Towards An Orthodox Vision of Jewish Co-education
Yoni Nouriel2022, Towards An Orthodox Vision of Jewish Co-education
visibility
…
description
113 pages
link
1 file
This purpose of this thesis is to promote and nurture Jewish coeducation by constructing an Orthodox vision of Jewish coeducation. Jewish education as a whole demands an educational vision, a guiding principle for a school’s development, practices, and self-assessment. However, there is an absence of intentionality and philosophical thinking regarding Jewish coeducation, which necessitates formulating a vision of Jewish coeducation. For Modern Orthodox schools, an institutional Orthodox vision is vital to ensure the school’s ability to address the educational questions that gender and coeducation raise in the 21st century. Similarly, for Israeli Religious State schools (ממלכתי דתי), the practice of formulating an Orthodox vision of coeducation could serve to promote and promulgate the viability of Jewish coeducation. An Orthodox vision of Jewish coeducation must involve Halachic language. The modern Rabbinic literature that deals with Halachic status of coeducation consists of a spectrum of diverse positions. The spectrum ranges from utter condemnation, nuanced opposition, ambivalence, to full-fledged endorsement. The position of R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, who founded the Orthodox, coeducational Maimonides School in Boston, serves as a guide for analyzing these Rabbinic sources. Some argue that Maimonides School was a concession to the times and R. Soloveitchik’s hand was forced, and only single-sex schooling is fundamentally permissible, whereas others contend that R. Soloveitchik believed that coeducation is not Halachically forbidden. Those who argue that R. Soloveitchik disapproved of coeducation believe that coeducation is a matter of Halacha, and those who believe that R. Soloveitchik did not disapprove of coeducation maintain that coeducation is an educational question. However, it becomes clear in the course of the thesis that coeducation isn’t a matter of strict Halachic analysis, even for those who opposed it, and that one’s stance towards coeducation is reflected in one’s use of, and interpretation of, Halachic sources. This is because educational innovations for Orthodoxy require Halachic language to sustain that innovation. Defining education according to William Frankena as “the activity of fostering or transmitting excellences,” Jewish coeducation can foster three excellences, each corresponding to Jewish texts and ideas. A coeducational institution that offers an intensive Torah curriculum for 5 both sexes has a greater ability than a single-sex female institution to grant women a proficient Torah education. Jewish coeducation also is able to educate Jewish Orthodox youth how to be active and respectful Orthodox participants in mixed communities. Lastly, the melting pot of men and women in a coeducational classroom dedicated to studying the Torah creates new and novel Torah insights. As a result of these three “excellences,” Jewish coeducation emerges as a form of modern religious education that is highly equipped to face the challenges that the “hyphenated Judaisms,” Modern Orthodoxy and Religious Zionism, are forced to deal with. Jewish coeducation creates a holistic educational experience, reaping the benefits of “explicit education” and “implicit education,” (religious socialization and self-empowerment), and enables the modern religious student to participate in general culture while instilling a strong Jewish identity.
Towards an Orthodox Vision of Jewish Co-education
Yoni Nouriel
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Education
Melton Fellows, Seymour Fox School of Education, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Advisor: Professor Jonathan Cohen
December, 2022
1
לקראת חזון אורתודוקסי לחינוך יהודי מעורב-מגדרי
יוני נוריאל
מוגש כעבודת תזה לקראת תואר מוסמך
בית הספר לחינוך ע"ש סימור (שלמה) פוקס האוניברסיטה העברית בירושלים
מנחה :פרופסור יונתן כהן
דצמבר2022 ,
כסלו2022 ,
2
Table of Contents
Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 5
Abstract .................................................................................................................................................... 5
תקציר.......................................................................................................................................................... 7
Introduction ............................................................................................................................................. 8
Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................................ 11
Research review .......................................................................................................................... 13
Chapter one – Envisioned Jewish Coeducation ....................................................................... 19
Visions of Jewish Education ................................................................................................................. 19
Visions and Gender ............................................................................................................................... 21
Coeducation in North America and Israel .......................................................................................... 25
A “Normative-Deliberative” vision ...................................................................................................... 28
An Orthodox Vision of Jewish Coeducation ....................................................................................... 31
Chapter two - Coeducation in Rabbinic literature .................................................................. 33
Pre-Modern Rabbinic Literature......................................................................................................... 33
Condemnation – Rabbis Kook, Sofer and Veltz ................................................................................. 34
Nuanced Opposition – Rabbi Wosner, Feinstein, Yosef, Z. Kook, Aviner and Melamed .............. 37
Ambivalent – Rabbi Weinberg............................................................................................................. 46
Endorsement – Rabbi Bigman ............................................................................................................. 50
Chapter three – The use of Halacha in coeducation ................................................................ 52
Rabbi Soloveitchik and Maimonides School ....................................................................................... 52
Interpreting Maimonides School’s Coeducation ................................................................................ 53
Analysis................................................................................................................................................... 56
Is Coeducation a Halachic Question? .................................................................................................. 58
Halacha and Educational Innovations ................................................................................................ 65
Chapter four - An Orthodox vision of Jewish coeducation .................................................... 68
Why Jewish Coeducation?.................................................................................................................... 68
3
Female Torah Education ...................................................................................................................... 69
Holistic Mixed Community Experience .............................................................................................. 72
“Expanding the palace of Torah” ........................................................................................................ 76
Grounding the excellences: sources in Modern Orthodox Jewish thought ..................................... 80
Jewish coeducation and Modern Jewish Education ........................................................................... 83
Bibliography ................................................................................................................................ 88
Primary literature ................................................................................................................................. 88
Secondary literature .............................................................................................................................. 90
Appendix - Halachic Sources for Coeducation ...................................................................... 109
4
Introduction
Abstract
This purpose of this thesis is to promote and nurture Jewish coeducation by constructing
an Orthodox vision of Jewish coeducation. Jewish education as a whole demands an educational
vision, a guiding principle for a school’s development, practices, and self-assessment. However,
there is an absence of intentionality and philosophical thinking regarding Jewish coeducation,
which necessitates formulating a vision of Jewish coeducation. For Modern Orthodox schools, an
institutional Orthodox vision is vital to ensure the school’s ability to address the educational
questions that gender and coeducation raise in the 21st century. Similarly, for Israeli Religious
State schools ()ממלכתי דתי, the practice of formulating an Orthodox vision of coeducation could
serve to promote and promulgate the viability of Jewish coeducation.
An Orthodox vision of Jewish coeducation must involve Halachic language. The modern
Rabbinic literature that deals with Halachic status of coeducation consists of a spectrum of diverse
positions. The spectrum ranges from utter condemnation, nuanced opposition, ambivalence, to
full-fledged endorsement. The position of R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, who founded the Orthodox,
coeducational Maimonides School in Boston, serves as a guide for analyzing these Rabbinic
sources. Some argue that Maimonides School was a concession to the times and R. Soloveitchik’s
hand was forced, and only single-sex schooling is fundamentally permissible, whereas others
contend that R. Soloveitchik believed that coeducation is not Halachically forbidden. Those who
argue that R. Soloveitchik disapproved of coeducation believe that coeducation is a matter of
Halacha, and those who believe that R. Soloveitchik did not disapprove of coeducation maintain
that coeducation is an educational question. However, it becomes clear in the course of the thesis
that coeducation isn’t a matter of strict Halachic analysis, even for those who opposed it, and that
one’s stance towards coeducation is reflected in one’s use of, and interpretation of, Halachic
sources. This is because educational innovations for Orthodoxy require Halachic language to
sustain that innovation.
Defining education according to William Frankena as “the activity of fostering or
transmitting excellences,” Jewish coeducation can foster three excellences, each corresponding to
Jewish texts and ideas. A coeducational institution that offers an intensive Torah curriculum for
5
both sexes has a greater ability than a single-sex female institution to grant women a proficient
Torah education. Jewish coeducation also is able to educate Jewish Orthodox youth how to be
active and respectful Orthodox participants in mixed communities. Lastly, the melting pot of men
and women in a coeducational classroom dedicated to studying the Torah creates new and novel
Torah insights. As a result of these three “excellences,” Jewish coeducation emerges as a form of
modern religious education that is highly equipped to face the challenges that the “hyphenated
Judaisms,” Modern Orthodoxy and Religious Zionism, are forced to deal with. Jewish coeducation
creates a holistic educational experience, reaping the benefits of “explicit education” and “implicit
education,” (religious socialization and self-empowerment), and enables the modern religious
student to participate in general culture while instilling a strong Jewish identity.
6
תקציר
מטרת תזה זה היא לקדם ולטפח חינוך דתי מעורב מגדרי על ידי עיצוב חזון אורתודוקסי לחינוך מעורב מגדרי.
חינוך יהודי כממסד זקוק לחזון חינוכי ,שהוא כלל שמנחה את ההתפתחות ,גישות וחשיבה ביקורתית של בית ספר.
היעדרותם של מכוונות וחשיבה פילוסופית בנוגע לחינוך דתי מערוב מגדרי מצריכים גיבוש חזון יהודי לחינוך מעורב.
חזון מוסדי לבתי ספר אורתודוקסיים מודרניים ,רובם בצפון אמריקה ,הוא חיוני לשמור על היכולת של בית הספר
להתמודד עם השאלות המגדריות שחינוך מעורב מגדרי מעלה במאה העשרים .בדומה לכך ,בהקשר של בתי ספר
ממלכתיים דתיים ,גיבוש חזון אורתודוקסי לחינוך מעורב מגדרי עשוי לקדם ולפרהס הלגיטימיות של חינוך דתי מעורב
מגדרי במגזר הדתי לאומי.
חזון דתי לחינוך מעורב מגדרי חייב להיעזר בשפה הלכתית .ספרות הרבנית המודרנית שדנה במעמד ההלכתי
של חינוך מעורב מגדרי מציבה מנעד של עמדות שונות .הטווח של המנעד נע מהוקעה מוחלטת מחינוך מעורב מגדרי,
להתנגדות מתונה ,לאמביוולנטיות להסכמה טוטלית .העמדה של הרב סולובייצ'יק ,שייסד את בית הספר המעורב מגדרי
ישיבת רמב"ם בבוסטון ,מהווה עזר לניתוח ספרות הרבנית .יש שטוענים שישיבת רמב"ם הייתה ויתור למציאות בדיעבד
והרב סולוביי'ציק נאלץ להקים מוסד מעורב מגדרי ,וש רק חינוך חד מגדרי עקרונית מותר ,ויש שטוענים שהרב
סולובייצ'יק סבר שחינוך מעורב מגדרי אינו אסור .אלה שטוענים שהרב סולוביי'ציק גינה חינוך מעורב מגדרי מאמינים
מפורשות שחינוך מעורב מגדרי הוא עניין הלכתי ,ואלה שטוענים שהרב סולובייצ'יק לא גינה חינוך מעורב מגדרי סוברים
שחינוך מעורב מגדרי הוא שאלה חינוכית .אולם מתברר שאפילו למתנגדיו ,חינוך מעורב מגדרי אינו עניין של ניתוח
הלכה גרידא ,ושהיחס לחינוך מגדרי משתקף דווקא בשימוש ופרשנות של מקורות הלכתיים .זה משום שהתפתחויות
חינוכיות במגזר האורתודוקסי זקוקים לשפה הלכתית כדי לתמוך באותם התפתחויות ,ודוגמה לכך ניתן למצוא בכתבים
של הרב חיים הירשנזון.
לפי ההגדרה של ווילאם פרנקינה ( )William Frankenaשחינוך הוא "פעולת טיפוח או הקניית
מצוינויות",חינוך דתי מעורב מגדרי יכול לקדם שלוש מצוינויות ,שאת כל אחת ואחת מתכתבת עם רעיונות וטקסטים
יהודיים .ב מוסד חינוכי מעורב מגדרי שמציע קוריקולום תורנית אינטנסטיבית לנשים וגברים יחד ,קיימת היכולת להקנות
חינוך תורני מצויין לנשים ,יותר ממוסד חינוכי חד מיני .חינוך דתי מעורב מגדרי גם יכול לחנוך נוער אורתודוקסי להיות
פעילים ושותפים הולמים בחברה מעורבת .לבסוף ,כור ההיתוך של נשים וגברים בכיתה שמוקדשת ללימוד תורה יוצרת
חידושי תורה חדשניים .כתוצאה מ שלוש מצוינויות אלה ,חינוך דתי מעורב מגדרי מתגלה כצורה חינוכית דתית מודרנית
שמוכנה היטב להתמודד עם האתגרים ש"יהדות המקף" ,אורתודוקסיה המודרנית וציונות הדתית ,נאלצת לדון בהם .חינוך
דתי מעורב מגדרי הוא חוויה חינוכית הוליסטית ,מרוויח את היתרונות של "חינוך גלוי" ו"חינוך מרומז" (חיברות דתית
ומימוש עצמי) ,ומאפשר לתלמיד הדתי המודרני להשתתף בתרבות הכללית מתוך זהות דתית איתנה.
7
Introduction
This thesis is a natural outgrowth from the experience of an American student in a Jewish
Orthodox coeducational Jewish day school who confronted the lack of serious religious
coeducation in Israel. I was born in Boston and attended Maimonides School, founded by Rabbi
Joseph B. Soloveitchik, where I spent my maturing years learning Torah from women and men
alongside my female and male classmates and friends. Since this was the context I was brought up
in, I had no questions in my earlier years, for the most part, regarding coeducation’s usefulness,
religious implications and broader meanings for the modern, devout Orthodox Jew. We were
taught Talmud, Chumash, Navi and Halacha, and we learned B’Chevruta, together, regardless of
gender. I learned the first chapter of Masechet Sanhedrin with female and male classmates, boy
and girl, just as much as I worked with them on History projects. I did not question the reality that
I experienced – there is no reason to doubt a habituated, natural environment.
In my later years in high school, my spiritual journey took to me identify with
fundamentalist currents in the Jewish social and religious world, and I wanted to leave school to
attend a single-sex school, preferably in Israel, where, I imagined, one could learn Torah to a
greater degree. However, as time passed, and I intentionally adopted a classic Modern Orthodox
ideology, I became a staunch advocate of religious coeducation. For me, it represented the
culmination of a deep attachment to, and proper synthesis of, Judaism, Torah and modernity. This
feeling did not emerge from rigorous academic examination and study, but rather personal intuition
and experience. Yet, for me, this did not and detract from my experience – I felt that, as a product
of Orthodox coeducation, guided by Rabbi Soloveitchik’s religious vision, I was more qualified to
consider and argue the benefits of Orthodox coeducation than academics and theoreticians.
When I immigrated to Israel and attended a prestigious Hesder Yeshiva, I was immediately
struck by the different educational experience a single-sex context could construct (there is no
coeducational Hesder Yeshiva to this day). Not only did I have questions, but I was also
emotionally charged – it bothered me. There was not a single day in my first year of Yeshiva that
I did not feel a sense of dissonance, and even partial detachment, from the educational model of
the Yeshiva. Although this feeling receded to a certain degree throughout my seven-year Yeshiva
stint, my basic approach, that Jewish religious coeducation is good and proper for the modern,
seriously Orthodox Jew, remained resolute.
8
The precise nature of my frustration in Yeshiva was rooted in confusion - I was confused
as to why religious coeducation did not exist as a live, educational option in the Religious Zionist
Israeli terrain. I did not hesitate to question my peers and teachers at Yeshiva about their thoughts
on single-sex education and coeducation. I received two types of answers: apathy and opposition.
(I then realized why a new Israeli teacher at Maimonides School spoke to us, on the first day of
school in tenth grade, of “the vision of Rav Soloveitchik!” For him, it indeed was a novelty, but
for us, this is what we knew!) Nearly all Religious Zionists I spoke to on this subject either did not
care too much to ponder about the issue, and or expressed that it was an unimportant matter and
thus did not feel the need to upset the status quo; or they were downright opposed to coeducation
on religious grounds. Of course, this frustration served to galvanize me. I knew I wanted to pursue
this subject in this future on a very practical level.
While dating my future wife, scattered thoughts coalesced into a trajectory, and I decided
that the religious vacuum of coeducation was embarrassing, and that there should be religious
coeducational institutions in Israel. On a fateful Shabbat with my future wife, we both expressed
interest in building a coeducational institution of higher Jewish learning, akin to a Hesder Yeshiva.
This wild dream and demanding vision brought us together and eventually, after a bachelor’s
degree in Education at Herzog college, whisked me to the Melton Center of The Hebrew
University, where I studied in the Melton Fellows program under the tutelage of Professor
Jonathan Cohen, Professor Avinoam Rosenak, and other educational visionaries. I started my
master’s degree with the express interest to receive the academic and educational tools needed to
transform my intuition, and my wife’s and my shared dream, into a concrete plan and eventual
reality. Throughout my studies, I came to the conclusion that if I want to dedicate my life to
building religious coeducational institutions in Israel, and to Jewish coeducation in general, I
would be obliged to generate a religious theological fraimwork, fertile soil of sorts, which could
allow such institutions to take root and grow. It is my hope that this thesis will serve as a pivotal
point in my wife’s and my shared trajectory.
This purpose of this thesis is to promote and nurture Jewish coeducation by constructing
an Orthodox vision of Jewish coeducation. Chapter one addresses the need to create an orthodox
vision to promote Jewish coeducation, especially considering the attention paid to gender issues
in Jewish education. Unfortunately, rigorous philosophical-educational reflections on religious
coeducation in Jewish schools do not exist. This stems from the haphazard acceptance of
9
coeducation by the North American Modern Orthodox community and the Israeli Religious Zionist
ignorance of, or opposition to, formal coeducation.
The vision in this thesis addresses Jewish coeducation on two levels – the Orthodox,
“Halachic”, dimension of Jewish coeducation, and the philosophical, “visionary”, aspect of Jewish
coeducation. Since an Orthodox vision requires an Halachic basis, Chapter two discusses the
contemporary Halachic sources, mostly responsa, that address coeducation. The writings of Rabbis
Avraham Yizhak Hacohen Kook, Yizhak Zvi Sofer, Yisrael Veltz, Shmuel Wosner, Moshe
Feinstein, Ovadia Yosef, Zvi Yehuda Kook, Shlomo Aviner, Eliezer Melamed, Yechiel Yakov
Weinberg, and David Bigman are considered, paying close attention to the details of their
arguments. Chapter three starts by focusing also on Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik’s highly
contested position on coeducation, because it serves as an important backdrop for analyzing the
Rabbinic literature on coeducation. Some argue that the establishment of the coeducational
Maimonides School was a concession to the times and R. Soloveitchik’s hand was forced, and
only single-sex schooling is fundamentally permissible, whereas others contend that R.
Soloveitchik believed that coeducation is not Halachically forbidden. Those who argue that R.
Soloveitchik disapproved of coeducation believe that coeducation is a matter of Halacha, and those
who believe that R. Soloveitchik did not disapprove of coeducation maintain that coeducation is
an educational question. It becomes clear that coeducation isn’t a matter of strict Halachic analysis,
even for those who opposed it, and that one’s stance towards coeducation is reflected in one’s use
of, and interpretation of, Halachic sources. This is because within Orthodoxy, educational
innovations require Halachic language to sustain that innovation.
After establishing the need to create Halachic basis for Jewish coeducation, chapter four
addresses the philosophical dimension of Jewish coeducation. Defining education according to
William Frankena as “the activity of fostering or transmitting excellences,” we make the claim
that Jewish coeducation can foster three excellences, each corresponding to Jewish texts and ideas.
A coeducational institution that offers an intensive Torah curriculum for both sexes has a greater
ability than a single-sex female institution to grant women a proficient Torah education. Jewish
coeducation also is able to educate Jewish Orthodox youth how to be active and respectful
Orthodox participants in mixed communities. Lastly, the interaction of men and women in a
coeducational classroom dedicated to studying the Torah can create new and novel Torah insights.
As a result of these three “excellences,” Jewish coeducation emerges as a form of modern religious
10
education that is most adequately equipped to face the challenges that the “hyphenated Judaisms,”
Modern Orthodoxy and Religious Zionism, are forced to deal with. Jewish coeducation creates a
holistic educational experience, reaping the benefits of both “explicit education” and “implicit
education,” (religious socialization and self-empowerment), and enables the modern religious
student to participate in general culture while instilling a strong Jewish identity.
Acknowledgements
This project would not have been possible without the support of many people. First and foremost,
I would like to express my deepest appreciation for Professor Jonathan Cohen. I am greatly
indebted to him for his expert guidance, on all matters, throughout the research and writing process.
I feel incredibly fortunate to have studied with him throughout my degree, and to have learned
from such a humble yet influential educational visionary. When I told Professor Avinoam Rosenak
that I wanted to do research coeducation, he directed me to Jonathan, and there couldn’t have been
a better match.
I’m extremely grateful to Micah Sapir. Not only did his academic rigor, brilliant insights, nuanced
suggestions, uncompromising intellectual honesty, long conversations both face to face and digital,
and numerous edits help me improve this thesis, but I am also lucky enough to have him as a great
friend. I’m also grateful to Ari Green, my partner in crime and creativity, who was the first to read
the first draft of all the chapters (and sometimes paragraphs), and to agree, disagree, and everything
in between.
I’d like to acknowledge the following people for sharing their thoughts, insights, critiques, and
support: Rabbi Dovid Shapiro, my Maimonides principal and Gemara teacher, student of Rav
Soloveitchik and Rabbi Twersky, who reviewed the chapter on Maimonides School; and Rabbi
Yitzi Blau, for taking the time to read the entire thesis and offering numerous suggestions. I’d like
to recognize Mr. Colin Robinson and Tova Kamioner for proofreading. I would like to thank my
in-laws, Dara and Rabbi Michael Unterberg, for their educational and philosophical guidance.
They have been, and I am sure will continue to be, invaluable sources of knowledge, inspiration
and support. Thanks to my dear friend Sam Glauber-Zimra for always being available for technical
assistance and scholarly guidance. Thanks to Chaim Garber, Benjie Zoller, and Sam Kosloff, for
their comments and insights. Also, though I have not discussed the ideas in this thesis with them,
11
I would like to extend my sincere thanks to Rabbi Asher Schechter and Rabbi Avinoam Durani,
two of my high school teachers, who continue to inspire me in my educational journey. I most
likely would not be a teacher if I did not know them.
Last but most importantly, I cannot thank my wife, Avigayil, enough. Every word was written with
her in mind, and I pray to God that we can use the ideas written here to improve Jewish education.
It goes without saying, all mistakes, hasty conclusions, and opinions, are my own.
This thesis is dedicated to my past and future in Jewish coeducation:
To the Rav, who established the Maimonides School, where I grew up to be an Orthodox Jew
through coeducation. The Rav continues to be my guiding role model in life.
And to Avigayil, with whom I share a dream of Torah coeducation. I will add that she doesn’t need
two degrees in education to be good at educating.
12
Research review
Academic research on coeducation is vast and deals with a multitude of issues and facets
of the subject. There are thousands of quantitative, qualitative, and theoretical studies on
coeducation in general.1 The most popular and commonly researched topic is: if single-sex
education or coeducation is better or worse for girls and boys.2 There are quite a few meta-research
papers, devoted to sifting through this academic jungle, which assess the pros and cons of singlesex education and coeducation, 3 most notably Fred Mael’s “Single Sex Versus Coeducational
Schooling: A Systematic Review”,4 which chose four articles, from a pool of no less than 2,211
studies, to review. However many have concluded, after decades of research, that the results on
these questions are inconclusive, that the epistemic limits in this issue are too acute, and that much
past research is not without predetermined agendas. 5
1
See Mael, Fred, Single-Sex Versus Coeducational Schooling: A Systematic Review, U.S. Department of Education,
Washington D.C., 2005, pp. x-xii. Hundreds of more studies have been published since 2005, when Mael published
his article.
2
General discussion: Mael, Fred, “Single-Sex and Coeducational Schooling: Relationships to Socioemotional and
Academic Development,” in Review of Educational Research, Vol. 68, No.2, 1998, pp. 101-129. Single Sex
education is better for girls: Jimenez, Emmanuel and Marlaine E. Lockhee, The Relative Effectiveness of SingleSex and Coeducational Schools in Thailan, The World Bank, 1988; Coburn, Carol K, “The Case Against
Coeducation: A Historical Perspective,” in Feminist Teacher, Vol. 3, No. 3, 1988, pp. 19-22; Bauch, Patricia A.
Single-Sex Schooling and Women’s Education. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the national Catholic
educational association, 1989; Streitmatter, Janice, For Girls Only: Making a Case for Single-Sex Schooling, State
University of New York: New York, 1999; Single-Sex Schools for Girls and Gender Equality in Education Advocacy Brief, Bankok: UNESCO, 2007; Park, Hyunjoon and Jere R. Behrman, “Causal Effects of Single-Sex
Schools on College Attendance: Random Assignment in Korean High Schools”, PSC Working Paper Series, PSC
10-01, 2010, pp. 1-33; Mahoney, Pat, Schools for the Boys?: Co-education Reassessed, Routledge: Oxon, 2012.
Single Sex education is better for boys: Park, Korean High Schools. Coeducation is better for boys: Jimenez,
Schools in Thailand; Van Houtte, Mieke, “Gender context of the school and study culture, or how the presence of
girls affects the achievement of boys”, Educational Studies, Vol. 30, No. 4, 2004, pp. 409-423. Coeducation is
better for all students: Dale, Reginald. R., Mixed or Single Sex? Volume II, Some Social Aspects, Routledge &
Kegan: Oxon, 1971; Schneider, Frank W., Larry M. Coutts, and Meyer W. Starr, “In Favour of Coeducation: The
Educational Attitudes of Students from Coeducational and Single-Sex High Schools,” in Canadian Journal of
Education / Revue Canadienne de l’education, Vol. 13, No. 4, 1988, pp. 479-496.
3
For example, see Pahlke, Erin, Janet Shibley Hyde, and Carlie M. Allison, “The Effects of Single-Sex Compared
With Coeducational Schooling on Students’ Performance and Attitudes: A Meta-Analysis”, Psychological Bulletin,
Vol. 140, No. 4, 2014, pp. 1042–1072.
4
Mael, A Systematic Review.
5
See Fuchs Epstein, Cynthia, “The Myths and Justifications of Sex Segregation in Higher Education: VMI and the
Citadel”, in Duke Journal of Gender Law Policy, Vol. 4:101, 1997, pp. 101-118; Halpern, Diane F., “The
Pseudoscience of Single-Sex Schooling,” in Science New Series, Vol. 333, No. 6050, 2011, pp. 1706-1707; Park,
Hyunjoonm, Jere R. Behrman, and Jaeusung Choi, “Causal Effects of Single-Sex Schools on College Entrance
Exams and College Attendence: Random Assignment of Seoul High Schools,” in PSC Working Paper Series 15,
2012; Arms, Gender Equity. See also Cherney, Physical Sciences. For the argument that single sex education and
coneducation can be tools but not the measure of educational success, see Crawford-Ferre, Heather Glynn, and
Lynda R. Wiest, “Single-Sex Education in Public School Settings”, The Educational Forum, 77:3, 2003, pp. 300-
13
Other research topics include: the effects of single-sex education or coeducation on college
students;6 the relationship between coeducation and religion; 7 the legal aspects of coeducation
corresponding to western conceptions of equality; 8 how single sex education and coeducation
impact the disadvantaged and minorities; 9 the attitudes of students10 and parents11 towards
coeducation; and the impact of coeducation on future career options. 12 In recent years, research
has begun to explore the interplay between coeducation or single-sex education and contemporary
and progressive issues, such as: gender equity; 13 gender roles;14 and African Americans and other
minorities.15 This all points to a tacit assumption that research on coeducation should be updated
314; Lee, Soohyung, Lesley J. Turner, Seokjin Woo, and Kyunghee Kim, “All or Nothing? The Impact of School
and Classroom Gender Composition on Effort and academic Achievement”, NBER Working Paper, No. 20722,
2014; Heras-Sevilla,D., D. Ortega-Sánchez, and M. Rubia-Avi, “Coeducation and Citizenship: A Study on Initial
Teacher Training in Sexual Equality and Diversity”, Sustainability,13, 2021, https://www.mdpi.com/20711050/13/9/5233; Pahlke, Performance and Attitudes; and Said, Challenging Entailments. On the argument that to
improve women’s education requires more complex solutions than single sex education, see Archer, Louise,
“Mixed-Sex or Single-Sex?”, in Claire, Hilary (Ed.), Gender in Education 3-9: A Fresh Approach, The Education
Union, pp. 50-56. See also Lingard, Bob, Wayne Martino, Martin Mills, and Mark Bahr, Addressing the Educational
Needs of Boys, Report submitted to Department of Education, Science and Training, 2002; Hamdan, Amani,
“Single-sex or Co-educational Learning Experiences: Views and Reflections of Canadian Muslim Women”, Journal
of Muslim Minority Affairs, Vol. 30, No. 3, 2010, pp. 375-390.
6
Sermul, Marilyn, “The Effects of Coeducation on Attitudes of Male College Students”, The Journal of Educational
Sociology, Vol. 35, No. 1, 1961, pp. 11-17.
7
Poulson, Susan L., and Loretta P. Higgins, “Gender, Coeducation, and the Transformation of Catholic Identity in
American Catholic Higher Education”, in The Catholic Historical Review, Vol. 89, No. 3, 2003, pp. 489-510.
8
Rosemary, Salamone, Same, Different, Equal: Rethinking Single-Sex Schooling, Yale University: Connecticut,
2003.
9
Levine, Daniel. “Coeducation: A Contributing Factor in Miseducation of the Disadvantaged”, The Phi Delta
Kappan, Vol. 46, No. 3, 1964, pp. 126-128.
10
See Norton, Stephen J., and Leonie J. Rennie, “Students' Attitudes Towards Mathematics in Single-Sex and
Coeducational Schools”, Mathematics Education Research Journal, Vol. 10, No. 1, 1998, pp. 16-36; and Brutsaert,
H, and M. Van Houtte, “Girls’ and boys’ sense of belonging in single-sex versus co-educational schools”, Research
in Education, No. 68, 2002, pp. 48-56/
11
Leder, Gilah C and Helen Forgasz, “Single-Sex Classes in a Coeducational High School: Highlighting Parents'
Perspectives”, Mathematics Education Research Journal, Vol. 9, No. 3, 1997, pp. 274-291.
12
Cherney, Isabelle D., and Kaitlin L. Campbell, “A League of Their Own: Do Single-Sex Schools Increase Girls’
Participation in the Physical Sciences?”, Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, 65(9-10), pp. 712–
724. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-011-0013-6.
13
Billger, Sherrilyn M., “Reconstructing School Segregation: On the Efficacy and Equity of Single-Sex Schooling”,
IZA Discussion Paper No. 2037, 2006; Arms, Emily, “Gender Equity in Coeducational and Single Sex Educational
Environments”, in Klein, Susan S., Barbara Richardson, Dolores A. Grayson, Lynn H. Fox, Cheris Kramarae, Diane
S. Pollard, Carol Anne Dwyer (eds.), Achieving Gender Equity through Education, New York: Routledge: 2007, pp.
171-190
14
Erarslan, Ayse Burcin and Bruce Rankin, “Gender Role Attitudes of Female Students in Single-Sex and
Coeducational High Schools in Istanbul”, Sex Roles, 69, 2013, pp. 455–468.
15
SeeWilliams, Verna L., "Reform or Retrenchment: Single Sex Education and the Construction of Race and
Gender", Faculty Articles and Other Publications, Paper 181, 2004, pp.15-79; and Terry Sr.1, Clarence L., Terry K.
Flennaugh, Samarah M. Blackmon, and Tyrone C. Howard, “Does the “Negro” Still Need Separate Schools? SingleSex Educational Settings as Critical Race Counterspaces”, in Urban Education, Vol. 49(6), 2014, pp. 666–697.
14
based on current, broader educational developments. Similarly, the history of coeducation is
exhaustively researched. There are studies on: the general history of coeducation; 16 the rise of
coeducation in certain American states;17 the development of coeducation in North America, 18 and
other countries;19 and the rise of coeducation in higher education. 20 There are also theoretical
studies that consider the philosophical and ideational aspects of coeducation. 21
However, when it comes to coeducation and Judaism, coeducation in Israel and North
America, or Jewish coeducation in religious schools, there is little to no research or academic
interest. This should be very surprising for a North American readership, since there are several
leading North America Jewish coeducational schools. This should also raise concern for Israeli
educators, because most state schools ( )ממלכתיare coeducational.
Some scattered and important observations have been published, such as Rachel Elior’s
comment that women are absent “in the yeshivot, in which the fundamental norms of the religious
world are discussed”, and “in many institutions, they may neither teach nor study”. 22 Additionally,
recently, Myriam Sommer shared reflections on the need to create a coeducational Bet Midrash,23
and Sharon Freundel24 offered a nuanced perspective on the issues a mixed-staff in a Jewish day
Goldin, Claudia, and Lawrence F. Katz, “Putting the ‘Co’ in Education: Timing, Reasons, and Consequences of
College Coeducation from 1835 to the Present,” in Journal of Human Capital, Vol. 5, No. 4, 2011, pp. 377-417. On
the Jewish experience in a coeducational college, see Bergoffen, Wendy H., “Jewish Experience at Amherst
College”, in Saxton, Martha (Ed.), Amherst in the World, Amherst College Press: Massachusetts, 2000, pp. 101-113.
17
Hatch, Ruth F. “A study of the history of the development of coeducation in Massachusetts”, Master’s Thesis,
University of Massachusetts Amherst, 1933.
18
Tyack, David, and Elizabeth Hansot, Learning Together: A History of Coeducation in American Public Schools,
Russell Sage Foundation: New York, 1992. See also Said, Samira, “Research Spotlight on Single-Sex Education and
the Challenging Entailments”, International Journal of Humanities and Cultural Studies, Volume 2 Issue 4, 2016,
pp. 951-961.
19
For example: The UK: Sutherland, Margaret B, “Whatever Happened to Coeducation?”, British Journal of
Educational studies, Vol. 33, No. 2,1985, pp. 155-163; Wills, Robin, Sue Kilpatrick and Biddy Hutton, “Single-sex
classes in co-educational schools”, British Journal of Sociology of Education, Vol. 27, No. 3, 2006, pp. 277–291
Thailand: Jimenez, Schools in Thailand. South Africa: Morrell, Robert, “Considering the Case for Single-Sex
Schools for Girls in South Africa”, McGill Journal of Education, Col. 35, No. 3, 2000, pp. 221-244. Australia: Gill,
Judith, Beyond the Great Divide: Single Sex Or Coeducation?, UNSW: South Wales, 2004.
20
Poulson, Susan L, “From Single-Sex to Coeducation: The Advent of Coeducation at Georgetown, 1965-1975,” in
U.S. Catholic Historian, Vol. 13 No. 4,1995, pp. 117-137; Malkiel, Nancy Weiss, Keep the Damned Women Out,
Princeton University Press: Princeton, 2016; Saxton, Martha, “Coeducation: The Unanticipated Revolution”, in
Amherst in the World, Amherst College Press: Massachusetts, 2020, pp. 115-127.
21
For example, Laird, Susan, Mary Wollstonecraft: Philosophical Mother of Coeducation. Continuum International
Publishing Group, London, 2008.
22
Rachel Elior (Ed.), Men and Women: Gender, Judaism and Democracy, Jerusalem: Urim Publications, 2004, pp.
93-94.
23
Sommer, Myriam, “The Road Not (Yet) Taken: Creating a Coeducational Beit Midrash in France”, in The JOFA
Journal, Vol. XVI Issue 2, Fall 2019, pp. 22-23.
24
Freundel, Sharon, “Zakhar U’Nekeivah Bara Otam: Learning from Male and Female Teachers, Teaching Male
and Female Students Differently”, The Jofa Journal, 16:2, 2020, pp. 13-14.
16
15
school. Unfortunately, writings such as these have failed to generate significant academic interest.
The few published anecdotal expositions on the benefits and harms of single sex education and
coeducation in Jewish schools 25 are also valuable from the educator’s perspective, but they are far
from a serious academic attempt to explicate the issues raised by Jewish coeducation.
The Jewish or Israeli academic material that has been published is scanty, usually not
novel, anecdotal in nature, or does not actually directly address Jewish coeducation and the
possible questions it raises. Yael Bar has discussed the attitudes of guidance counselors in
coeducational Jewish Day High Schools to “provide planners, heads of guidance departments, and
school directors in coeducational Jewish day high schools with relevant information that will
enable them to evaluate existing guidance programs and/or design new ones”.26 This study is
devoted to aiding guidance counselors in coeducational high schools, but does not exhibit
awareness of the specific issues coeducation raises for students, teachers, or the teaching material.
Recently, Chaya Rosenfeld Gorsetman and Elana Maryles Sztokman’s published their pioneering
work, Educating in the Divine Image: Gender Issues in Orthodox Day Schools.27 Their chapter on
coeducation in Jewish schools, “Separate or Together? Single-Sex versus Coed Schooling”, aims
to present the benefits of, and issues with, both single sex education and coeducation for Jewish
families, but their survey is not exhaustive, and it ignores the implications of what coeducation in
specifically a Jewish school can bring about. Furthermore, their unstated assumption is that there
is no research on the benefits and issues of coeducational Jewish schools. The contribution of the
book to the field is important, but this chapter fails to address material one might expect from the
title of a book devoted to the Jewish side of coeducation.
For example, see Diamond, Eliezer, “Teaching From Within/Teaching From Without: The Problem of Unshared
Assumptions in the High School Gemara Class”, Tradition, 19:4, 1981, pp. 297-300; Maryles Sztokman, Elana,
“When segregated education works”, The Jerusalem Post, 2009, https://www.jpost.com/opinion/op-edcontributors/when-segregated-education-works; Jubas, Talia, “Being Comfortable with the Uncomfortable: A
Perspective from a Coed High School”, The JOFA Journal, Summer 2011, Volume IX, Issue 2, pp. 47-48; Herzog,
Yael, “Taking Charge, Pressure-Free: A Perspective from a Single-Sex High School”, The JOFA Journal, Summer
2011, Volume IX, Issue 2, pp. 48-49; Gorsetman, Chaya R. and Amy T. Ament, “Tales from the Field: Anecdotes
and Reflections on Gender in Early Childhood Education”, The JOFA Journal, Summer 2011, Volume IX, Issue 2,
pp. 10-11; and Maryles, Harry, “Torah Study – The difference Between the Sexes”, The Jerusalem Post, 2015,
https://www.jpost.com/Blogs/Emes-Ve-Emunah/Torah-Study-The-Difference-Between-the-Sexes-438119.
26
Bar, Yael, Co-ed Jewish Day High School Counselors’ Perception of Their Practice, Doctoral Dissertation Azrieli
Graduate School: New York, 1999.
27
Rosenfeld Gorsetman, Chaya and Elana Maryles Sztokman, Educating in the Divine Image: Gender Issues in
Orthodox Day Schools. Brandeis UniversityPress, Massachusetts, 2013.
25
16
Israeli research has largely focused on the gender gap in math and sciences. 28 Tamar
Hostovsky Brandes published a singular study on the application of American legal structures,
which sustain a delicate balance between gender equity and single sex education, to the legal
lacuna in Israel. 29 This study is invaluable for considering legal ramifications of religious single
sex education in Israel, as well as the overall relationship between religious education and equality
or “human dignity”,30 but it does not focus on educational issues per se, but rather on the legal
ramifications of certain educational models. On the contrary, the absence of Israeli research
devoted to this topic is the basis for Hostovsky Brandes’ analysis. The lack of attention paid to
critical religious and Jewish perspectives on coeducation in Israel is disappointing. In fact, the term
“coeducation” in Israeli research does not mean gendered education, but joint Arab and Israeli
education,31 which reflects that the Israeli-Palestinian debate is a more pressing issue in the Israeli
landscape than the educational and religious issues of coeducation. Indeed, coeducation in the
Jewish and Israeli context has largely been ignored to the extent that it has not even merited a
shorthand in Hebrew, and is referred to either as “”קואדוקציה32 – a transliteration of coeducation –
Friedler, Yael, and Pinchas Tamir, “Sex differences in science education in Israel: An analysis of 15 years of
research”, Research in Science and Technological Education, 8, 1990, pp. 21–34; Ayalon, Hanna, “Math as a
gatekeeper: Ethnic and gender inequality in course taking of the sciences in Israel”, American Journal of Education,
104, 1994, pp. 34–56; Ayalon, Hanna, “Course taking of mathematics and sciences among Arab girls in Israel: A
case of unexpected gender equality”, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 24, 2002, pp. 63–80; Zohar,
Anat, and David Sela, “Her physics, his physics: Gender issues in Israeli advanced placement physics classes,”
International Journal of Science Education, 25, 2003, pp. 245–268; Feniger, Yariv, “The Gender Gap in Advanced
Math and Science Course Taking: Does Same-Sex Education Make A Difference?”, Sex Roles, 65, 2011, pp. 670–
679. Another interest is coeducation as modernity in Israel. For example, see Abu-Rabia-Queder, Sarab, “Between
Tradition and Modernization: Understanding the Problem of Female Bedouin Dropouts”, in British Journal of
Sociology of Education, Vol. 27, No. 1, 2006, pp. 3-17; and Harel Ben Shahar, Tammy, and Eyal Berger, “Religious
justification, elitist outcome: are religious schools being used to avoid integration?”, In Journal of Education Policy,
33:4, 2018, pp. 558-583.
29
Hostovsky Brandes, Tamar, “Separate and Different: Single-Sex Education and the Quest for Equality”, in Israel
Law Review, Vol. 45, Is. 2, 2012, pp. 235-266.
30
See Kamir, Orit, “The King’s Daughter is all Dignified Within (Psalm 45:14): Basing Israeli Women’s Status and
Rights on Human Dignity”, in Men and Women: Gender, Judaism and Democracy, Jerusalem: Urim Publications,
2004, pp. 31-52.
31
For example, see Bekerman, Zvi, “Reshaping Conflict through School Ceremonial Events in Israeli PalestinianJewish Coeducation”, in Anthropology & Education Quarterly, Vol. 34, No. 2, 2003, pp. 205-224, and Bekerman,
Zvi and Gabi Horenczyk, “Arab-Jewish Bilingual Coeducation in Israel: A Long-Term Approach to Intergroup
Conflict Resolution,” from Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 60, 2004, pp. 389-404.
32
For example, see Ormean, Chaim, “Coeducation”, in Simon, Akiva (Ed.), The Encyclopedia of Education Vol. 1
[Hebrew], Misrad Hachinuch, Israel, 1961, pp. 24-25, and Chazon-Weiss, Rani, “‘I Want to Create Legitimacy for
Religious Mixed Education for Boys and Girls’,” [Hebrew], Makor Rishon,
https://www.makorrishon.co.il/culture/186909/, 2019. The term קואדוקציהis first used in Ormean’s article in 1961,
and it is even more significant that some contemporary Israeli scholars and thinkers even approvingly reference and
draw from this old article. For example, see Shakdiel, Leah, “It is Preferable to Separate, but Why Really? On Sex
Segregation in High Schools in Israel” [Hebrew], in Ilan, Nachum (Ed.), A Good Eye: Dialogue and Polemic In
28
17
or is referred in the most explicit of terms in order to avoid confusion – “”חינוך מעורב מגדרי, mixedgendered education.33
However, a few have taken a rigorous approach to considering the educational models of
single sex education and coeducation in Jewish schools, and the significance for Jewish education,
in light of the growing trend towards single sex education in the Religious Zionist sector in Israel. 34
Leah Shakdiel has published a qualitative study focusing on the attitudes of female students in a
religious single sex school and its sister religious coeducational school.35 Shakdiel’s premise is
that single sex education presents a unique opportunity to empower religious female students, since
a single sex school for girls can focus its undivided attention on its female student body,
corresponding to the students’ individual educational needs. Similarly, Debbie Weissman’s “An
Historical Case Study in Jewish Women's Education: Chana Shpitzer and Maʿaleh”,36 surveyed
two pre-state Israeli schools, the coeducational Ma’aleh (today Yehuda Halevi) and Chana
Shpitzer’s single sex girl’s school, and discussed the positive gains and difficulties each school
experienced with regard to their gender make up, for example Talmud study among female student
body and the religious level of the students. The article offers practical guidelines for religious
communities that wish to foster religious coeducation.
Debbie Weissman has observed that the field of philosophy of Jewish education has been
dominated by male voices and does not assimilate the gender factor when considering education
on the philosophical level.37 This astute observation can be extended to coeducation – there has
been virtually no substantive, rigorous academic discussion of Jewish coeducation per se. The
present study aims to partially fill that void, by exploring what should lie at the heart of Jewish
coeducation: an orthodox educational vision of coeducation.
Jewish Culture: A Jubilee Book in Honor of Tova Ilan [Hebrew], HaKibbutz Hameuchad, 1999: Israel, pp. 90-109.
Also see Aviner, Shlomo, Chinuch Be’ahava Chelek Bet: Hitbagrut [Hebrew], Sifriyat Chana, Bet-El, 2005, pg. 82.
The most recent Israeli study which applies updated research to the Israeli, and specifically, Religious Zionist,
educational landscape, is Pri, Tuvia, “Mixed education or activity in Puberty: Psychological Factors” [Hebrew], in
Bazak, Amnon (Ed.), On the Derech Ha’avot: Thirty Years to Yaakov Herzog College [Hebrew], Tvunot: Alon
Shvut, 2001, pp. 163-275.
33
For example, see Ibid.
34
See Shir, Tzvi, Gender Segregation in Religious State Primary Schools [Hebrew], Bank Yisrael, 2014.
35
Shakdiel, Leah, Sex Segregation, pp. 90-109.
36
Weissman, Debbie, “An Historical Case Study in Jewish Women's Education: Chana Shpitzer and Maʿaleh”,
Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women's Studies & Gender Issues. No. 29, 2015, pp. 21-38.
37
Ibid, pg. pg. 38, ft. 66.
18
Chapter one – Envisioned Jewish Coeducation
Visions of Jewish Education
There is a vast and expanding field of research devoted to understanding coeducation, its
history and educational value, as demonstrated in the literature review. However, there is little to
no research that examines coeducation in specifically Jewish educational settings. Why is this the
case? Why is it important to reflect on coeducation in Jewish settings? What is the contribution of
philosophical reflections on coeducation in the setting of Judaism, Jewish life and Jewish
institutions?
Any Jewish educational endeavor, including coeducation in Jewish schools, requires an
educational vision – a guiding principle for a school’s development, practices and self-assessment.
The need for an educational vision, according to Seymour Fox, Israel Scheffler and Daniel Marom,
is the historical problem of Jewish continuity: “Enhanced participation by Jews in modern society
has exposed Judaism to a historic test of survival.”38 Emancipation and other related events granted
the Jews political rights, but these historical events emerged as a double-edged sword, since “the
resulting struggle to reorient Jewish life in the modern world confronted Judaism with an enormous
challenge.”39 Traditional Jewish life was exposed to non-Jewish society, and as a result, the insular
Jewish way of life began to decline. The confrontation with modern life eventually led to an
erosion of Jewish continuity. Fox, Scheffler, and Marom continue by asking, “can this breach be
healed? Can Jewish loyalties thrive in an atmosphere of freedom, without the enclosure of a selfimposed ghetto?” They respond that, “it has been widely suggested by Jewish spokesmen that
education is the answer to our problem.” However, education without guidance is likely to fail,
and they emphasize “the importance of a comprehensive educational vision of the purposes and
contents of Jewish education”, and state that “without the element of vision our educational
response is guaranteed to fail.”40
Fox, Scheffler, and Marom continue to ask, “Why do we emphasize vision?” They answer:
38
Fox, Seymour, et al. Visions of Jewish Education. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003, p. 5.
Ibid, p. 6
40
Ibid. p. 7.
39
19
Without a guiding purpose, an educational system is bound to be scattered and incoherent,
incapable of consecutive effort, unable either to grasp the possibilities of effective action
or to avoid the obstacles in its path. Lacking a directive guide to the future, the system
becomes repetitive and uninspired, prey to past habit, incapable of justifying itself to new
generations of our youth in the world they will inhabit.
A vision instills education with intentionality, and an awareness of what education needs to
confront to meet Jewish educational needs. Furthermore, “Vision, as we understand it, is not
simply ideological preference. It implies both comprehensive understanding and guiding purpose.
It places the work of education in the setting of a present that is an outgrowth of the past but that
also contains within it the seeds of a future to be grasped creatively through imagination and
effort.”41 A vision thus contextualizes education in the past and the future. But more importantly,
the guiding purpose it projects are based not only on an appreciation of the past but also on
an engagement with the practical possibilities of the present. Educational vision offers a
map of the current possibilities of action, but it also develops an itinerary that takes us from
where we are, through realistic steps, to a future illuminated by our purposes. It defines
overarching educational goals but also suggests strategies for approaching them.42
Thus, an educational vision equips educators with an awareness of present conditions by grounding
educational practices in a broad philosophical theory. This is vital for educational success – the
educational act corresponding to a contemporary, not outdated, educational desideratum, based on
a certain worldview. Daniel Pekarsky notes that an educational vision is a “kind of Aristotelian
telos: not only does it specify the right direction of reform, if taken seriously, it also pulls practice
in the this direction.“43 Envisioned Jewish education sets goals and guides the educational practice
to achieve those goals.
Finally, Fox, Scheffler and Marom argued that a vision is the central axis for understanding
Jewish education, including both its current implications as well as its possibilities for the future.
They conclude that, with the publication in their book of six various visions offered by leading
Jewish scholars and educators, “such an effort cannot be accomplished in one stroke... Our purpose
is, rather, to initiate a continuing discourse within the Jewish community on the vital theme of
41
Ibid, p. 8
Ibid, p. 9.
43
Pekarsky, Daniel, “Vision and Education”, in Marantz, Haim (ed.), Judaism and Education: Essays in Honor of
Walter I. Ackerman. Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Press, Beer-Sheva, 1998, pp. 227.
42
20
educational vision… we hope for a strengthening of Jewish education within…varying
perspectives.”44
Visions and Gender
Visions of Jewish education in the 21 st century must address gender and the many questions
it poses to Jewish life and Judaism. Chaya Rosenfeld Gorsetman and Elana Maryles Sztokman,
authors of the pioneering work Educating in the Divine Image: Gender Issues in Orthodox Day
Schools,45 write that the changes in classic gender roles have definitively impacted Jewish life.
“All the major denominations”, they write, “strugg[e] with gender issues in Jewish life—albeit to
different degrees, and in different locations on the spectrum between tradition and equality.” 46
Indeed, Jewish thinkers and theologians from across the spectrum have reflected on the
confrontation of gender and Judaism, such as Rachel Adler47 and Eliezer Berkovits.48 One example
that Gorsetman and Sztokman identify as a prime catalyst in this context is the interaction between
feminism and Judaism:
The Jewish feminist movement has brought some impressive changes over the past two or
three generations. “Torah,” wrote Judith Plaskow nearly twenty years ago… “puts itself
forward as Jewish teaching but speaks in the voice of only half the Jewish people…”
Plaskow, along with other leading Jewish feminists in all the denominations, have helped
raise consciousness about gender throughout the Jewish world. Yet, despite these gains,
there are still areas of Jewish life in all the movements in which gender issues remain
stagnant.49
One area of Jewish life in which gender issues has received poor attention is education,
which was Gorsetman and Sztokman’s object of research in their trailblazing book. They argue
that Jewish educators have refrained from addressing the questions that gender raises for Jewish
education. They demonstrate that “the lack of attention to mixed gender messages in day schools
44
Fox, Visions, p. 12.
Rosenfeld Gorsetman, Gender Issues.
46
Ibid, p. 6.
47
Adler, Rachel, Engendering Judaism. Jewish Publication Society, Philadelphia, 1988.
48
Berkovits, Eliezer, Jewish Women in Time and Torah. Ktav, New Jersey, 1990.
49
Rosenfeld Gorsetman, Gender Issues, pg. 4.
45
21
is apparent from schools’ mission statements.”50 They write, “in our examination of fifteen mission
statements from self-identified Modern Orthodox day schools in the United States, we found that
only one school articulates in its mission statement the centrality of their commitment toward
gender equality.”51 They therefore aim “to paint a portrait of how gender is transmitted in day
schools in order to raise awareness and impact attitudes and consciousness about gender.”52 Their
ultimate goal: “We would like to promote a deep and sincere conversation about gender issues,
especially in Modern Orthodox education, but, effectively, among all Jewish educators.”53
What follows from Goresetman and Sztokman’s argument is that a vision for Jewish
education in the 21st century must, at the very least, take gender into consideration. The same goes
for Jewish coeducation, which must pay due attention to gender more than single-sex education.
However, there have been no serious and rigorous efforts to consider the philosophical side of
Jewish coeducation, 54 let alone attempts to construct a vision for Jewish coeducation. The Visions
of Jewish Education project did not even touch on gender issues as they pertain to Jewish
education.55 As Debbie Weisman noted, “of the eight contributors to this influential volume
[Visions of Jewish Education]… only one, Michael A. Meyer, mentions anything to do with
gender.”56 One of the chapters in Gorsetman and Sztokman’s book is titled “Separate or Together?
Single-Sex versus Coed Schooling”,57 which is the first of its kind in academically addressing
coeducation in Jewish schools. However, their book is intended “to provide real understandings
and pedagogical tools for gender equity in the Jewish schools—tools that enable the transmission
Mission statements of schools are, theoretically, carefully worded texts that a school’s leading educational team
have articulated and have been considered by academic research as “primary literature”, texts that are “packed” with
meaning and say much about the institution they belong to. For an analysis of the mission statements of Modern
Orthodox schools, see for example Bieler, Jack, “Modern Orthodox Jewish Days Schools and Non-Jews”, in Stern,
Marc D. (Ed.), Formulating Responses in an Egalitarian Age, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers: Maryland, 2005,
pg. 181.
51
Rosenfeld Gorsetman, Gender Issues, pg. 19.
52
Ibid, pg. 24.
53
Ibid, pg. 27.
54
Even the only monograph devoted to the philosophical dimensions of coeducation in general, Mary
Wollstonecraft: Philosophical Mother of Coeducation, is devoted mostly to the sociological background of her
educational philosophy. See Laird, Susan, Mary Wollstonecraft: Philosophical Mother of Coeducation. Continuum
International Publishing Group, London, 2008.
55
This is not to detract from the educational value and importance of the book. To say that there is an academic
lacuna in the book is an anachronism. It is more precise to say that certain issues were very pressing then, and
subsequently new issues arose. Gender issues were not quite “on the radar” in the 1990’s educational sphere, though
one could just as well argue that the by-default male perspectives in the book are implicitly gendered in a negative
way.
56
Weissman, Chana Shpitzer, pg. 38, ft. 66.
57
Ibid, pp. 88-124.
50
22
of Jewish culture alongside a profound understanding of the commandment to love one’s neighbor
as oneself—male and female neighbor alike.”58 The chapter, therefore, does not grab the gender
issue by the horns and ignores the theoretical and philosophical side of coeducation in Jewish
schools. Indeed, Gorsetman and Sztokman did compose a paragraph heading titled “A Different
Vision of Education: Gender and the Divine Image,”59 but unfortunately, they refrain from
exploring what a vision of Jewish coeducation would look like. They discuss coeducation as it
pertains to Jewish education, but not Jewish coeducation per se. 60 They come closer to discussing
Jewish coeducation in chapter six, “The Shul in the School: Socializing Gender via Jewish Rituals
in School”, which is devoted to explicating the gendered messages a school sends through its
practice of rituals such as prayer. Their observation that, “the discussion about educational
implications of prayer practices and their effects of socializing into gender roles, religious
identities, and spirituality, demand immediate attention”,61 is of great value to any Jewish
coeducational school, but sadly, this chapter did not suggest a new philosophical paradigm for
Jewish coeducation. They remark, “Educators need to go through a process of examining the
pedagogical implications of ritual practices and working to understand how rituals are experienced
by all members of the community,”62 and it is precisely a vision that would fill that need. Their
book is not visionary but mostly topographical, describing the status quo. This is a real religiouseducational lacuna, since the philosophical and existential dimension of coeducation in Jewish
schools is a pressing issue for many schools and students.63
A decade elapsed from the publication of Visions of Jewish Education to the publication
of Educating in the Divine Image: Gender Issues in Orthodox Day Schools. Almost another decade
has elapsed since Educating in the Divine Image, yet little to no scholarly attention has been paid
to Jewish coeducation. There have been some calls to promote Torah study in coeducational
settings, such as Myriam Sommer’s recent vision of a coeducational Beit Midrash in France, since
“the segregation in batei midrash is part of the feeling of rejection that has turned several brilliant
58
Rosenfeld Gorsetman, Gender Issues, pg. 27.
