Satmar Decree Bars Women From ‘Dangerous’ College Education
— Hasidic rabbis from the Satmar sect reportedly have issued a decree barring women from pursuing higher education.
The Yiddish-language decree says college education for girls is “dangerous” and “against the Torah,” and that “no girls attending our school are allowed to study and get a degree,” The Independent online newspaper based in Britain reported Tuesday.
According to the Independent, the decree was issued by Satmar leaders in New York and applies to members of the sect worldwide.
Responding to the report, the Board of Deputies of British Jews said in a statement, according to UK’s Jewish News: “The mainstream Jewish community would certainly reject this view. Both Jewish girls and boys should all have the opportunity to go to university if that is what they want to do.”
The Satmar decree said the sect’s schools will not hire women “who’ve been to college or have a degree.”
“We have to keep our school safe and we can’t allow any secular influences in our holy environment. It is against the base upon which our [institution] was built,” the decree said.
Satmar is the largest sect of haredi Orthodox Jews in the United Kingdom, according to the Independent, which said the country’s haredi Orthodox population is estimated at 30,000.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO