of atheism and
evil prevails,” displayed the quote, “You and I share memories, farther than the
road that stretches out ahead.” The quote appeared very similar to the lyrics from
the recently released Beatles’ song, “Two of Us.” Needless to say, students did not
attribute the quote to the popular rock and roll band. Other yearbooks contained
references to John Denver, Simon and Garfunkel, and other folk and rock artists.
Similarly, in the memory pages of the 1975 BYA yearbook, where students listed
short quotes and blurbs that related to their experiences during that academic
year, secular lyrics appeared. For example, students included, “Life is very short
and there’s not time for fussing and fighting . . . we can work it out,” words taken
from another Beatles song. They also quoted “These boots are made for walking,” from the Nancy Sinatra song of the same name, and “Where have all the
Juniors gone? . . . Gone to backyard everyone,” a play on the Pete Seeger folk song
“Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” The Pete Seeger song serves as an example
of one of the many times students rewrote secular songs with lyrics pertaining to
themselves and school life, integrating them into their school culture.24
Many references related to television shows appeared as well. In the 1977
BYA yearbook, students wrote, “These happy days are yours and mine,” “This
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year was a real S*M*A*S*H,” and “Tzirel keeps on Trekinn and Tzippy G
becomes our favorite martian.” Students would have recognized the play on
words from Happy Days, M*A*S*H, and Star Trek, popular television shows in
the late 1970s. But faculty advisors, without televisions in their homes, might
not have picked up on the references.25
Just as students made secular songs their own, they also used the language of the contemporary American youth culture and protest movements to
describe school happenings. In a poem detailing a mock protest against tests
that appeared in the 1970 BJHS yearbook, students stated that their “solution”
to their academic workload was to “RISE UP IN REVOLUTION!!” The poem
continued with students complaining about their uniforms and their penchant
for getting in trouble for uniform violations. The conclusion of the poem,
accompanied by a picture of a student with a blacked-out face raising her right
fist into the air, while sitting at the teacher’s desk in front of a blackboard with
“Student Power,” written in large, capital letters read,
Having reached the hour
We proclaim, “Student Power”
With pride do we reign
From truth we can no longer refrain
For this is all in jest
To be here, we’re fortunately blessed26
Students employed the language and imagery of the antiauthoritarian protest
movements their teachers decried to describe their school life and lampoon
both standard student complaints about schoolwork and religiously motivated
rules like dress code. But then they seamlessly transitioned into traditional religious language and values, revealing their whole revolution to be in “jest” and
declaring themselves “blessed” for attending a Bais Yaakov school. Students
were aware of the youth culture around them, incorporating and appreciating
elements of it, while ignoring or rejecting those aspects that fundamentally
challenged their community’s values. Similar to the student song about modesty, girls made fun of their school’s policies, but ultimately acknowledged and
accepted the preeminence of the school and the values it represented.
Girls took these elements of popular culture and youth culture and integrated them with aspects of traditional Judaism to craft their own unique girl
culture. As Orthodox girls’ lives centered on Judaism, the language, holidays
and books of the religion strongly influenced their culture. In the 1973 BJHS
yearbook, students jokingly referred to the days in June when students
crammed for finals as the Aseret Yemi Teshuva, the ten days of repentance for
Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth
151
one’s indiscretions between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Students recast
the phenomenon of cramming, a common aspect of high school culture, in
a religious light, comparing the idea of making up for one’s failure to study
responsibly throughout the semester to one’s failure to act righteously throughout the year. Bais Yaakov students replicated the general practice of publishing
humorous candid photos and captions in yearbooks, but did so using biblical
verses and rabbinic sayings. A photo showed a student dressed as a Hasidic
man, complete with a fake beard and the fur hat and garb commonly worn by
Hasidim. She appeared surrounded by her laughing classmates. The caption
beneath the picture read, “B’makom shein anashim, hishtadel lihiot ish [In a place
where there are no men, try to be a man].” Students took a famous rabbinic dictum, which instructed a person to take a leadership role where no leaders exist,
and applied it very literally, humorously acknowledging their single-sex education environment and traditional gender roles and expectations. For students,
religious books, rabbinic adages, movies, television shows, and song lyrics all
presented viable options as sources of cultural material.27
School leaders did not succeed in controlling student behavior in the arena
of popular culture to the extent that they succeeded in regulating dress, an
inherently public form of expression. After all, students could consume television and music in the privacy of their own homes and escape detection. While
school leaders sought to replace parents by creating policies that enforced their
standards of conduct outside of school, with respect to popular culture, they
did not fully succeed. All students would need was one parent who permitted
exposure to popular culture or did not strictly monitor behavior in the home,
and a myriad of students would have access. Additionally, by living in America,
and walking the streets of urban New York, even girls without televisions were
going to be exposed to elements of American popular culture. Indeed, even
though Bais Yaakov schools and the leadership of the Yeshivish community
condemned television, movies, and secular music, students did not always conform. They actively, and at times brazenly, disregarded their schools’ rules and
messages regarding popular culture and incorporated it into their own youth
culture. Students mixed secular and Jewish language and concepts in creating
humor that only they, as Orthodox girls, could understand and a hybrid youth
culture to which only they belonged.
SEPARATING THE SEXES
When the Yeshivish rabbinic leadership perceived that premarital sex had
become more acceptable in secular American culture and criticized that
trend, Bais Yaakov schools became stricter on issues relating to male-female
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relationships. Schools actively disapproved of all coeducational activities, such
as casual socializing, coeducational Jewish youth group events, and dating.
In the 1970s, BJHS and BYA students commented in their yearbooks that their
schools had banned them from going to neighborhood kosher restaurants
and shops. The schools restricted students from frequenting such locations
to prevent their socializing with boys. “The pizza stores that opened in those
years were hang-outs. And we didn’t want our girls caught in any hang-outs,”
Z’havzi said. The proximity of school and home to these establishments and
the accompanying fear of being seen by faculty and other adults passing by
served as a deterrent to students. It is important to note that schools went
beyond restricting behavior within the four walls of school. Schools restricted
behavior outside of school hours and off campus as well. Schools created rules
that applied to students even during times when they seemingly fell under their
parents’ jurisdiction, and students expressed their displeasure.28
Some students did break these rules and, if caught, could face stiff consequences. Dating boys and influencing other girls to get involved with boys
constituted grounds for expulsion. However, BJHS rarely expelled students, as
Kaplan generally hoped to rehabilitate errant girls. The leadership of BYA in the
1970s did not share BJHS’s reticence to expel students. In 1978, to combat falling
enrollment numbers resulting from a reputation for having a student body of
a lower religious caliber, the administration expelled its sophomore class. That
class, which had entered in 1976, contained a number of students whom administrators considered threats to the school’s standing in the Yeshivish community. According to a school administrator, the school leadership felt that those
class members did not fit into the school’s ideology and that the school could
not do anything to change them. BYA school leaders wanted to have students
they could “mold,” and they found these girls unreceptive to their guidance.
While they would not provide specific reasons for that class’s expulsion, a BYA
administrator listed behaviors such as fraternizing with boys and smoking as
typical grounds for expulsion. Former students state that the school expelled
the class because one of the students became pregnant. The school, not wanting
to have its reputation permanently marred and wishing to rebuild the school,
expelled the entire group. Accordingly, BYA had no graduating class in 1980.29
Regardless of the reason for the expulsions, the action paid off. Parents realized the school’s commitment to its stated religious standards, and enrollment
increased significantly the next year. The incoming freshman class the year of
the expulsion contained twenty students. The following year’s class had fortynine students, and within the next few years, enrollment grew considerably.