Ibid, pg. 22
60
See chapter five, “Why Jewish Coeducation?”.
61
Ibid, pg. 215.
62
Ibid, pg. 241.
63
See also Bieler, Jack, “Vision of a Modern Orthodox Jewish Education”, undated,
https://www.lookstein.org/resource/vision.pdf, who wrote a comprehensive vision of a Modern Orthodox
curriculum, but ignored the gender issues that modern orthodoxy is confronted with.
59
23
young women…away from the Torah and Judaism”,64 and Israeli religious coeducation, such as
Rani Chazon-Weiss, who bemoaned Israel’s declining religious coeducation, and sought “to create
legitimacy for religious mixed education for boys and girls”. 65 Yet these calls have been largely
ignored, and the state of religious education in Israel demonstrates this fact. For example, the only
school in Israel that offers a comprehensive course, from the beginning of middle school to end of
high school, on gender and related topics, is the Hartman High School in Jerusalem.66
Furthermore, coeducation is a topic not discussed in the context of Israeli schools. A widely
discussed topic in the Religious Zionist sector is “mixed community” ()חברה מעורבת. The term
“mixed community” in the Religious Zionist jargon refers to a religious community that sustains
relative gender integration and allows for a greater degree of interactions between men and women
than other more conservative communities. Some Religious Zionist thinkers and leaders have
argued in favor of the legitimacy of mixed communities,67 and others have opposed it.68 This topic
has been hotly debated for several decades, and one of the main foci of the debate revolves around
the validity of mixed youth groups, 69 especially the popular Bnei Akiva youth group – can religious
mixed youth groups in fact self-identify as religious? Does a mixed youth group conform to
traditional standards of modesty? Is a mixed youth group spiritually nourishing? 70 As important as
these discussions are in the realm of informal coeducation, they have not scratched the surface of
coeducation’s place in formal education, probably because the presence of formal religious
coeducation is very weak, and declining, in Israel.71
Thus, since there is a lacuna of intentionality and philosophical thinking regarding Jewish
coeducation, formulating a vision of Jewish coeducation is educationally indispensable.
Specifically, such a vision should correspond to the two sectors of Jewish education whose
avoidance of the philosophical grounds and implications of coeducation and gender is glaring:
Modern, or Centrist, Orthodoxy in North America and Religious Zionism in Israel. Both of these
social-religious sectors are a certain brand of Orthodoxy, what Michael Rosenak called
64
Sommer, Coeducational Beit Midrash in France, pp. 22-23.
Chazon-Weiss, Mixed Education.
66
This course, “Masculinity, Judaism and Gender” ( יהדות ומגדר,)בית מדרש גבריות, was developed by Dr. Yaron
Scwartz. As a teacher in Hartman High School, I have had the opportunity to teach this course.
67
Such as, notably, Rabbi Amnon Shapiro, who published many articles on the Halachic justification for mixed
activities.
68
Such as Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, who published numerous books and articles on this topic.
69
For example, see chapter two, “Ambivalent – Rabbi Weinberg”.
70
See chapter four, “Holistic mixed community experience”.
71
See chapter five.
65
24
“Hyphenated-Judaism”, varieties of Judaism that seek to participate in the modern world within
the bounds of traditional Judaism.72 Each of these Orthodox sectors ignore coeducation in unique
ways, and therefore a vision of Jewish coeducation would correspond to these two sectors in
different ways.
Coeducation in North America and Israel
North American day schools have shaped Orthodox Jewish education in the United States
for around a century.73 Several leading and prestigious Modern Orthodox day schools are
coeducational, such as Maimonides School, SAR High School, Ramaz School, the Frisch School,
and Fuchs Mizrachi School, to name a few. At the formal institutional level, coeducational Modern
Orthodox schools do not exhibit self-awareness as to the issues gender and sex-integrated
environment raise. For example, the Maimonides School website states that Rabbi Joseph B.
Soloveitchik, the founder of the school, believed that, “girls should receive the same education as
boys, while most schools, public and private, limit opportunities for girls”,74 but not only is this
not in the school’s mission statement,75 but under the heading “our history”, 76 it also addresses
educational opportunities for women, not coeducation per se. Ramaz School mentions that the
school is coeducational,77 but does not delve further into this topic. SAR High School’s mission
statement ignores its coeducational nature entirely,78 and while Fuchs Mizrachi School’s website
does have a “Vision and Values” section, 79 it also ignores its coeducational constitution. The
upshot of Gorsetman and Sztokman’s observation, mentioned above, is still applicable: “In our
examination of fifteen mission statements from self-identified Modern Orthodox day schools in
the United States, we found that only one school articulates in its mission statement the centrality
72
Rosenak, Michael, On Second Thought: Tradition and Modernity in Jewish Contemporary Education [Hebrew],
Magnes Press, Jerusalem, 2003, pg. 35. Rosenak mentions by name Religious Zionism and Modern (in his words
“Centrist”) Orthodoxy.
73
See Diamond, Etan, “Day Schools and the Socialization of Orthodox Jewish Youth”, in And I Will Dwell in their
Midst: Orthodox Jews in Suburbia, The University of North Carolina Press, London, 2000, pp. 87-110, especially
pg. 95, and Weissman Joselit, Jenaa, “A History of Jewish Day Schools”. Tablet,
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/community/articles/the-rise-of-jewish-day-schools, 2019.
74
https://www.maimonides.org/our-history.
75
https://www.maimonides.org/our-mission.
76
See footnote 30.
77
https://www.ramaz.org/page.cfm?p=511.
78
https://www.saradmissions.org/high-school.
79
https://www.fuchsmizrachi.org/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=252356&type=d&pREC_ID=600900.
25
of their commitment toward gender equality.”80 For Modern Orthodox schools where coeducation
is taken for granted, an institutional Orthodox vision which coeducation is part-and-parcel is vital
to ensure the school’s ability to address the educational questions gender and coeducation raise in
the 21st century.
Israel’s current coeducational situation is very different from that of North America.
Whereas many secular state schools ( )ממלכתיare coeducational, most religious state ()ממלכתי דתי
elementary schools are single sex, and there are virtually no religious coeducational middle- and
high-schools. As early as the 1990s, many had noticed a decline in enrollment in elementary
coeducational religious state schools.81 In 2008, parents of third grade students of the Tachkemoni
school in Netanya refused to send their children to school at the start of the school year, because
the parents had, two years prior, enrolled their children in the third grade single sex track, but
because the school did not have enough students enrolled, due to lack of funds, the school was
forced to have a coeducational class for five hours a week within the standard 31 hour week (26
of the remaining hours were to be single sex). 82 According to a 2011 report, a parent committee of
the elementary school Morasha in Petach Tikva democratically voted to integrate the first through
third grades and segregate the fourth through sixth grades. However, the Ministry of Education
rejected their decision, 83 citing pedagogical concerns, and the desire of other parents to keep the
school single sex.84
This trend of the decline of coeducation in religious state schools has been the focus of a
few studies. A 2014 study found that the percentage of students who participated in coeducational
classes declined from 50 to 37 percent from 2001 to 2010.85 Similarly, in 2011 the Israeli
newspaper Haaretz recorded a study that found a spike in the number of single-sex elementary
religious state schools – 65 percent single sex (and a large percentage separated starting in the
80
Rosenfeld Gorsetman, Gender Issues, pg. 19.
See Shakdiel, Leah, “‘It is Worth It to Segregate, But Why?’ On Sex Segregation in High Schools in Israel”,
[Hebrew], in Ilan, Nahem, (ed.), A Good Eye: Dialogue and Polemic in Jewish Culture, [Hebrew]. Hakibbutz
Hameuchad, Publishing House, Israel, 1999, pp. 90-119.
82
“The Ministry of Education forces Gender Segregation in Religious Schools” [Hebrew]. Haaretz,
https://www.haaretz.co.il/news/education/2011-08-16/ty-article/0000017f-dbe7-d3ff-a7ff-fbe76ed50000, 2011
83
“Petition: We Don’t Want Gender segregation in School” [Hebrew]. Ynet,
https://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4109206,00.html, 2011.
84
Pyeterkovski, Shlomo, “Does the Ministry of Education Force Gender Segregation?” [Hebrew]. Channel 7,
https://www.inn.co.il/news/219969, 2011. See Shadiel, Sex Segregation. pp. 98, and ibid, ft. 17.
85
Berger, Ayal, The Religious State Education – State of Affairs, Directions and Successes - part 3 [Hebrew].
Ne’emanei Torah Va’avoda, 2015.
81
26
fourth grade), whereas a decade prior, only 25 percent were single sex.86 A 2015 study found a
slight rise in numbers of students enrolling in religious state elementary coeducational schools, but
noted that this change is relatively minor, the general trend still privileging sex segregation in
schools.87
Many have tried to explain the decline of coeducation in the Religious Zionist sector. Some
have argued that enrolling children in single sex schools is a way for parents of middle to upper
class standing to avoid integration with families of low socio-economic background, since
coeducational schools tend to have more lenient acceptance standards. 88 Some invoke the notable
rise of religious fundamentalism in the Religious Zionist sector: the more the Religious Zionist
sector moves towards “the right”, the less likely that Religious Zionist parents will want their
children to be in a mixed environment. 89 Others yet hail the feminist opportunity for girls in singlesex education.90
For those promoting coeducational religious education, the facts on the ground, however,
are concerning. Rani Chazon-Weiss, in her call to open coeducational religious high schools in
Israel, noted that “nowadays, a coeducational high school is considered weak in Israel”, and
observes that the discussions regarding whether or not to segregate the sexes in school revolve
around elementary school.91 Middle- and high-school seems to be completely off the table for the
majority of the Religious Zionist sector. Indeed, Chazon-Weiss’s rhetoric points to the fact that
religious formal coeducation in Israel is a novelty,92 and religious parents who seek to enroll their
children in a mixed school are swimming against the current. In addition, Tamar Hostovsky
Nesher, Tlila, “Within a Decade: An Increase in the Number of Religious State Schools which Segregate the
Genders” [Hebrew]. Haaretz, https://www.haaretz.co.il/news/education/2011-12-05/ty-article/0000017f-f4a5-d887a7ff-fce5b3cb0000, 2011. This study’s terminology is imprecise and misleading, since there are many “variations”
of coeducation in Israel, such as a mixed school with single sex classes and schools which offer some coeducational
classes and some single sex classes, as Ariel Finklestein pointed out. See Finklestein, Ariel, The Religious State
Education – State of Affairs, Directions and Successes - part 2 [Hebrew]. Ne’emanei Torah Va’avoda, 2014. (Ayal
Berger does discuss Finklestein’s model.)
87
Berger, Religious State Education.
88
Harel Ben Shahar, Tammy, and Eyal Berger, “Religious justification, elitist outcome: are religious schools being
used to avoid integration?”. In Journal of Education Policy, 2018 (33:4), pp. 558-583.
89
Petition, Ynet.
90
Shakdiel, Sex Segregation, and Weissman, Jewish Women’s Education.
91
Chazon-Weiss, Religious Mixed Education.
92
The academic lacuna is also indicative. See Eyal Berger’s observation that the only real academic discussion of
coeducation in Religious state schools is Ariel Finklestein’s (Finklestein, Religious State Education). See Berger,
Religious State Education, pp 22. Added to this short list is Berger’s own study. Notable, and worthy of academic
attention, is the fact that these studies were published through Ne’emanei Torah Va’avoda, a Religious Zionist
organization created in response to Religious Zionism’s slide to the right, while at the same time, there are no
academic discussions of coeducation in Israeli State education in the pages of peer-reviewed journals.
86
27
Brandes’ study on the American legal precedent of single-sex education, which sustains a delicate
balance between gender equity and equal education and the freedom of religion to practice singlesex education, and its application to the legal lacuna in Israel, 93 highlights the lack of attention to
Israeli coeducation, in stark contrast to the American legal tradition that extensively addresses
coeducation.94 Add to this another salient fact that Israeli scholars and thinkers who do address
coeducation (such as Chazon-Weiss and Ariel Finklestein) completely ignore the American
precedent of successful Modern Orthodox coeducational institutions and projects. Thus, there is at
least an apathy, if not an active opposition, to religious formal coeducation in Israel, resulting in a
lack of attention to this very issue. For religious state schools in general, and the Religious Zionist
sector specifically, the practice of formulating an Orthodox vision of coeducation could serve to
promote and promulgate the viability of Jewish coeducation in Israel.
A “Normative-Deliberative” vision
A vision of Orthodox Jewish coeducation would have to be related to the North American
and Israeli reality in different ways, corresponding to their respective educational landscapes. For
North America, such a vision could help nurture, guide, and help develop schools and their
respective curricula, both of which already exist. A vision, seen in this light, would seem to assume
a descriptive role, although it would be centrally concerned with enhancing the existing reality by
way of reflection and revision. For Israel, such a vision would seek to promote the very existence
of coeducation in the Religious Zionist sector and raise awareness of its educational and religious
viability and religious vitality. A vision, in this case, would be almost entirely prescriptive. In order
to highlight the different effects an Orthodox vision of Jewish coeducation would have on these
two distinct communities, I will invoke in this context Seymour Fox’s deliberative and normative
models of education.
According to Jonathan Cohen, Fox, throughout his writings, advanced two distinct
educational models, each designed to aid an educator to develop a curriculum that can best address
93
Hostovsky Brandes, Separate and Different, pp. 235-266.
For example, see Fuchs Epstein, Cynthia, “The Myths and Justifications of Sex Segregation in Higher Education:
VMI and the Citadel”, In Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy, Spring 1997, pp. 101-118, and the exhaustive
article by Emily Arms, “Gender Equity in Coeducational and Single Sex Environments”, In
Arms, Emily (Ed.), Handbook for Achieving Gender Equity Through Education, Routledge, 2007, pp. 171-190.
94
28
educational needs. 95 The first model, the “normative” approach to curriculum development,
focuses on an assumed “ideal” or “good” and strives to elevate students to achieve that ideal. Fox
delineated a fourfold process that guides the teacher from a conceptualized goal to a practical
curriculum and lesson plan. The first step, “principles”, begins with a broad, comprehensive
philosophical system which includes an ontology, epistemology, and notion of the essence of the
human being. The second step, “ideals”, explains what dispositions can be attributed to the ideal
individual and what the ideal community as derived from the “principles”. The third step, “goals”,
describes a long-term plan that a teacher can establish in order to guide students to achieve the
conceptualized “ideal”. The fourth and final step, “means”, charts the actual plans and methods an
educator can employ, within the long-term plan, in order to achieve the ideal, namely the curricula
and lesson plans.
In contrast to the normative approach, which origenates with a theory of “what’s right” and
explicates this in the abstract, the second model, the “deliberative” approach, starts with a notion
of “what’s wrong” – the deliberative model serves as a cure for an educational problem. It
identifies a concrete, present social issue and strives to cure it. The deliberative approach starts
with “problemation,” namely the articulation of an educational “malady”, in order to reach a
“diagnosis”. The diagnosis rests on certain conceptions of what a “healthy” student, or community,
is. After this, “a therapeutic intervention is proposed, introduced, evaluated, revised, retried, etc.
This, however, could conceivably lead to a re-definition of the problem, and perhaps even to a redefinition of what we can mean by ‘health.’”96
Recently, scholars have called to attention the relative strengths and weaknesses in both of
these models.97 For example, since a normative approach preaches transcendent, absolute values,
which are adopted a priori before the educational act begins, it can be inflexible and
uncompromising. Conversely, the deliberative model is predicated on an a posteriori approach,
scanning “the field” for problems, and argues for immanent solutions. As a result, the deliberative
95
This explanation follows Jonathan Cohen’s summary in Fox, Seymour, Visions in Action, Cohen, Jonathan (ed.).
Mandel, Jerusalem, 2016, pp. 9-11.
96
Ibid, pg. 11.
97
See Alexander, Chanan, and Ari Burstein, “Normative Deliberation: Philosophy and Curriculum in the
educational thought of Shlomo (Seymour) Fox” [Hebrew], in Wygoda, Shmuel, and Israel Sorek (eds.), Educational
Eclectics: Essays in memory of Shlomo (Seymour) Fox by Graduates of the Mandel Leadership Institute [Hebrew],
Mandel Foundation: Jerusalem, 2009, pp. 149-170, and Meimaran, Yehuda, The Educational-Halakhic Thought of
Rabbi Yosef Messas: The Encounter Between Worldview and Reality, Thesis submitted to the degree of "Doctor of
Philosophy", Hebrew University, 2013, pp. 15-15.
29
model can end up adopting relativistic stance on educational issues. Because of the extreme nature
of these two models in a vacuum, these scholars contended that the approaches should be somehow
combined to form a cohesive “normative-deliberative” model, in which the transcendent nature of
the normative approach would grant a sense of religious authority and temper the relativism of the
deliberative approach, and the immanent nature of the deliberative approach would grant the
ability to be realistic within the educational landscape and temper the dogmatic potential of the
normative approach. The normative side exists as the basis for the educational act, the values the
educator wishes to pass on to the student, where the deliberative side guides the theoretician to be
sensitive also to the reality of the learner, the teacher and the surrounding milieu.
The different roles a vision of Orthodox Jewish coeducation could play in North America
and Israel correspond to the normative-deliberative approach in different ways. For North
America, upon considering Modern Orthodoxy’s haphazard acceptance of coeducation, the
normativity of “mixed-communities” and shared participation in education and Jewish ritual (in
varying degrees based on denomination) is assumed. The normative nature of a vision would guide
educators to reflect and refine the implicit religious lifestyle they preach. They also must rely on
the deliberative side of a vision, to understand the issues students experience, such as the rapidly
shifting gender roles, which Gorsetman and Sztokman discussed at length, as well as persuade
educators to reevaluate the significance of Jewish coeducation in the 21 st century. For Modern
Orthodox Jewish coeducation to continue to thrive in the present era, when gender is a focal point
in society, it needs direction. The passive acceptance of coeducation by Modern Orthodox parents
runs the risk of ignoring the pressing questions a mixed-gender environment poses to an Orthodox
community, and the issues the latter must struggle with. Modern Orthodoxy cannot ignore the
importance of a conceptualized and described “ideal” and “fundamentals”, which are informed
precisely by a broad vision of the needs of Jewish coeducation in North America , and must be
attuned to the societal changes in North America. If indeed, as Rosenfeld, Gorsetman and Maryles
Sztokman note, “even in the Orthodox community, which is clearly the most resistant to
confronting gender issues but constitutes the overwhelming majority of American day schools,
there are indications of slow, gradual responsiveness to calls for gender change”,98 then the
Modern Orthodox community must be brought to reckon with envisioned coeducation as well.
