From the Yeshiva World to the Practical World

The records of the Ministry of Education’s Senior Division for Torah Institutions show that in the 2021–2022 school year, almost fifty thousand (47,749) students attended Haredi higher yeshivot (“yeshivot gedolot”), distributed among 433 diverse institutions. These institutions serve male students aged 17–23 and offer intensive programs of Torah study. Despite attempts to adapt the yeshiva world to meet the needs and characteristics of all types of students, many students struggle to feel fully and completely at home there. The reason for this is that the yeshivot offer a uniform and demanding program of study that not all students are able to cope with. The students’ level of studies in the yeshiva also serves as an indicator of their seriousness and quality ahead of marital matchmaking. Thus, outstanding yeshiva students enjoy the satisfaction of their Torah studies along with material benefits in the form of desirable jobs in religious settings, a good marital match, or generous assistance from their bride’s parents toward the purchase of an apartment. Conversely, students who cannot or do not wish to devote all their time, energy, and future to the Torah world struggle greatly with their studies but are forced to remain in the yeshivot. This is because they have no access to any alternative track for self-realization that is regarded as legitimate by their community, due to the norms that require all boys and young men to engage in full-time and substantial Torah study.

The current study examines the level of satisfaction and the social and personal challenges among young Haredim studying in higher yeshivot. It also examines their attitudes toward possible alternatives to yeshiva studies, such as vocational studies and entering the workforce. The study is based on two types of information: (a) a quantitative survey of 530 yeshiva students aged 17–23 from diverse religious streams and communities; and (b) a qualitative component comprising in-depth interviews with 15 Haredi educators and rabbis, as well as two focus groups comprising a total of 16 yeshiva students from Lithuanian and Sephardi backgrounds.

The study distinguishes between two groups within the population of yeshiva students: (1) a group comprising the majority of students in the ordinary yeshivot of the mainstream Haredi community, in which there is strict attention to study programs and meticulous observance of dress codes and the Haredi religious way of life; and (2) a group comprising some 8,320 students (around 18% of all yeshiva students) who attend around 130 yeshivot that serve young men who find it difficult to engage in religious studies for the whole day. The academic pressure at these yeshivot is lower, and they also offer ancillary classes and social activities that are not considered acceptable in the yeshiva world as a whole. In this study, I refer to these institutions as “soft yeshivot.”1 Accordingly, the respondents in the quantitative survey were also divided between these two populations or groups.