The class of 1985 had fifty-three graduates and the class of 1988 had seventy
Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth
153
graduates. The school, having cemented its reputation as a religiously strict Bais
Yaakov, continued to have high enrollment into the early twenty-first century.30
Sociologist Samuel C. Heilman described Orthodox society in the 1960s and
onward as “an Orthodoxy that devalues American acculturation and continues
to raise the ante for those who want to consider themselves truly bound to Jewish
tradition.”31 This certainly proved true for girls and their schools. In order to
qualify as good Bais Yaakov girls and remain within the boundaries of Yeshivish
Orthodox girlhood, girls needed to increase their religious observance. In order
to remain competitive and viable, a school had to demonstrate its strict religious
status, more so than excellence in academics or any other aspect of school life.
ACCEPTANCE AND RESISTANCE, BUT NO GREAT REBELLION
There are no signs that school leaders encountered major opposition with respect
to their directives, either from parents or students. Within the Yeshivish Orthodox
community, the impetus to maintain traditional religious life superseded the desire
to partake in American culture. While many parents, themselves Bais Yaakov and
yeshiva graduates, likely supported the new rules voluntarily, the reality remains
that if they wanted their daughters in a Bais Yaakov school, they had little choice.
Schools had no compunction about teaching different values than the home. In
the case of television, parents who owned televisions and wanted their daughters
accepted into a Bais Yaakov school that restricted ownership would have to lie on
the application. Additionally, parents that might have permitted their daughters to
attend a local restaurant or even to date would have been forced to reinforce the
schools’ restrictions or risk their child facing expulsion. The former students who
were interviewed all attested to a general acceptance on the part of students of the
stricter standards promulgated by Bais Yaakov schools. The one major incidence of
what school leaders considered excessive student recalcitrance, the BYA class that
was punished with expulsion, was viewed by students and administrators alike to
be a surprising deviation from the norm. This can be seen both through the administration’s strong reaction and from the former BYA students, who forty years after
the fact still speculate as to what precipitated the expulsion. Even during the era of
student protest, no indications exist that Bais Yaakov students engaged in any open
rebellions against their schools or community.32
Looking at the reactions of school leaders throughout the years, it becomes
apparent that they allowed some minor resistance. While faculty advisors may
not have caught all of the allusions to popular culture, many references and the
critiques of rules are quite explicit. Perhaps leaders let students have their small
rebellion or turned a blind eye to students ignoring the rules for the greater success of their socialization project. In letting students vent their frustrations in a
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SOCIALIZING ORTHODOX JEWISH GIRLS THROUGH SCHOOLING
humorous way, leaders may have diffused the tension that could have exploded
into a more significant rebellion. While student dissatisfaction was evident, it
was limited to the pages of faculty-approved school yearbooks. In yearbooks,
girls could safely protest, gently poking fun within the boundaries of their community. Additionally, when they broke rules, they did so by watching television
or going to a movie. They generally did not engage in the behaviors, such as
sexual promiscuity, that the rabbinic leaders designed the new restrictions to
prevent. Only when a trend threatened to greatly influence other students to
stray from Orthodox practice and values, and potentially involved a major
infraction of religious law, did school leaders take decisive action.
The history of Bais Yaakov girls tells a new story that complicates the narrative of Orthodoxy, gender, and religious education. It shows that education was
the primary means by which the dictates of male rabbis were distilled to girls.
Considering that rabbinic and school leaders emphasized observance, such as
modest dress, in a way that was very gendered, girls and women experienced
the religious shift to the right differently than boys and men. Their voices and
experiences provide much-needed new perspectives. Furthermore, it shows
that this socialization was not a unilateral process. Whether they accepted what
they were told or resisted, girls were actively engaged.
Indeed, by strengthening school rules and teaching values, Bais Yaakov
school leaders succeeded in changing girls’ behavior and ensuring their commitment to their religious community. While girls were sufficiently aware of the
religious socialization happening in school to critique it, the values did speak
to them, as evidenced by their general adherence to the messages they received
from school leaders. On the whole, Bais Yaakov students chose to accept and
adopt the stricter standards and values their schools promoted, and that can be
considered an expression of agency as well.
Even in this controlled environment, students found ways to effect some
change in the structure of their lives. Students protested and expressed cynicism towards the religious changes imposed upon them. They actively engaged
with the socialization process, which resulted in school leaders adapting their
expectations in line with the realities of their student body. Finally, girls crafted
a hybrid youth culture and found ways to express it within a highly regimented
society—even within their schools, the institutions designed to ensure their
socialization into community norms.