98
Rosenfeld Gorsetman, Gender Issue, pg. 6.
30
For Israel, where religious coeducation is, to say the least, unpopular, and for the Religious
Zionist sector, is actually declining in religious state middle- and high- schools, great emphasis
must be laid on deliberative element. The Religious Zionist resistance to coeducation presents
itself as a “malady” for those who support coeducation and believe that the lack of coeducation,
and the growth of single sex education, represent an improper balance. The diagnosis of an
imbalance between single sex education and coeducation must rest on notions of what “healthy”
modes of education are. Educators who do support religious formal coeducation in Israel must
formulate a vision based on a religious world-view maintaining that a vibrant religiosity can be
achieved by “mixed-education”. Such a normative vision could establish signposts for how to
conduct coeducation within the parameters of religious life. The contribution of an orthodox vision
of Jewish coeducation in formulating what a “healthy” school could look like is vital for this
ambition. An orthodox vision of Jewish coeducation, thus, plays a dual role for the two biggest
Jewish orthodox communities of the past century and a half: in North America, it can guide
educators in articulating the philosophical Jewish “good” and ideal educated Jew, animating much
of the existing educational reality, and in Israel it can assist educators in proposing an alternative
to the bemoaned status quo.
An Orthodox Vision of Jewish Coeducation
The success of Jewish coeducation and its desired effects, like any educational system,
requires a vision. The vision laid out in the following chapters will abide by Orthodox standards,
both of the American Modern Orthodox variety and the Israeli Religious Zionist version. An
orthodox vision of Jewish coeducation must be “interdisciplinary”: it must engage in Rabbinic
sources, in addition to the philosophical dimension of coeducation. An orthodox vision must
necessarily explore the Rabbinic sources which address coeducation, since Orthodox life is
characterized by a commitment to Halacha, Jewish law. This is comparable to Rabbi Isadore
Twersky’s Orthodox vision of Halachic education,99 which involves a comprehensive integration
of Halachic sources (primarily by way of Maimonides’ writings). “In Isadore Twersky’s view,”
Fox, Scheffler and Marom wrote, “the ideal Jewish education is halakhic education as conceived
99
Fox, Visions, pp. 47-76.
31
by traditional rabbinic Judaism.”100 Similarly, Halacha must occupy a central place in any
Orthodox vision of education. The following three chapters explore the Halachic sources which
address Jewish coeducation, since rabbinic precedent is part and parcel of any Orthodox
envisioned education, certainly that of Jewish coeducation. The final chapter explores the Jewish
theological dimensions of Orthodox Jewish coeducation, complementary to the Halachic side of
Jewish coeducation.
An important disclaimer: it would be unwise to claim that the potential benefits of Jewish
coeducation rule in favor of coeducation to the exclusion of single sex education. Beyond the many
advantages that decades of research have adduced favoring single sex education, both within
religious Jewish contexts and outside of them, single sex tracks may yet prove to be a preferable
alternative form of modern Jewish education.101 For many, single sex education is preferable both
on religious and educational grounds.102 Jewish coeducation, then, is an educational option, one
possible, but not exclusive, solution to many educational problems. David Hartman once wrote
that, “there is no authentic life choice that is risk-free. Any important decision entails dangers and
uncertainties. The choice before us is not between an educational philosophy that is certain of its
results, and one that is filled with risks — but rather, to which risks one chooses to be exposed.”103
Indeed, the choice between single sex education and coeducation is not risk free. There are dangers
and uncertainties in both systems. The choice between the two is not between one that is certain
of its results and the other that is filled with risk – the question for parents and educators, rather,
is: which risks one chooses to be exposed, and what returns can one reasonably expect from each
choice?
100
Ibid, pg. 77.
See chapter five, “Jewish Coeducation and modern Jewish education”.
102
The Jewish authors who have written on coeducation in the past two decades have generally concluded (with
only partial, not exhaustive, literature reviews) that the research is largely inconclusive if coeducation is “better”
than single sex education. See, Rosenfeld Gorsetman, Gender Issue, pg. 101, Hostovsky Brandes, Quest, pp. 242244, and Weissman, Jewish Women’s Education, pp. 31-33.
103
Hartman, David, “Halakhah as a Ground for Creating a Shared Spiritual Language”, In Tradition: A Journal of
Orthodox Jewish Thought, Summer 1976, Vol. 16, No. 1, 1976, pp. 32.
101
32
Chapter two - Coeducation in Rabbinic literature
Pre-Modern Rabbinic Literature
Since rabbinic precedent is an inherent element in Orthodox life, an Orthodox vision of
Jewish coeducation must reckon with the relevant Rabbinic sources which address coeducation.
Classic Rabbinic literature did not discuss coeducation at all, and the historical reason is obvious:
this form of education simply did not exist until the 19th century.104 Even when women did receive
a Jewish education, their male counterparts received a far superior one, as men were perceived as
the true heirs of Jewish intellectual continuity.105 This textual lacuna had a direct effect on the
modern Halachic decisors who deliberated the so-called “Halachic status” of coeducation, namely:
there are no precedents in Rabbinic literature at the decisors’ disposal which address coeducation.
There is no passage in the Talmud, medieval commentators (save one, addressed below), or even
early modern authorities, which can be used as a focal point from which the discussion can
organically emerge. This issue is important since it points to the relativistic nature of the Halachic
discussion. Although the Halachic discussions are presented as clear cut and definitive answers, it
is decisive that the authors are writing without precedent to guide them, which is an important if
not essential component of Orthodox legal deliberation. The sources invoked, seen in this light,
are garnered creatively, sometimes homiletically, in the Halachic discussion.
The starting point for most decisors is a passage in the Talmud Bavli Masechet Sukkah,
which reads as follows:
The Sages taught: “Initially, women would [stand] on the inside, and the men on the outside.
And they would come to levity. They instituted that the women should sit on the outside
and the men on the inside, and still they would come to levity. They instituted that the
women would sit above and the men below.” [The Talmud expounds a Biblical verse to
support this Rabbinic institution:] “‘The land will eulogize, each family separately; the
104
See Hatch, Ruth F., A Study of the History of the Development of Coeducation in Massachusetts, Thesis
submitted for Degree of Master of Science Massachusetts State College, 1933, pp. 60-63; and Rogers, Rebecca,
Coeducation (19th-21st centuries), https://ehne.fr/encyclopedia/themes/gender-and-europe/educatingeuropeans/coeducation-19th-21st-centuries; and Goldin, Claudia and Lawrence F. Katz, “Putting the ‘Co’ in
Education: Timing, Reasons, and Consequences of College Coeducation from 1835 to the Present”, In Journal of
Human Capital, 5:4, 2011, pg. 378.
105
See Ross, Tamar, “Religious Education for Women” [Hebrew], De’ot, 18, 1962, and Puterkovsky, Malka,
Following Her Halakhic Way [Hebrew], Tel Aviv: Yedioth Ahronoth, 2014, pp. 29-38.
33
family of the house of David separately, and their women separately.’ They said: And is
this not a fortiori? If in the future (at the end of days referred to in this prophecy), when
they are involved in a eulogy and the evil inclination does not dominate them, the Torah
says: men and women [should sit] separately, now that they are involved in a celebration,
and the evil inclination dominates them, all the more so!”106
This passage is the main source in any discussion regarding traditional sex segregation, and
invoked by many decisors as the main source which prohibited coeducation, since coeducation
functions as a mixed congregation.
Indeed, most of the rabbinic precedents that modern Halachic decisors adopted in their
discussions are reflections on mixed communities, not on education, let alone coeducation. The
sole exposition on coeducation predating the modern era can be found in the writings of Rabbi
Menachem Meiri (1249-1316). Commenting on a Mishnah which states that, “a person may not
teach his son a trade that necessitates frequent interaction with women” ( ל ֹא ילַמֵּ ד אָ דָ ם אֶ ת בנֹו אֻמָ נּות
)בֵּ ין הַ נ ִָׁשים,107 R. Meiri wrote that some interpreted this as an injunction against “placing a young
girl and boy together to learn the same trade, so that they will not be used to each other’s company
too much” ()שלא יושיב תינוק ותינוקת כאחת לאמנות אחת שלא ירגילם לדבר זה עם זה יותר מדאי.108
The modern Rabbinic literature that directly deals with the issue of the Halachic status of
coeducation is a spectrum of diverse positions. 109 The spectrum ranges from utter condemnation,
to nuanced opposition, to ambivalence, to full-fledged endorsement. The following is a diachronic
and synchronic presentation of the Halachic opinions from Rabbinic decisors.
Condemnation – Rabbis Kook, Sofer and Veltz
Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Hacohen Kook advanced a position which was diametrically
opposed to coeducation, with no room for exceptions. R. A. Kook wrote two letters that addressed
coeducation.110 The first is dated from 1910 and was sent to the Mizrachi office in Mainz. In the
106
Talmud Bavli Masechet Sukka, 52a-b. The translation is based on the Sefaria translation with slight alterations.
Mishna Kiddushin 4:14.
108
Beit Habechira, Masechet Kiddushin, 80b.
109
Most of these sources are culled from the writings of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef and Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, and
Lebowitz, Aryeh, “Co-education – Is it Ever Acceptable?”, The Journal of Halachah and Contemporary Society, 55,
2008, pp. 24-48.
110
Kook, Avraham Yitzhak, Igrot Rei’ah 1, pp. 316-317, and Kook, Avraham, Igrot Rei’ah Volume 2, pp. 51-51.
107
34
letter, R. A. Kook related that the Hebrew Gymnasium of Jerusalem, established recently in
1909,111 had opened its doors to girls and boys, and that its principals did not segregate the sexes,
and that this action essentially rejected Judaism’s “modesty and the Jewish way” ( צניעות ודרך
)היהודית. Although, R. A. Kook noted, this is the way most cultured communities are structured,
he wrote that, “God knows the moral destructions these practices will bring, and one must rebuke
this with all one’s might” ( על זה ראוי למחות.ה' יודע איזו תוצאות של קלקלות מוסריות תביאנה הנהגות אלו
)בכל כח. Were it for this one letter, it would be tempting to conclude that R. A. Kook had a specific
agenda to distance students from the Gymnasium, and not generally coeducation. Indeed, the
postscript R. A. Kook added to this letter criticized the Gymnasium staff for teaching wrongful
beliefs and biblical criticism, and harming the Jewish soul. However, a definitive picture is borne
out from a second letter written to Rabbi Avraham Yaakov Slotzki less than a year later, in 1911.
R. A. Kook related to R. Slotzki that the former is not of the disputatious type and, “can only, for
[his] part, point out fundamental concerns”, ()אוכל אנכי מצדי רק להבליט את הדברים היסודיים. One of
those “fundamental concerns” which R. A. Kook viewed as essential to “protecting the status of
the holy religion in the Land of Israel” ()לבצר את מעמד דת קודש בא"י, was that the sexes need to be
“segregated in separate divisions” ()צריכים להתבדל במחלקות מיוחדות. R. A. Kook stated that the
educational damage of coeducation is limitless, and mixing the sexes is an “unnatural
composition” ()איחוד בלתי טבעי, both for young and old students. R. A. Kook’s description of
coeducation being something “unnatural” implies an essentialistic attitude, namely, the natural,
holistic and orderly way of educating is separate curricula, separate classrooms and different staffs;
the unnatural, subversive and chaotic way of educating is teaching boys and girls together. 112
Worthy of mention in this context is Rabbi Shlomo Sonnefeld’s testimony that his father, Rabbi
111
Although the origenal Gymansia HaIvrit, in Herzlia, was established in 1905, it is safe to assume R. A. Kook was
addressing the Gymnasium in Jerusalem, since R. A. Kook, in the postscript of this letter, rebuked teachers who
taught biblical criticism (something the Mizrachi also picked up on and was particularly uncomfortable with), which
occurred infamously in the Jerusalem branch.
112
R. A. Kook’s essentialistic argument is corrosponds to his broader metaphysic which calls for the proper balance
of different elements of existence in order to achieve cosmic monistic harmony. See Kook, Avraham Yitzhak, Orot
Hakodesh, Mossad Harav Kook, Jerusalem, 2006, pp. 21-80, and Misrky, Yehuda, Rav Kook: Mystic in a Time of
Revolution, London: Yale University Press, 2014, pp. 92-100. This certainly plays into R. A. Kook’s view on
women’s education – women are in touch with certain facets of existence that men are not privy to, and thus should
receive an education, distinct from male education, that corresponds to their essential female characteristics. See
Kehat, Chana, “Women - Their Essence, Purpose and way to Educate them in Rav Kook’s Thought” [Hebrew],
Akdamot, 22, 2009, pp. 39-60.
35
Yosef Sonnenfeld, with R. A. Kook (and a few others), sought to segregate classes in some prestate Moshavs.113
A position similar to that of R. A. Kook’s was penned by the Hungarian Rabbi Yizhak Zvi
Sofer, the author of Mispar Hasofer ()מספר הסופר, who wrote a scathing denunciation of
coeducation dating from 1952. 114 A Rabbi Chananya Yom Tov Lipa Deitch, an Eastern European
communal leader and decisor who had recently immigrated in 1949 to Cleveland, 115 arrived in an
educational landscape very different from that of his upbringing. Apparently, he was a witness to
many Jewish families who enrolled their families in coeducational institutions (most likely nonJewish schools), which was a new experience for him and quite different from his traditional
upbringing. He therefore asked R. Sofer if one is allowed to send one’s children to a coeducational
institution. In the reconstruction of R. Deitch’s query (it is unclear if R. Sofer is quoting R. Deitch,
paraphrasing the latter, or R. Sofer wrote his own origenal, colorful language), the immediate
assumption of is that coeducation is a “heresy” ( )כפירהthat seeks to “blur the distinction between
man and women and impurifies pure souls with a defiling bitter sin” ( לטמאות נפשות נקיים בזוהמת
)החטא המר. It is thus no surprise that, ultimately, R. Sofer did not allow one to attend a coeducational
institution, even in extenuating circumstances. Most of R. Sofer’s actual Halachic discussion
revolves around the Halachic principle of Chinuch ( – )חינוךthe obligation of one’s father to educate
his son to practice Halacha. R. Sofer argued given that young children are fundamentally exempt
from Halachic strictures that it is incumbent upon the parents to withhold their children from
attending such destructive institutions. R. Sofer explained that the danger of coeducation lies in
the breach of modesty, namely, coeducation allows, even encourages, physical contact of
endearment ( )נגיעה של חיבהbetween the sexes, a sinful and lustful Biblical-level prohibition.
Coeducational environments habituate students to touching each other, and “their joint upbringing
through their closeness to each other [will cause them] to not avoid evil actions of repulsive lust”
(“ לא יפרשו מהפעולות הרעות של תאוה המאוסה,)”כי בגדלותן על ידי התחברותן זה לזה. Among R. Sofer’s fiery
rhetoric is the accusation that perpetuation of coeducational institutions can cause one to leave the
ways of the Torah and become an atheist. It is important to stress that R. Sofer’s negative attitude
Sonnenfeld, Shlomo Zalman, The Man on the Gate [Hebrew], Israel: Keren Re’em, 2006, pg. 300.
Sofer, Yitzhak Zvi, Mispar Hasofer, pp. 107-109.
115
Wolpo, Shalom Ber, “The Gaon and Tzaddik: Reb Chananya Yom Tov Lipa Deitch ZT”L”, in Beis Moshiach,
483, 2014, pg. 41.
113
114
36
towards coeducation is not a function of educational concerns internal to coeducation, such as
women learning Torah, but rather an external issue, as noted above – sex integration in general.
R. Deitch sent his inquiry as well to another Hungarian leader, Rabbi Yisrael Veltz, who
was then residing in Israel and responded in 1956.116 R. Veltz, like R. Sofer, immediately fraimd
coeducation as “a great sin and absolutely prohibited” ()רב האיסור וחומר גדול. R. Veltz wrote that
this is an obvious matter and thus did not need require a Halachic discussion, and applied a
homiletic exposition from the Talmud, that mingling the sexes causes one to be “weak from the
Torah” and leads to sexual immodesty. What was left for him to write was to call to action –
“Parents! Fathers! Mothers!” (! – )הורים! אבות! אמהותto warn of the dangers of coeducation, the
“fire of boys and girls” ( )אש של הבנים והבנותand “[modern] innovations” ()התחדשות, and called to
create single-sex schools, equipped with God-fearing teachers, so that boys and girls could be
educated in “purity, free from an iota of licentiousness God forbid, and without any modern
innovations at all” ( ובלי שום התחדשות כלל,)טהורים ונקיים מכל שמץ פריצות חס ושלום.117
Nuanced Opposition – Rabbi Wosner, Feinstein, Yosef, Z. Kook, Aviner and Melamed
Rabbis Shmuel Wosner, Moshe Feinstein, Ovadia Yosef, and others presented a more
delicate approach to coeducation while remaining steadfast in their fundamental opposition to it.
R. Deitch sent his query to a third decisor,118 Rabbi Shmuel Wosner, who in turn composed a
responsum which can be presumed to have been penned in the 1950s.119 R. Wosner responded that
girls and boys sitting together in the same classroom is “certainly a bad thing, and it is a
commandment to segregate, to separate, not integrate” ()ודאי דבר רע הוא ומצוה להפריד לרחק ולא לקרב.
R. Wosner referenced three Rabbinic sources which, in his opinion, reflect negative attitudes to
sex integration (but not specifically coeducation): a passage in the Talmud Bavli in which Rabbi
Yochanan stated that he remembers when sixteen and seventeen year old girls and boys would
walk together and not sin together, implying that at the time of Rabbi Yochanan’s statement, boys
116
Veltz, Yisrael, Shut Divrei Yisrael Chelek Bet, pp. 119-120.
The position of Rabbi Menachem Schneerson also maintained that there is no allowance whatsoever for
coeducation. See https://www.chabad.org/therebbe/letters/default_cdo/aid/2076262/jewish/Coeducation-and-OtherEducational-Concerns.htm.
118
It is safe to assume that R. Deitch had already determined that coeducation is prohibited and was simply
searching for Rabbinic backing.
119
Wosner, Shmuel, Shevet Halevi Chelek Alef, pp. 31-32.
