stronger society
From Application to Graduation:
Mainstreaming Haredi Students into Regular Campus Studies
By David Jozsef
Pioneering TAU initiative is helping Ultra-Orthodox Jewish students build professional careers previously unattainable to most
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As an Ultra-Orthodox girl educated in a Jerusalem seminary, Ester Tayar was taught at an early age that challenging the teacher was not only frowned upon, it was indicative of a ‘problem child.’ “Since third grade I learned that I had to suppress my desire to understand, to know why,” explains Ester. Now, the 31 year-old wife and mother of two small children is a second-year law student at TAU’s Buchmann Faculty of Law. For the first time in her life, not only is asking questions encouraged, it is expected. “Our professors told us in
our first semester to be critical thinkers, that everything you are told must be questioned. Never accept anything at face value. I was amazed,” she says. Ester is one of 50 fulltime Haredi students currently studying at TAU under a new framework called Trailblazers: The Program for Integrating the UltraOrthodox into Tel Aviv University. The program is unique in its threefold approach to mainstreaming Haredim into regular study programs: first, men and women learn together in non-segregated classrooms alongside secular students.
Second, acceptance criteria are adapted to meet individual educational backgrounds. Third, dedicated academic and other support services are centralized into a “one-stop-shop” of holistic assistance that accompanies students from the moment they apply to the moment of graduation.
Overcoming hurdles Ultra-Orthodox Israelis educated in yeshivas and seminaries face greater challenges than their secular counterparts when applying to university. They