NOTES
1.
Hamaayan, Bais Yaakov Academy (1974); Yocheved Z’havzvi, interviewed by Leslie
Ginsparg Klein, July 15, 2008. The names of the subjects of oral history interviews have
been changed. All names of individuals appearing in print sources remain unchanged.
Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth
155
2.
For the use of yearbooks and other student publications as a historical source, see Jane H.
Hunter, How Young Ladies Became Girls: The Victorian Origins of American Girlhood
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002); and Kelly Schrum, Some Wore Bobby Sox:
The Emergence of Teenage Girls’ Culture, 1920–1945 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan,
2004). For the role of education in girls’ socialization and the creation of girl culture,
see for example, “Grown Girls, Highly Cultivated”: Female Education in an Antebellum
Southern Family,” in The Girls’ History and Culture Reader: The Nineteenth Century,
eds. Miriam Forman-Brunell and Leslie Paris (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2011);
Melissa R. Klapper, Jewish Girls Coming of Age in America, 1860–1920 (New York: New
York University Press, 2005); and Schrum, Some Wore Bobby Sox. While not focused on
education, Ilana Nash, American Sweethearts: Teenage Girls in Twentieth-Century
Popular Culture (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006) is important for the role of
popular culture in the creation of girl culture and the presence of multiple youth cultures.
Miriam Formanek-Brunell, Made to Play House: Dolls and the Commercialization of
American Girlhood, 1830–1930 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993) is
important in its insistence on challenging the assumption of girls’ passivity and satisfaction
and in its providing an example of girls coopting a socializing agent for their own purposes.
The literature, especially that focused on education, stresses the importance of including
the perspectives of girls and not assuming that the prescriptions of adults mirrored the
actual behavior of girls.
3.
For a general discussion about gender roles in Judaism and the need to include women
in the historical record and reevaluate previous conceptions of Jewish history with the
inclusion of women, see for example, Karla Goldman, Beyond the Synagogue Gallery
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), 1–16. For histories of Orthodox education, see for example, William Helmreich, The World of the Yeshiva (New York: Free
Press, 1982); and Jeffrey S. Gurock, The Men and Women of Yeshiva (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1988).
4.
BYA was originally part of Esther Schoenfeld High School, located on Manhattan’s Lower
East Side. For the prevalence of Bais Yaakov schools in America, see Torah Umesorah,
Directory of Day Schools in the United States and Canada (New York: Torah Umesorah
Publications, 2002). For a detailed discussion on the history of Bais Yaakov in America, see
my doctoral dissertation, Leslie M. Ginsparg, “Defining Bais Yaakov: A Historical Study of
Yeshivish Orthodox Girls High School Education in America, 1963–1984” (PhD dissertation,
New York University, 2009), on which this article is partly based. The name Bais Yaakov,
which literally translates as “house of Jacob,” refers, in traditional Judaism, to women. Beth
Jacob is the Anglicization of Bais Yaakov. For the history of Bais Yaakov in Europe and
Sarah Schenirer’s life history, see Judith Grunfeld-Rosenbaum, “Sarah Schenirer,” in Jewish
Leaders: 1750–1940, ed. Leo Jung (Jerusalem: Boys’ Town, 1953); Deborah Weissman,
“Bais Ya’akov—A Women’s Educational Movement in the Polish Jewish Community: A Case
Study in Tradition and Modernity,” (MA thesis, New York University, 1977); and Shoshana
Pantel Zolty, “And All Your Children Shall Be Learned”: Women and the Study of
Torah in Jewish Law and History (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1993). For Orthodox
Judaism in North America, see for example, Samuel C. Heilman, Sliding to the Right: The
Contest for the Future of American Jewish Orthodoxy (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 2006); Samuel C. Heilman and Steven M. Cohen, Cosmopolitans & Parochials:
Modern Orthodox Jews in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989); and
Etan Diamond, And I Will Dwell in Their Midst: Orthodox Jews in Suburbia (Chapel
Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2000). Yeshivish leaders greatly influenced
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SOCIALIZING ORTHODOX JEWISH GIRLS THROUGH SCHOOLING
American Orthodoxy in its totality. It is worthwhile to note that for most of the American
Orthodox population, socialization took place in educational institutions. Boys and men
learned about standards of Jewish law and their proper roles in society at yeshivot, where
the Yeshivish rabbinic leaders were able to easily transmit their views to their students.