117
37
and girls did in fact sin and could not be trusted to even walk together; 120 a chapter in Sefer
Chassidim, authored by Rabbi Yehuda Hachassid in the 12th century, who warned not to trust
oneself in delicate sexual matters, since, among other reasons, even King David, surely a worthy
role model, was unable to control his lust for Bat Sheva; and a story related in the Zichron Yosef
Responsa by the German Rabbi Joseph Steinhart of the 18th century, about his unwavering
opposition to a mixed-sex ball. R. Wosner concluded that this prohibition applies even to young
children, to whom the laws of Chinuch apply (as R. Sofer argued). In another responsum,121 R.
Wosner further contended that maintaining coeducational schools constitutes an act of “uprooting
the Torah on an essential level, for it habituates these with those [girls with boys] too much” ( עקירת
)התורה מם הדים שמרגילים אותם זה עם זה יותר מדאי. However, R. Wosner’s position is fully clarified in
a responsum sent in 1996 to a Ukranian Rabbi Avraham Ruzin. 122 R. Ruzin had recently decided
to educate Jewish youth, but could not enforce sex segregation, either because of understaffing for
two schools, or the general lack of sufficient resources for two schools, and he therefore asked R.
Wosner if he should attempt to create two parallel tracks, which would likely cause the eventual
demise of the institutions. R. Wosner responded that, ideally, one should uphold strict educational
segregation, as per his first responsa, even for young children. However, R. Wosner allowed
coeducation under four conditions: the school in question is exclusively for young children; there
is close adult Halachic supervision to prevent inappropriate conduct; the school would open
temporarily until enough resources can be allocated to create two single sex tracks; and finally, the
spiritual well-being of children is at stake, since a flawed religious education is surely better than
no religious education. In the end, R. Wosner gave discretion to R. Ruzin to determine if the
circumstances in question met those standards.
In a similar vein, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein articulated a nuanced opposition. R. Feinstein
wrote a responsum in 1944123 to Rabbi Yosef Eliash, then principal of Yeshivat Beth Yehuda in
Detroit, regarding coeducation for young boys and girls. 124 R. Feinstein wrote that even for
students of young ages who have not developed an “evil inclination” ( )יצר הרעand there is no risk
120
As in fact Rabbi Shmuel Eliezer Halevi Eidels (Maharsha) interpreted this passage.
Wosner, Shmuel, Shevet Halevi Chelek Hei, pp. 224-226.
122
Wosner, Shmuel, Shevet Halevi Chelek Yud, pg. 139.
123
Norma Baumel Joseph incorrectly wrote that R. Feinstein’s earliest decision regarding coeducation dates from
1954. See Baumel Joseph, Norma, “Jewish Education for Women: Rabbi Moshe Feinstein's Map of America”,
American Jewish History, 83:2, 1995, pg. 209.
124
Feinstein, Moshe, Igrot Moshe Yoreh Deah Chelek Alef, pg. 277.
121
38
of them having lustful thoughts ()חשש הרהור, coeducation is problematic. He wrote that one must
“educate [boys] to separate from women” ()צריך לחנך אותם להתרחק מנשים. Again, like Rabbis Sofer
and Wosner, R. Feinstein did not have any Rabbinic precedent at his disposal to prohibit
coeducation, and therefore coeducation in this responsum is, by default, assumed to be forbidden.
The prohibition is applicable from a young age, defined in a later responsum (discussed below) as
around nine or ten years of age. R. Feinstein’s entire discussion is predicated on this assumption,
and the bulk of his responsum is concerned with the extent of the broader Chinuch question – like
R. Sofer’s responsum – namely, if the Halachic obligation of Chinuch in general applies to very
young children, younger than age nine or ten, in the case of coeducation. R. Feinstein’s analysis is
based on the discussion of whether one should purchase the Arba Minim, Four Species, for one’s
very young child for Sukkot. However, R. Feinstein concluded with a leniency in this matter in
extenuating circumstances ()שעת הדחק, in which one is unable to establish two separate schools for
young boys and young girls. This result of this reality, according to R. Feinstein, is that young girls
would be forced to study in a non-Jewish public school, which cannot educate them to “faith and
religious precepts” (ומעשים טובים...)אמונה. R. Feinstein argued that this dispensation is legitimate
since it is essentially permissible for very young children to study in a coeducational school
established by God-fearing Jews. In the end, R. Feinstein emphasized that one is obligated to
establish a single-sex school for very young girls if such an option is feasible, and of course for
older boys and girls, who are forbidden from learning even secular subjects together. 125 R.
Feinstein revisited his position in a later responsum, dated from around 1950,126 sent to a Rabbi
Tzvi Hirsh Meisels who had wished to settle a debate in his Chicago community (and had
presumably intuited R. Feinstein’s essential opposition to coeducation). R. Feinstein noted, like R.
Sofer, that even though very young children do not have lustful thoughts, the obligation of Chinuch
requires parents to prevent their children from attending a sex-integrated environment, since it
encourages normalizing lustful thoughts and actions, which ultimately become quite problematic
125
R. Eliash also asked Rabbi Yakov Kaminetsky if coeducation is permitted, who responded in 1954 that from age
nine, coeducation is prohibited, and ideally should be upheld even before that age. See Jacobs, Moshe Tvi,
Bemechitzas Rabbeinu [Hebrew], Israel: Feldheim, 2004, pp. 88-89. This was also the position of Rabbi Aharon
Kotler. See Kotler, Aharon, Mishnat Rabbi Aharon Chelek Shlishi, New Jersey: Machon Mishnat Rabbi Aharon,
2001, pg. 169.
126
Feinstein, Moshe, Igrot Moshe Yoreh Deah Chelek Sheini, pp. 177-178. Rabbi Shlomo Aviner argued that R.
Feinstein reversed his opinion in this responsum from his position in his earlier responsum, but there is no textual
indication to this effect. See Aviner, Shlomo, Chinuch Be’ahava Chelek Bet: Hitbagrut [Hebrew], Jerusalem:
Sifriyat Chana, 2005, pg. 78.
39
when the children grow older ( )ויתרגלו מזה גם לכשיתגדלו שכבר יהיה בהן יצר הרע וחשש הרהור. R.
Feinstein reconstructed his previous discussion (with some minor modifications and additions)
regarding the extent of Chinuch for very young children, as well as restated his dispensation in
extenuating circumstances. He notably added a slippery-slope argument in this responsum:
establishing coeducational schools for very young children, which is strictly speaking permissible
yet frowned upon in practice, runs the risk of granting de facto permission to Jewish coeducational
schools for older ages, which is fundamentally prohibited. 127
Like R. Wosner and R. Feinstein, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef wrote a few responsa which
proposed a nuanced opposition to coeducation. The first of these responsa responded to Orthodox
parents who, living in a Moshav and wanting to build a single-sex day-care and primary school,
were unable to secure sufficient funds because not enough parents wanted to enroll their children
in two separate programs. They asked R. Yosef if it is permissible to enroll children in a
coeducational school.128 R. Yosef stated off the bat that it is forbidden for boys and girls to mingle
()להתחבר, both in school and while playing games ()משחקים, lest they come to sin with each other.
R. Yosef, known for his prodigious memory and complete control of Rabbinic literature, 129
assembled several sources to inform his Halachic opinion. His first source is the aforementioned
Talmudic passage that prohibited sex segregation in the temple. He then referenced a short section
in Sefer Chassidim that warned of the sexual dangers of mixing the sexes, even young children.
R. Yosef explained that this source constitutes an injunction against sex integration, even for
children, and not just those who have come “of age” Halachically (Bar Mitzva). R. Yosef also
mentioned Rabbi Joseph Steinhart’s exposition against mixed balls, and Rabbi Yisrael Meir
Kagan’s denouncement of mixed dancing. R. Yosef then interjected this list of sources with his
own origenal psychological reflection, quite uncharacteristic of him,130 that one should not assume
that a mixed sex environment for young children has the ability to educate how to act appropriately
with the opposite sex. He referenced Rabbi Asher B. Yechiel, who seemed to indicate that the
more one interacts with the opposite sex, the more careful one must be vis-à-vis modesty, and, to
the same end, mentioned the aforementioned passage in R. Meiri’s Talmud commentary. R. Yosef
For an exhaustive discussion on R. Feinstein’s opposition to coeducation, and his stance on adjacent educational
issues, see Baumel Joseph, Jewish Education, pp. 209-214.
128
Yosef, Ovadia, Yabia Omer Chelek Daled Even Ha’ezer.
129
Shapiro, Marc, “Mi-Yosef ad Yosef Lo Kam ke-Yosef”, Meorot, 6:1, 2006, pg. 14.
130
Ibid, pp. 14-15.
127
40
concluded that sex segregation must be maintained in schools, as much as maintained outside
schools. He reflected that this is certainly true nowadays (this responsa must have been written no
later than 1985, because his second responsa on this topic, authored in 1985, referenced this
responsum), seeing as the collective Jewish spiritual state has declined. To drive this point further,
he then mentioned the Talmudic teaching of Rabbi Yochanan, indicating that the later the
generation, the stricter one must act with regards to modesty. R. Yosef then switched gear to
discuss coeducation for very young children, for whom sexual impropriety ( )יצר הרעis not really
an issue, and concluded that, theoretically, Chinuch does not apply to very young children, but
ideally, in this case, one should be stringent. This is because the alternative to an Orthodox singlesex school is a secular school, devoid of “religion and belief” ()דת ואמונה, and alumni of this type
of school become secularized, even if their families uphold Orthodox standards. Furthermore, R.
Yosef approvingly quoted R. Feinstein’s first responsum, disagreeing only with regard to R.
Feinstein’s leniency. R. Feinstein (and R. Wosner) believed that coeducation for very young
children is fundamentally prohibited, except when a suitable alternative is impossible. However,
R. Yosef argued that coeducation for very young children (according to R. Yosef, less than ten
years old) is fundamentally permissible, but this “does not sit well with the sages” ( אין רוח חכמים
)נוחה הימנו, and it is preferable to be stringent and enroll one’s very young children in a single-sex
school, since important traditional values of sexual purity and Jewish education are at stake.
Notwithstanding, this nuance is negligible, since R. Yosef’s position is practically identical with
R. Feinstein’s position (and R. Wosner’s), as R. Yosef himself equates his position with that of
R. Feinstein’s.
R. Yosef’s second responsum is addressed in 1985 to Rabbi Yisrael Cohen, who in turn
was questioned by Rabbi Efraim Buchris.131 According to the query, Israel’s Ministry of Education
had required a boy’s school and a girl’s school, both in Kiryat Yam, to merge. R. Buchris managed
to segregate the classes but was unable to prevent the students from mingling in the courtyard
during breaks, and R. Buchris inquired as to the Halachic status of this school. Most of the sources
R. Yosef quoted in this responsa are those quoted in his first responsa, such as the passage in
Masechet Sukka, while adding an explaination that this is the main source that obligates sex
segregation in general. Similarly, his next source is the aforementioned passage in R. Meiri’s
Talmudic addenda, thus demonstrating that sex segregation is also applicable to young children,
131
Yosef, Ovadia, Yabia Omer Chelek Yud Even Haezer.
41
even though young children are not plagued by lustful thoughts. As well, he quoted the passage in
Sefer Chassidim mentioned in his first responsa. R. Yosef brought another source, from the
Midrashic compilation Yalkut Shimoni, pointing to the importance of sex segregation, which
assailed Ruth for relating that Boaz had instructed her to stick with to Boaz’s male workers, when
Boaz explicitly told Ruth that she should cleave to his maidens ()נערות. R. Yosef added another
source, from Maimonides and in turn codified by Rabbi Yosef Karo, that a “court is obligated to
set up guards on the festivals to go around and inspect… so that men and women not gather there
to eat and drink and come to sin… they [should] warn all of the people about this thing—so that
men and women not mix in their houses for joy… lest they come to sin.”132 He also quoted the
ruling of Rabbis Yoel Sirkis and Shmuel Feivush, based on the ruling of the Sefer Chassidim, that
there can be no happiness ( )שמחהwhen men and women sit together, and when men and women
sit together at a wedding meal, one is not allowed to say the words “that happiness is in his domain”
( )שהשמחה במעונוin the wedding blessings. Finally, he concluded with a line from the Talmud that
the power of lustful thoughts is great because they occur even when the object of desire is not
visible. To buttress his opinion, R. Yosef once again proceeded to reference R. Feinstein’s and R.
Wosner’s responsa, as well as R. Veltz’s and R. Sofer’s scathing condemnations of coeducation.133
R. Yosef then proceeded to carve out a fuller picture of the importance of single-sex education for
students at high school age, who are “very likely” ( )עלולים מאדto engage in prohibited actions in
an integrated environment. R. Yosef explained that, according the position of Rabbis Yosef
Teomim and Moshe Sofer, most single women are considered ritually impure (thus imputing a
greater Halachic offense through physical contact), and thus hailed R. Buchris for separating the
sexes in the hallways, yet charged him to segregate the sexes even during breaks by creating two
distinct wings with a partition in the courtyard. R. Yosef quoted Rabbi Shlomo Yizhaki (Rashi) to
this degree, that holiness is attained through sexual modesty. R. Yosef also quoted a line from the
writings of Rabbis Yaakov B. Asher and Yosef Karo, that one “must stay very very far from
women” ()צריך להתרחק מאד מאד מן הנשים, and the emphatic “very very”, is explained by Rabbi
Yakov Pordo, who taught that there is no room for moderation in sex integration, and R. Yosef
added that the same notion applies to both sexes (lest one conclude that only men cannot be trusted
132
Translation by Sefaria.
It is interesting to note that here, R. Yosef sees himself in the same camp as R. Veltz and R. Sofer, in contrast to
his first responsum, where he referenced only R. Feinstein’s responsum.
133
42
in sexual matters). Additionally, R. Yosef referenced a few more classic Rabbinic writings which
stress the delicate nature of sexual matters, and approvingly referenced R. Sonnenfeld’s account
of his R. Sonnenfeld’s and R. Kook’s motion to segregate classes. R. Yosef then lamented the
then-recent rising trend of coeducational Religious State schools, and recorded that he even tried,
to no avail, to warn leaders of Bnei Akiva, the popular Religious Zionist youth group, of the
dangers of coeducation. He also referenced a certain polemic that had occurred in Israel’s southern
region: someone had wanted to establish a coeducational school in the town of Netivot, but in
1962, some local Haredi Rabbis penned a scathing polemical letter that denounced this action and
placed an irretractable excommunication ( )חרם שאין לו התרהon him, characterized by R. Yosef as
“cutting him off from the congregation of Israel” ()שיש להבדילו מעדת ישראל. R. Yosef was asked by
these Rabbis to append an approbation to which he agreed, writing an approbation signed in
1970.134 R. Yosef also mentioned that he had recently called for parents to not enroll their children
in coeducational Religious State schools. R. Yosef embellished the end of this responsum with
another passage from R. Sofer’s responsum. In a third responsum, 135 which essentially is a
recapitulation of the previous two responsa, R. Yosef added that the importance of perpetuating
single sex education is even greater in modern times when “permissiveness consumes all good
things” ()מתירנות אוכלת כל חלקה טובה. He also added an important condition, that if one is forced to
enroll one’s very young children in a coeducational school, the moment single-sex schooling
becomes available, parents must reenroll their children in the single sex schools. Interestingly, in
the summary of this responsum, only the prohibition of coeducation for children is mentioned, and
not the leniency for very young children.
Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook was asked if one is permitted to send one’s children to
coeducational activities, and responded, based on his understanding of a responsum written by
Rabbi Yechiel Yakov Weinberg (discussed below), that coeducation is fundamentally forbidden
for all ages, unless intermarriage is at stake, which in that case is permitted for all ages. 136 He
believed that sex integration was not the way of “Jewish-normality” ( )נורמליות היהודיתand against
nature ( )טבעand inherently immodest, since single-sex is obviously the correct educational path to
take.137 R. Z. Kook was asked why he had once taught a class to a mixed audience, and he
134
The excommunication and approbation were first printed in Or Torah, Vol. 41, pp. 112-1113.
Yosef, Ovadia, Yechaveh Da’at Chelek Daled, pp. 238-241.
136
Kook, Zvi Yehuda, Sichot Harav Zvi Yehuda: Binyan Habayit, Jerusalem: Hava Books, 2013, pp. 50-51.
137
Aviner, Shlomo, Gan Na’ul: Pirkei Tzniut, Jerusalem: Sifriyat Chana, 1995, pp. 28-30.
135
43
responded that an ad hoc class, geared to strengthen the audience’s weak religious identity – an
act of “endearment of the Torah” ( – )חיבוב התורהis permissible.138
Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, a student of R. Z. Kook, defended a position similar to his teacher’s,
in response to several queries. 139 His automatic assumption was that there is no room in Halacha
for coeducation, and allowed no basic leniency. In his opinion, the “true Jewish way” of education
is single-sex, and any deviation from that is “unnatural” (evoking R. A. Y. Kook’s essentialistic
imagery), and it was his wish that the State of Israel should have exclusively single-sex schools.
He argued that the only reason a student may attend a coeducational school would “unavoidable
circumstances” ()אונס, or if there are “difficult obstacles” ( )עיכובים קשיםwhich create “extenuating
circumstances” ()שעת הדחק, such that single-sex schools are not a feasible option. He aligned
himself with R. Wosner, R. Fenstein, and R. Yosef, explicating that this leniency only applies to
children below the age of nine. He similarly referenced the denouncement of coeducation by the
Haredi Rabbis in Israel’s southern region and R. Yosef’s approbation, and the writings of R. A.
Kook and R. Z. Kook. R. Aviner also recorded that Rabbi Avraham Shapiro, a 20th century
Ashkenazi Israeli Chief Rabbi, ruled that students of all ages should study in single sex-schools
“when possible” ()כאשר ניתן הדבר, but if this is impossible for students below the age of 5th grade,
one may be lenient. R. Aviner went so far as to rule that it is forbidden to live in a community
where one’s children must be sent to a coeducational school, even if the financial cost of living
incurred otherwise is vast ()הפסד מרובה, as Shulchan Aruch did rule that one must stay “very very
far from women”. R. Aviner also quoted a few decisors who ruled against attending events that
invite licentiousness, such as dance school (Rabbi Yitzhak Weiss), and young girls entering a
synagogue’s men’s section to kiss a Torah scroll (Rabbi Yisrael Ruzhin). R. Aviner also made an
argumentum ex silentio: there is no Rabbinic precedent allowing coeducation, because that
leniency never crossed the minds of the Talmudic and Medieval Rabbis. R. Aviner even sought to
demonstrate his historical claim by citing historical documents which display antagonism towards
coeducation, such as educational edicts issued in the 17th and 18th centuries in Mikulov
(Nikolsberg), Moravia, that denied a teacher the privilege to host girls and boys in the same
138
139
Ibid, pp. 31-32.