Men, long after they left their yeshiva, would still maintain an affiliation with the institution and turn to their former teachers for religious guidance. Therefore, it is not surprising
that a parallel structure developed for girls and women, where their socialization took place
in schools as well. See William Helmreich, The World of the Yeshiva (New York: Free
Press, 1982).
A brief word about transliteration: I transliterated Hebrew words according to
Sephardic pronunciation, as is common academic practice. However, often people I quoted,
either from interviews or in print, used Ashkenazic or Hasidic pronunciation. A very common difference between the two would be substituting an “s” for a “t”. When quoting interviews, I transliterated according to the subject’s pronunciation. When quoting from printed
sources, I kept the author’s original spelling. I italicized uncommon Hebrew or Yiddish
words in the text and in quotations from interviews. All italics in quotations from print
sources appear in the original.
5.
Heilman, Sliding to the Right, 37–49; Chaim Dov Keller, “The Unbridgeable Gap: The
Youth Culture vs. the Establishment, a Torah Look at the American Reality,” Jewish
Observer, May 1971, 10–11.
6.
Chaim Dov Keller, “The Relevance of Sanctity: How New is the ‘New Morality’?” Jewish
Observer, September 1968, 3–7. See also Jewish Observer, “Agudist Girls Launch ‘Tz’nius’
Drive,” November 1968, 31. For the laws of modesty, see Yitzchak Yaacov Fuchs, Halichos
Bas Yisrael: A Woman’s Guide to Jewish Observance (Oak Park, MI: Targum Press,
1985), 69–81, 103.
7.
“The Aims and Accomplishments of the Beth Jacob Teachers Seminary and High School,”
n.d., Beth Jacob Teachers Seminary of America Archive; F. Borchardt, “To Reach the Heart:
In Appreciation of Rebbetzin Vichna Kaplan z’l upon the Occasion of Her 20th Yahrtzeit,”
Hamodia, August 9, 2006, A50; and Z’havzvi interview, July 15, 2008.
8.
M’gama, Beth Jacob High School of America (1964), 10–11.
9.
M’gama, Beth Jacob High School of America (1970), 10. See also Hamaayan (1972), 7; and
Hamaayan, Bais Yaakov Academy (1974), 19.
10.
M’gama, Beth Jacob High School of America (1970), 57; (1963), 48; and Hamaayan, Bais
Yaakov Academy (1974).
11.
Z’havzvi interview, July 15, 2008; and M’gama, Beth Jacob High School of America (1970),
60–61. For pictures of BJHS students wearing the uniform, see for example, M’gama, Beth
Jacob High School of America (1979). In 1988, BYA instituted uniforms as well. See Rivka
Trept, interviewed by Leslie Ginsparg Klein, September 19, 2008. The rationale of imposing
uniforms to quell competition constitutes a common theme in the scholarship of American
education. See for example, David L. Brunsma, The School Uniform Movement and What
It Tells Us about American Education: A Symbolic Crusade (Lanham, MD: Rowman &
Littlefield, 2004); and Ines Dussel, “When Appearances are Not Deceptive: A Comparative
History of School Uniforms in Argentina and the United States,” Paedagogica Historica:
International Journal of the History of Education 41:1–2 (February 2005): 179–95.
Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth
157
12.
M’gama, Beth Jacob High School of America (1982), n.p.; Beth Jacob Teachers Seminary and
High School Alumnae Bulletin, May 1982, Beth Jacob Teachers Seminary of America Archive.
13.