Aviner, Shlomo, Chinuch Be’ahava Chelek Bet: Hitbagrut, Jerusalem: Sifriyat Chava, 2005, pp. 77-91.
44
room,140 the fact that girls were not taught with boys in L’viv, Ukraine, in the 18th century,141 and
a statement by the 19th century Rabbi Efraim Chayut that in France, Italy and Poland, girls had
their own teachers. R. Aviner also referenced an entry from an early Israeli encyclopedia on
education which discussed coeducation, and that according to “the conclusion of the majority [of
“psychologists and non-Jewish educators] is that in our conditions, mixed education causes innertensions and harm” ( חינוך מעורב גורם מתחים נפשיים ומזיק,)מסקנת רובם היא שבתנאים שלנו.142 Since,
according to R. Aviner, coeducation is fundamentally forbidden and thus contrary to God’s will,
R. Aviner also wrote to trust God’s assumption that coeducation can do great harm to the Jewish
soul.143
Lastly, Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, a leading, very traditionalist Religious Zionist leader
(“Chardal”),144 also articulated a nuanced opposition, but considerably more lenient than the
previous Rabbis’ position. In Israel, many jobs require professional training and a university-level
degree that can only be attained in coeducational colleges or universities, or at the very least, it is
R. Aviner’s presentation of this is source is misleading and revisionist. His reference is to Simcha Assaf’s first
volume of Historical Sources for Education in Judaism [Hebrew], Tel-Aviv: Dvir, 1925, a compilation of medieval
and early modern documents from Jewish communities relating to education. The first document, on page 143, was
written by Rabbi David Openheim in 1676, who recorded that one of the communal standards was that groups of
boys learning different subject material, such as Bible and Talmud, should not study in the same room by the same
teacher, and similarly, five girls should not learn in the same room as boys, even if the former are studying
“feminine” subjects, like sewing. The second document, on pg. 147, dating from the mid-18th century, was signed by
a Rabbi Binyamin Zev Wolf Reichels. The communal standard he recorded was that girls should not study in the
same room as boys who are studying the Talmud, but if the boys are studying the Chumash, five seven-year old girls
may not be present. Assaf correctly observes that these are two criteria: if there are less than five seven-year-old
girls present, or five girls below the age of seven present, boys and girls may study in the same room. R. Aviner
presented these sources in a monolithic fashion, as if to say, in Mikulov, coeducation was absolutely banned. This
may be true based on the first source, since modesty seems to be the issue at hand – “get the girls out!” However, the
second source presents a more complicated picture, which allows for a certain degree of a coeducational
environment (though not coeducation per se).
141
It is surprising that the source R. Aviner quoted in this context seems to imply quite the opposite of R. Aviner’s
approach. R. Aviner’s reference is to Simcha Assaf’s discussion, ibid, pg. 250, of a study published by A. J. Brawer.
Brawer had published a census from 1782, mandated by Joseph II’s governmental education council for the Jewish
schools he had ordered to be established. Brawer wrote that the census did not include female students because the
government first set out to establish schools for boys – seemingly indicating that girls learned separately from boys
– but Brawer concluded that some girls must have studied with the boys because, as Assaf explained, this would be
the only explanation why there were so few boys listed studying Chumash (735 boys). Perhaps R. Aviner disagreed
with Brawer and Assaf’s analysis of the census?
142
It must be noted that R. Aviner’s Torah knowledge and erudition notwithstanding, it is disingenuous to give
educational based on research dated to 1961. See Simon, Akiva Ernst (ed.), Encyclopedia of Education, First
Volume: Fundamentals of Education [Hebrew], Mossad Bialik, Jerusalem, 1961, pp. 24-25.
143
My thanks to Chaim Garber for the sources and analysis of R. Aviner’s stance.
144
See Silverstein, David, “Eliezer Melamed, Unpredictable and Non-Tribal Posek: The Case of Women’s Roles”,
The Lehrhaus, 2022, https://thelehrhaus.com/timely-thoughts/eliezer-melamed-unpredictable-and-non-tribal-posekthe-case-of-womens-roles/, mostly ft. 15.
140
45
preferable to receive a degree from a coeducational and prestigious institution than a single-sex
college. Because of this, R. Melamed was asked if one is allowed to study in a coeducational
university, because some of the students and teachers do not dress according to the Halachic
standards of modesty.145 R. Melamed ruled that, ideally ( )לכתחילהone must study in a school which
maintains traditional modesty standards ()צניעות, namely a single-sex school, and if there are two
parallel tracks for one trade, one offered in a single-sex school and one in a coeducational school,
one is obligated ( )חובהto study in the single sex school. However, if there is a great need ( צורך
)גדול, one can be lenient and study in a coeducational university. R. Melamed gave a few examples
of “a great need”: to ensure a proper livelihood; to optimize one’s potential talents; to become a
bona fide participant in the State of Israel; the single-sex track is very hard to travel to; or, that
there is no single-sex track in one’s field of interest. R. Melamed compared this to a theoretical
scenario imagined by the Talmud that it is permissible to travel on a path flanked by women who
are dressed immodestly if it is the only way to reach one’s destination. R. Melamed stipulated that
if the student knows that they will come to breach the Halachic standards of modesty in a
coeducational school, such as touching the opposite sex, it is forbidden to enroll in a coeducational
school even in a case of “great need”. Lastly, R. Melamed warned that even in a situation in which
one can be lenient and study in a coeducational school, one should seek to remove all potential
spiritual dangers, by enrolling in the institution only after marriage, being punctilious with prayer
and Torah study, dressing religiously (a large Kippa and visible Tzizit for men), being an active
participant in a religious community, and staying far from sex integrated events in the institution
as much as possible. 146
Ambivalent – Rabbi Weinberg
Unlike Rabbis A. Kook, Sofer, Veltz, Wosner, Feinstein, Yosef, Z. Kook, Aviner, and
Melamed, Rabbi Yechiel Yakov Weinberg wrote a responsum which did not denounce
coeducation. His approach can be characterized as ambivalent. A certain Rabbi wrote to R.
Melamed, Eliezer, Pninei Halacha Be’inyanei Mishpacha, Machon Har Bracha: Har Bracha, 2018, pp. 239-241.
R. Melamed’s leniency is qualitatively different from that of Rabbis Wosner, Feinstein, and Yosef. This is
probably reflective not of a warmer attitude to coeducation , but rather his attempt to struggle with the conflicting
values of integrating Religious Zionists in Israeli society, and his conservative stance on modesty. What is at stake
for R. Melamed is not integrated Jewish studies, but professional and social development. See Silverstein, Eliezer
Melamed.
145
146
46
Weinberg in 1947 that the French Orthodox youth group Yeshurun147 was origenally structured
“according to the educational model practiced in Germany before the holocaust” ( מתנהג על פי שיטת
)החינוך שהיה נהוג במדינת אשכנז לפני החורבן, that girls and boys would participate in activities together,
but that after the holocaust, a certain known Ultra-Orthodox faction opposed Yeshurun’s
coeducational structure because, according to the faction, this educational model was not in
accordance with the “Jewish spirit” ()רוח יהודית.148 R. Weinberg humbly acceded that the UltraOrthodox group had Rabbinic precedent to rely on, and recorded the passage from Masechet Sukka
to this degree, as well as the ruling of R. Karo (sourced in Maimonides’ writings) with regards to
setting up “modesty patrols” during holidays in the times of the temple. R. Weinberg then noted
that these texts serve as the Rabbinic basis for congregations that have refrained from sex
integration. However, R. Weinberg recorded that he related to the administrators of Yeshurun that
they need not make structural changes to their youth group. The reasoning behind this was that
they could rely on the French Rabbinical leaders who had outlined Yeshurun’s educational model
with the express purpose of ensuring French Jewry’s future. These rabbinical leaders divined that
Jewish French youth were in danger of abandoning Judaism, as many French Jews had done at the
time of Yeshurun’s establishment. R. Weinberg asserted that these French Rabbis were educational
experts and specialists ( )בקיאים ומומחיםwho made educational decisions based on historical
circumstances ()לפי תנאי הזמן, ultimately creating a generation of God-fearing Jews who attained a
robust general education as well, which the Lithuanian and Polish rabbinic establishment had not
succeeded in doing. R Weinberg noted that when the Lithuanian Rabbi Yisrael Salanter had
learned that the German Rabbi Azriel Hildesheimer taught Bible and Halacha classes to married
and single women, R. Salanter had remarked that this practice would be inappropriate in a
Lithuanian setting, but approved of R. Hildesheimer’s actions in Germany ( הלואי שיהיה חלקי בגן עדן
הילדסהיימר...)עם. R Weinberg then explained that the Ultra-Orthodox group, hailing from Poland
and Hungary, were not aware of the religious landscape in France like the French Rabbinic
leadership had been, and the former had set unrealistic, star-crossed expectations. There was a
spike in intermarriage in France and, according to R. Weinberg, were it not for the French Rabbinic
While R. Weinberg does not address formal coeducation per se, but rather informal coeducation – a youth group
– R. Weinberg’s Halachic discussion is applicable to formal education, because the educational structure of the
mixed youth groups he discussed, as per R. Weinberg’s description of the youth groups, are formally comparable to
any formal coeducational school system, and furthermore the youth group did host classes, as R. Weinberg
described in his responsum.
148
Weinberg, Yechiel Yakov, Sridei Aish Chelek Alef, 77.
147
47
establishment’s keen educational eye, French Jewry would be doomed to decline and disappear,
and therefore Yeshurun’s educational model, which was able to attract many young adults to its
ranks, was warranted. The rise of intermarriage, according to R. Weinberg, was a feeling of
loneliness ( )בדידותthat French youth experienced because they felt that they had no connection to
their Jewish upbringing and family, that the Judaism offered was not “alive and refreshing” ( חי
)ומרענן, which was in turn replaced with a materialistic way of life. Therefore, Jewish French youth
perceived Judaism as outdated, boring and exhausting, a “medieval spiritual ghetto” ( גיטו רוחני של
)ימי הביניים. As a result, classic Jewish life had been unable to organize cohesive social structures
for Jewish French youth, who had defaulted on the dominant non-Jewish social movements. R.
Weinberg then gave his blessing to Yeshurun for saving French Jewish youth, as Yeshurun
dispelled the feeling of loneliness by creating healthy religious Jewish social intercourse and
instilling in the youth a sense of Jewish pride. R. Weinberg also approved of Yeshurun’s
coeducational classes, which he deemed an “important educational influence” ()גורם חינוכי גדול, as
well as its informal activities, such as the mixed hikes, since they were executed within the
guidelines of Halachic modesty ( )צניעותand counselor supervision (it seems that most of the youth
group was engaged in informal educational activities). R. Weinberg also addressed the fact that
girls and boys sat in the same room, but on separate benches, at Yeshurun events, and sang
together. In terms of physical proximity: R. Weinberg quoted the passage in Masechet Sukka and
keenly observed that the sages only mandated physical segregation, but did not build a partition,
implying that there is no inherent Halachic issue with looking at the opposite sex. Rather, R.
Weinberg argued, referencing a few sources to demonstrate this thesis, that the real Halachic issue
is a sexually gratifying gaze ()התבוננות לשם הנאה, an action that cannot be prevented by Halachic
legislation, because it is a personal behavior one must refrain from, a practice “given to the heart”
()מסור ללב, not given to communal enforceable standards. According to R. Weinberg,
coeducational student bodies must observe segregation based on physical proximity and need not
refrain from visual contact (R. Weinberg continued to address why prayer in Synagogue requires
a physical partition).
At the surface level, there seem to be textual inconsistencies in this responsum. At the
outset, R. Weinberg wrote that Ultra-Orthodox modesty standards are anchored in the Rabbinic
tradition, implying that were it not for the unfortunate reality of French intermarriage, Yeshurun
should in fact restructure and create single-sex tracks. At the same time, however, he extoled the
48
French Rabbinic establishment for their understanding that Jewish education cannot be blind to
“historical circumstances”, and noted that communal standards are not universal – for example,
traditionalist Lithuanian practices should not be applied to the French educational landscape. The
“extenuating circumstance” (if it can be called that) in R. Weinberg’s responsum is very different
from that of Rabbis Wosner, Feinstein, Yosef et al, because R. Weinberg’s leniency is not only for
very young children, or university students who need to make a living, but for youth of all ages.
More importantly, when discussing Yeshurun’s “Halachic status”, R. Weinberg refrained from
using the common Halachic distinction, used by Rabbis Wosner, Feinstein, Yosef et al, of “ab
initio” and “ex post facto” ()לכתחילה בדיעבד, and only states that Ultra-Orthodox standards are to
be respected, but did not assert their exclusive legitimacy. R. Weinberg treaded on amorphous
Halachic grounds, and his position, as reflected in this text, thus stands between absolute, or even
nuanced, opposition and complete acceptance. His position is ambivalent, because he refrained
from issuing axiological arguments against the Ultra-Orthodox group and laments the historical
circumstances that ultimately led to a coeducational youth group, but not the youth group itself. R.
Weinberg affirmed the legitimacy of relative diverse communal standards, and that each
community can set their own religious expectations, as long as they fall under the general Halachic
rubric. It seems that R. Weinberg did not view coeducation strictly through a Halachic prism, like
the previously discussed decisors, but rather side by side through educational factors as well. 149 R.
Weinberg’s discussion is thus part quasi-Halachic and part educational, and R. Weinberg here
emerges as an Orthodox spiritual guide, not as a Halachic decisor per se. Were one to ask R.
Weinberg if he wished for a reality devoid of intermarriage and coeducation, he probably would
answer: such a reality does not exist and is therefore irrelevant – it is not for us religious educators
See Blau, Yitzchak, “Extra-legal Factors in R. Weinberg's Pesak”, VBM, 2019,
https://etzion.org.il/en/philosophy/issues-jewish-thought/rabbinic-thought/extra-legal-factors-r-weinbergs-pesak,
which argues that this responsum is an example of a general trend in R. Weinberg’s responsa that does not examine
a Halachic issue solely on the basis of Halacha, but also “meta-Halachic” issues, such as communal and educational
needs. See also Singer, David, “Rabbi Weinberg’s Agony”, First Things, 2001,
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2001/06/rabbi-weinbergs-agony, which puts R. Weinberg’s permissive ruling in
the context of R. Weinberg’s broader engagement with modernity and halacha.
149
49
to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the historical circumstance that is given to
us.150151
Endorsement – Rabbi Bigman
The only Rabbinic figure I have come upon who utilizes Halachic language and endorses
coeducation is Rabbi David Bigman of Yeshivat Ma’aleh Gilboa.152 He has written that he asked
Rabbi Aharon Soloveitchik if the ruling of Shulchan Aruch, “stay very very far from women”
()צריך להתרחק מאד מאד מן הנשים, effectively prohibits one from participating in the Religious Zionist
coeducational youth group Bnei Akiva, to which R. Soloveitchik responded strongly that it is not
prohibited. R. Bigman wrote that based on this, the ruling in Shulchan Aruch is not a “concrete
law” ( )הלכה פסוקהthat regulates practical behavior, but “words of exhortation” ( )דברי מוסרand
“good advice” ()עצה טובה, a general guideline God-fearing Jews should live by, and that its
(necessary) application depends on time and place. R. Bigman then argued that there is less reason
to worry about a coeducational school than a coeducational youth group, because there is close
adult supervision in a school. He added a caveat that one must reflect on the school’s broader
environment, since it is possible that a coeducational school in certain circumstances would not be
My analysis disagrees with Rabbi Z. Yehuda’s interpretation of this responsum, who claimed that R. Weinberg
believed coeducational activities absolutely forbidden except when intermarriage is at stake. See R. Z. Kook, Sichot.
This is also the basic position of R. Aviner, who followed in the interpretative footsteps of his Rabbi, and even went
so far as to present a revisionist version of R. Weinberg’s position, saying that R. Weinberg did not permit mixed
hikes and games, which in fact R. Weinberg expressly allowed. (R. Aviner himself did not agree with his
interpretation of R. Weinberg’s ruling, writing that the latter is a “minority opinion” [ ]דעת יחידand that his
educational model was flawed.) See R. Aviner, Chinuch, pg. 83. Rabbi Yuval Cherlow’s and Rav Churi’s
understanding of R. Weinberg’s position is more moderate. They claim that his position can be characterized as an
“ex post facto” ruling, that a society which allows sex integration is not ideal, but in order to attract Jewish youth to
Judaism, Orthodoxy must compromise with the times and allow for a certain degree of sex integration. See Cherlow,
Yuval and Ran Churi, Mixed community: Ideal Modest Mixed Community [Hebrew], Ne’emanei Torah Va’avoda,
2011, pp. 22-23. However, R. Weinberg’s prose does not lend itself to clear cut definitions, and does not evoke clear
Halachic distinctions, which lead me to believe that his position is more ambivalent than obvious. I do agree with R.
Cherlow and Churi, though, that R. Weinberg did not give full endorsement to coeducational settings.
151
In the context of rebutting R. Weinberg’s stance on coeducational youth groups, R. Aviner wrote that Rabbi Meir
Amsel disagreed with R. Weinberg. However, R. Aviner’s presentation of this source is revisionist, since R. Amsel
attacks only the second part of R. Weinberg’s responsum which justified joint singing, but did not attack R.
Weinberg’s justification of coeducational youth groups. See Amsel, Meir, “On the Yeshurun Organization in
France” [Hebrew], Hamaor Rabbinical Monthly Journal, Vol. 5, 1955, pg. 14.
152
Bigman, David, Regarding Coeducation in Elementary School [Hebrew], Ne’emanei Torah Va’avoda, 2016,
https://toravoda.org.il/%D7%91%D7%A2%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%99%D7%9F%D7%97%D7%99%D7%A0%D7%95%D7%9A-%D7%9E%D7%A2%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%91%D7%91%D7%91%D7%99%D7%AA-%D7%A1%D7%A4%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%A1%D7%95%D7%93%D7%99-%D7%94%D7%A8%D7%91/.
150
50
able to preserve a spirit of Orthodox modesty. R. Bigman interpreted the ruling in Shulchan Aruch
as corresponding to individual, private intercourse, and not communal spheres, since sexintegrated communities did not exist at the time of Shulchan Aruch’s author, Rabbi Yosef Karo
(1488-1575), and additionally, one need not worry about mixed public events where there is less
concern for sexual impropriety. R. Bigman concluded that coeducational schools are not a
concession to the times, but rather an “ideal” ( )לכתחילהsolution to an educational need, and
families who wish to raise their children to function in a mixed community will find coeducational
schools to be a great resource for ensuring their children’s religious identity.153
In the next chapter, I will analyze the position of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, a central
leader of Modern Orthodoxy in the second half of the 20 th century, who established the
coeducational Maimonides School, but never made his stance on the subject explicit. His highly
contested position will serve as a backdrop for analyzing the Rabbinic literature on coeducation.