Hamaayan, Bais Yaakov Academy (1983); Trept Interview, September 19, 2008.
14.
Hamaayan, Bais Yaakov Academy (1983).
15.
For examples of students dressed not in accordance with the laws of modesty, see Halapid,
Esther Schoenfeld High School (1968), (1972); Hamaayan, Bais Yaakov Academy (1968),
(1972), and M’gama, Beth Jacob High School of America (1966), (1970), (1972), (1974). Even
though BJHS had already imposed uniforms by the late 1960s that would ensure modest
dress, students included photographs in the yearbooks that pictured girls in their own
clothing. For examples of pictures reflecting increased standards of modesty, see for example, Hamaayan, Bais Yaakov Academy (1976), (1977), (1983); see for example, M’gama
(1980).
16.
Z’havzvi interview, July 15, 2008.
17.
See for example, Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Baba Bathra 57B.
18.
See for example, “Translation of Rebbetzin Kaplan’s last letter in the Alumnae Bulletin,”
n.d., Beth Jacob Teachers Seminary of America Archive.
19.
“Report of Symposium: The Encounter Between Agudah Ideology and American Jewish
Reality,” Jewish Observer, January 1970, 18. See also Heilman, Sliding to the Right, 37–49;
Bernard Fyshman, “Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are!” Jewish Observer, January
1972, 8–11; and Bernard Fryshman, “On Losing One’s Mind,” Jewish Observer, November
1980, 50–51.
20. Z’havzvi interview, July 15, 2008.
21.
Borchardt, “To Reach the Heart,” A50; Z’havzvi interview, July 15, 2008.
22. Z’havzvi interview, July 15, 2008; and Trept interview, September 19, 2008.
23.
Beth Jacob Teachers Seminary and High School Alumnae Bulletin, May 1982.
24. M’gama, Beth Jacob High School of America (1971), n.p (The Beatles lyric reads, “You and
I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead.”); M’gama, Beth Jacob High
School of America (1974),; Hamaayan, Bais Yaakov Academy (1975).
25.
Hamaayan, Bais Yaakov Academy (1977), 97.
26. M’gama (1970), 60–61.
27.
M’gama (1981), 111, 120–22; (1973). See also (1978), 152.
28. M’gama, Beth Jacob High School of America (1970), 57; Hamaayan, Bais Yaakov Academy
(1974); and Z’havzvi interview, July 15, 2008.
29.
Z’havzvi interview, July 15, 2008; “Bais Yaakov Academy Alumnae List,” courtesy of Bais
Yaakov Academy; Yaakov Rosenfeld, interviewed by Leslie Ginsparg Klein, May 14, 2008; Yael
Schwartz, interviewed by Leslie Ginsparg Klein, June 22, 2007; Tova Goldstein, interviewed by
Leslie Ginsparg Klein, November 12, 2006; and Trept Interview, September 19, 2008.
30. “Bais Yaakov Academy Alumnae List”; Rosenfeld interview, May 14, 2008; Schwartz interview, June 22, 2007; and Trept Interview, September 19, 2008.
31.
Heilman, Sliding to the Right, 10–11.
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SOCIALIZING ORTHODOX JEWISH GIRLS THROUGH SCHOOLING
32. See for example, Esther Appel, interviewed by Leslie Ginsparg Klein, May 28, 2007;
Goldstein interview, November 12, 2006; Leah Greenberg, interviewed by Leslie Ginsparg
Klein, May 28, 2007; Leah Lyons, interviewed by Leslie Ginsparg Klein, May 27, 2007; Tema
Rothberg, interviewed by Leslie Ginsparg Klein, May 28, 2007; Schwartz interview, June 22,
2007; Trept Interview, September 19, 2008; and Z’havzvi interview, July 15, 2008. For examples of student resistance to schools’ attempts at socialization, see David Wallace Adams,
Education for Extinction: American Indians and the Boarding School Experience,
1875–1928 (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1995), especially chapter 7; and
Maryann Dickar, Corridor Cultures: Mapping Student Resistance at an Urban School
(New York: NYU Press, 2008).