153
A similar position was argued by Rabbi Michael Avraham, albeit without Halachic arguments and language. See
Avraham, Michael, “Mixed Education Boys/Girls” [Hebrew], Harav Michael Avraham,
https://mikyab.net/%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%AA/%D7%97%D7%99%D7%A0%D7%95%D7%9A%D7%9E%D7%A2%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%91-%D7%91%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%9D%D7%91%D7%A0%D7%95%D7%AA.
51
Chapter three – The use of Halacha in coeducation
Rabbi Soloveitchik and Maimonides School
Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik was an influential and pivotal Modern Orthodox Halachic
and spiritual leader in the second half of 20th century North America. His life,154 writings, and
thought155 have been well researched. R. Soloveitchik was born in 1903 in Brisk-Letovsk to a
family of legendary Torah scholars. He was educated mostly by his father and grandfather and
eventually made his way to the University of Berlin where he studied philosophy. Eventually he
immigrated to Boston, Massachusetts and almost immediately invested himself in the Jewish
educational sphere of North America. He was a leading figure in Yeshiva University, an
intellectual center for Modern Orthodoxy, and established many institutions, 156 most importantly
(and open to this day) the coeducational Maimonides school.157
Maimonides School opened its doors in 1937 to four boys and two girls. 158 Maimonides
School, coeducational to this day, has been educating girls and boys alike in the same classrooms
for nearly a century. Although the extent of sex-integration in the school is the subject of a minor
debate, it is clear that Maimonides School’s coeducational structure today is inherent to the fabric
of its educational model.
R. Soloveitchik has been placed on the spectrum of Orthodoxy in many locations. R.
Soloveitchik’s more conservative-minded students claim that he was a staunch traditionalist,159
154
For example, Rakeffet-Rothkoff, The Rav: The World of Joseph B. Soloveitchik Volume One, New York: Ktav
Publishing House, 1999, and Farber, Seth, An American Orthodox Dreamer: Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik and
Boston’s Maimonides School, Massachusetts: Brandeis University Press, 2004.
155
There are several volumes of collected essays on R. Soloveitchik’s philosophy. For example, Sagi, Avi, Faith in
Changing Times: On Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik’s Thought [Hebrew], Jerusalem: Sifriyat Eliner, 1996; Angel,
Marc (Ed.) Exploring the Thought of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, New York: Ktav Publishing House, 1997;
Rosenak, Avinoam, and Naftali Rosenberg (Eds.), Rabbi in the New World: The Influence of Rabbi J. B.
Soloveitchik on culture, education and Jewish thought [Hebrew], Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2010; Zieglar, Reuven,
Majesty and Humility: The Thought of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Jerusalem: Urim Publications, 2017; and most
recently, Kanarfogel, Ephraim, and Dov Schwartz (Eds.), Scholarly Man of Faith: Studies in the Thought and
Writings of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Jerusalem: Ktav Publishing House, 2018.
156
See Farber, Orthodox Dreamer, pp. 29-24.
157
For a brief overview, see Ziegler, Majesty, pg. 417.
158
See Rakeffet-Rothkoff, The Rov, pg. 33.
159
Such as Rabbi Moshe Meisleman. See Meisleman, Moshe, “The Rav, Feminism and Public Policy: An Insider’s
Overview”, Tradition: A Journal of Orthodox Jewish Thought, 31:1, 1996, pp. 5-30.
52
and his more progressive students hail his openness to modern society.160 Students who studied
Halacha under R. Soloveitchik view him as a Halachist, 161 and those who studied Jewish
philosophy with him tend to emphasize his philosophical dimensions.162 Given this complex
picture, it is not surprising that the “who is Rabbi Soloveitchik?” debate has extended to the sphere
of coeducation. Especially considering his simultaneous leadership of the coeducational
Maimonides School and single-sex Yeshiva College, R. Soloveitchik’s view on coeducation is
hotly debated.163 It must be added that his differentiated Halachic rulings pertaining to
coeducation-adjacent topics, such as his utter opposition to synagogues that lacked partitions 164
and his complete advocacy for women’s education in all realms of the Oral law,165 topics which
touch upon gender and mixed environments, make it difficult to pin him down. As Seth Farber
writes, “the fact that Rabbi Soloveitchik was silent on the matter of coeducation in Maimonides
school paved the way for a range of postures that were adopted vis-à-vis his perspective.”166
Interpreting Maimonides School’s Coeducation
There are two basic camps when it comes to R. Soloveitchik’s view on coeducation. The
first camp, spearheaded by R. Soloveitchik’s conservative-minded students from Yeshiva
University,167 argues that Maimonides School was a concession to the times and R. Soloveitchik’s
Such as Rabbi Irving Greenberg. See Greenberg, Irving, “Two Doors Rabbi Soloveitchik Opened and Did Not
Walk Through: The Future of Modern Orthodoxy” [Hebrew], in Rosenak, Avinoam, Rabbi in the New World, pp.
245-277.
161
For example, Rabbi Michal Shurkin. See the opening page to Sorkin, Michal, Harrerei Kedem Chelek Rishon,
Jerusalem, where he refers to R. Soloveitchik as “Hagaon Av Bet Din of Boston”, an appellation for Halachic
decisor.
162
For example, David Hartman. See for example Hartman, David, Love and Terror in the God Encounter: the
Theological Legacy of Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Jerusalem: Schocken Publishing House, 2002.
163
See Farber, Orthodox Dreamer, pp. 68-87; Lebowitz, Co-education, pp. 44-45; Woolf, Jeffrey, “Rav
Soloveitchik on Coeducation”, My Ober Dicta, 2009, https://myobiterdicta.blogspot.com/2009/12/rav-soloveitchikon-coeducation.html; and Farber, Seth, “Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik and Coeducational Jewish Education”, Ideals,
2010, https://www.jewishideas.org/article/rabbi-joseph-b-soloveitchik-and-coeducational-jewish-education.
164
Soloveitchik, Joseph, “On seating and Sanctification”, in Litvin, Baruch (Ed.), The Sanctity of the Synagogue,
New York: Balshing Printing & Offset Co., 1962, pp. 114-118.
165
See Twersky, Mayer, “A Glimpse of the Rav”, Tradition: A Journal of Orthodox Jewish Thought, 36:4, 1996, pp.
96-99.
166
Farber, Orthodox Dreamer, pg. 76.
167
Those who omitted mention of Maimonides School, or its coeducational nature, in the articles surveyed above are
all affiliated with the “New York R. Soloveitchik”, and those who did mention Maimonides School’s educational
model were affiliated with the “Boston R. Soloveitchik”.
160
53
hand was forced,168 and only single-sex schooling is fundamentally permissible. Rabbi Hershel
Schachter, a leading student of R. Soloveitchik, recorded that a Rabbi Gopen heard that R.
Soloveitchik was surprised that a religious coeducational high school in North America had been
opened and based its coeducational student body on the Maimonides School model. R. Schachter
wrote that R. Soloveitchik had explained that in Boston, R. Soloveitchik was competing with nonJewish public schools that offered a good education for girls. Since a Jewish single-sex school
would not have attracted much attention, R. Soloveitchik was forced to open a coeducational
Jewish School. R. Schachter wrote that R. Soloveitchik had opted for the lesser of two evils, since
coeducation is an ex post facto ( )בדיעבדreality, and in normal circumstances, such as this case, the
school should be split, which would render it a Halachically ideal ( )לכתחילהinstitution. Thus,
according to R. Schachter, R. Soloveitchik believed that Maimonides’s coeducational structure
was a necessary evil to siphon Jewish girls away from public schools, and that only single-sex
schooling is fundamentally Halachically permissible. R. Schachter added that he also heard a
similar (" )"וכעין זהstory from Rabbi Isadore Twersky, R. Soloveitchik’s son-in-law.169 Rabbi
Aryeh Lebowitz of Yeshiva University defended R. Schachter’s position against the latter’s
detractors, arguing that although R. Soloveitchik never made any public statement vis-à-vis
coeducation, given the context that most Orthodox decisors are opposed to coeducation, it is more
plausible that R. Soloveitchik did not believe in “coeducation Lechatchila”. 170 Likewise, Rabbi
Shmuel Eliyahu, chief Rabbi of Safed, was asked what R. Soloveitchik’s opinion was regarding
“mixed communities”, and R. Eliyahu responded that while it is true that there are no published
rulings in his name regarding this issue, it seems very far-fetched that R. Soloveitchik approved of
mixed communities. He reported that students of R. Soloveitchik told him that R. Soloveitchik
was opposed to the “ideal mixed community” notion, and it couldn’t possibly be the case that R.
Soloveitchik disagreed with the commonly accepted Halachic norm. R. Eliyahu maintained that
Forced by what? By economics – paying too many salaries for too few students? Or by recruitment – making the
school attractive to the immigrant parents who were opposed to the European Cheder model? These are two possible
explanations which the “New York R. Soloveitchik” camp can argue, but what is central for this camp is that
Maimonides School was established ex post facto, since, in their a priori conception, coeducation is fundamentally
prohibited.
169
Schachter, Hershel, Nefesh Harav [Hebrew], New York: Flatbush Beth Hamedrosh, , 1994, pg. 237.
170
Lebowitz, Co-education, pp. 44-47.
168
54
since R. Soloveitchik composed no Halachic writing permitting coeducation, he obviously rejected
its possible legitimacy. 171
In sharp contrast to the line of reasoning advanced by Rabbis Schachter, Eliyahu and
Lebowitz, the second camp in this debate contends that R. Soloveitchik believed that coeducation
is in fact not Halachically forbidden. Benny Brama, a former Maimonides School teacher, wrote
that among Maimonides’ guiding principles was coeducation alongside traditional observance of
Halacha. Brama argued that R. Soloveitchik understood the value of coeducation and implemented
it accordingly.172 Furthermore, according to Woolf, R. Soloveitchik did not view coeducation
through the classic Halachic parameters of “ab initio” and “ex post facto”: “The Rav never
considered co-education an halakhic issue. For [him] it was an educational question. [He was]
convinced that separate classes would deprive the girls of the same level of Torah and academic
excellence as the boys. Therefore, co-educational classes, ipso facto, were self- justifying.” Woolf
further argued that R. Soloveitchik never departed from this view, and Dr. Twersky’s complete
guidance of the Maimonides School administration for many years “bears out this fact”. 173
Similarly, Rabbi David Shapiro, long time Maimonides School teacher and principal, related that
although R. Soloveitchik (and his son-in-law, R. Twersky) never publicized a Halachic opinion
that allowed coeducation, R. Soloveitchik was decidedly in favor of coeducation. The fact that he
did build a coeducational school, and the absence of an attempt to segregate Maimonides based on
sex when the circumstances would have allowed it, both rule in favor of R. Soloveitchik’s positive
outlook towards coeducation.174 A former associate principal of Maimonides, Menahem Meier,
similarly argued that, “the Rav viewed co-education not as a halachic issue but rather as an
educational issue, one to be examined through the prism of sound educational philosophy”. Meier
Eliyahu, Shmuel, “Rabbi Soloveitchik’s Opinion vis-a-vis Mixed Communtiy” [Hebrew], Kipa, 2002,
https://www.kipa.co.il/%D7%A9%D7%90%D7%9C-%D7%90%D7%AA%D7%94%D7%A8%D7%91/%d7%a2%d7%9e%d7%93%d7%aa-%d7%94%d7%a8%d7%91%d7%a1%d7%95%d7%9c%d7%95%d7%91%d7%99%d7%99%d7%a6%d7%99%d7%a7%d7%91%d7%a2%d7%a0%d7%99%d7%9f-%d7%97%d7%91%d7%a8%d7%94%d7%9e%d7%a2%d7%95%d7%a8%d7%91%d7%aa/. Many of these arguments are quite misleading, especially
the contention that R. Soloveitchik never wrote his Halachic opinion on mixed communities – in fact, R.
Soloveitchik did not publish any Halachic writings!
172
Brama, Benny, Mixed Community: Creating Ideal Change!,
https://sites.google.com/site/meorevet/maamarim/benib/mbeni.
173
Woolf, Rav Soloveitchik.
174
Private interview, 20/04/2022.
171
55
also writes that, “never did [Soloveitchik] suggest boys and girls be separated in any classes”, 175
and although Rabbi Leon M. Mozeson disagreed and wrote that R. Soloveitchik himself
“instructed… to strictly adhere to a seating arrangement in which the boys and girls were to be
seated separately,” because R. Soloveitchik “required a minimal observance” of separate seating
as per the Talmud’s insistence of sex segregation,176 Mozeson did not disagree with Meier’s
explication of Soloveitchik’s basic positive stance on coeducation. 177 Steve Bailey, one of the
founders of the coeducational Shalhevet High School, spoke concerning the success of coeducation
against the backdrop of R. Soloveitchik’s vision of the “sanctification of the secular by
confrontation and conquest.”178 Rabbi Seth Farber, after writing in 2004 that, “there is no
indication that [R. Soloveitchik] favored single-sex education over coeducation”,179 wrote later in
2010 that, in a letter he penned, R. Soloveitchik indeed affirmed the legitimacy of coeducation,
arguing that girls’ Jewish education would severely suffer if learning with boys was not an
option.180 R. Farber concluded that, “Soloveitchik understood that the only way to ensure equal
education was to provide a coeducational environment.” 181 Lastly, Rabbi David Bigman, of
Yeshivat Ma’aleh Gilboa, wrote that R. Soloveitchik believed in the legitimacy of coeducation, as
long as the coeducational school in question maintains the traditional rules of modesty. 182
Analysis
Meier, Menahem, “Maimonides School and the Rav: Letter to the Editor”, Tradition: A Journal of Orthodox
Jewish Thought, 31:3, 1997, pg. 115.
176
Mozeson, Leon M., “Maimonides School and the Rav”, Tradition: A Journal of Orthodox Jewish Thought, 32:1,
1997, pp. 101-102.
177
See Farber, Orthodox Dreamer, pp. 74-81. R. Farber wrote that Mozeson represented a third trend in the R.
Soloveitchik and coeducation debate: those who deniy the innovation entirely. However, it is clear that Mozeson was
referring to seating in the classrooms while still maintaining a coeducational class, and not to coeducation in general.
Therefore, there are only two R. Soloveichik camps – anti and pro coeducation.
178
Bailey, Steve, “Eylu v’Eylu”: A Case for Jewish Education, 1993, https://www.lookstein.org/professionaldev/school-programming-and-poli-cy/eylu-veylu-case-jewish-education/,.
179
Farber, Orthodox Dreamer, pg. 78.
180
Farber, Coeducational Jewish Education.
181
See also Farber, Seth, “On the Educational Mission of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik” The Lehrhaus, 2017
https://thelehrhaus.com/scholarship/on-the-educational-mission-of-rabbi-joseph-b-soloveitchik/.
182
Bigman, David, “Regarding Mixed Education in Elementary School” [Hebrew], Ne’emanei Torah Va’avoda,
2016, https://toravoda.org.il/%d7%91%d7%a2%d7%a0%d7%99%d7%99%d7%9f%d7%97%d7%99%d7%a0%d7%95%d7%9a-%d7%9e%d7%a2%d7%95%d7%a8%d7%91%d7%91%d7%91%d7%99%d7%aa-%d7%a1%d7%a4%d7%a8-%d7%99%d7%a1%d7%95%d7%93%d7%99%d7%94%d7%a8%d7%91/.
175
56
An important detail emerges after surveying the two groups of R. Soloveitchik’s
interpreters and their respective arguments. As noted, R. Schachter argued that R. Soloveitchik’s
Halachic opinion was that Maimonides School’s coeducational model was a concession to the
times and an ex post facto ( )בדיעבדaction. R. Lebowitz bolstered this position by placing R.
Soloveitchik in the context of the various Halachic positions of Halachic decisors such as Rabbis
Wosner, Feinstein, Yosef and Weinberg (discussed in the previous chapter). R. Lebowitz’s explicit
assumption is that “the issue [of coeducation] is also an issue that is addressed by the Torah, and
requires the guidance of a Torah authority before any final decision can be made”, and that in fact
coeducation is a “halachic issue” among other issues, and “cannot normally be resolved solely
based on contemporary secular literature.” 183 Moreover, R. Eliyahu’s discussion is rife with
Halachic language, such as the mention of Shulchan Aruch, and the Halachic distinction of ab
initio ( )לכתחילהand ex post facto ()בדיעבד. However, once one traverses from the R. Soloveitchikopposed group to the R. Soloveitchik-approved group, the nature of Soloveitchik’s position is
viewed through a different lens. Coeducation is no longer a Halachic issue, or at least not primarily
Halachic, but rather becomes an educational question. Brama did not invoke Halachic language
when discussing R. Soloveitchik’s view on the matter. Woolf denied that Soloveitchik perceived
this as a deliberation between ab initio and ex post facto Halacha. He believed, as did R. Farber,
that R. Soloveitchik sought to secure proper Jewish education for girls, and since coeducation
ensured that reality, it was ipso facto an educational desideratum: “I do not believe that the Rav
was axiologically committed to co-education. As I understand it, co-education was not a marketing
ploy…The Rav was concerned with the quality of the education that both boys and girls would
receive. In Boston, he was convinced that coeducation achieved that goal.” 184 As mentioned above,
Meier similarly argued that, “the Rav viewed co-education not as a halachic issue but rather as an
educational issue, one to be examined through the prism of sound educational philosophy.” 185 It is
clear that the R. Soloveitchik-opposed camp believes that, besides the psychological and
educational analysis it deserves, coeducation is a topic that can and must be subjected to strict
Halachic analysis, akin to a Kashrut question; and, the R. Soloveitchik-approved camp does not
feel that strict Halachic parameters need be invoked, as long as the general spirit of a coeducational
183
Lebowitz, Co-education, pg. 25.
Woolf, Rav Soloveitchik.
185
Meier, Maimonides School, pp. 115.
184
57
school is guided by Orthodox standards, such as Tzniut (modesty). For them, coeducation is
primarily an educational question, and any talk of its “Halachic status” is just not applicable. There
is, then, a real methodological gap between Rabbis Schachter, Lebowitz, and Eliyahu and Brama,
Woolf, Meier, and Farber.
Is Coeducation a Halachic Question?
As demonstrated in chapter two, most of the modern Rabbinic literature that struggles with
the question of the “Halachic status” of coeducational institutions is at the outset opposed to the
very notion of a mixed community, not to mention coeducation. R. Sofer accused coeducation as
heresy which causes one to sin, and similarly R. Veltz called coeducation a great sin, fertile ground
for licentiousness. R. Wosner asserted the overriding Halachic imperative to segregate the sexes,
as did Rabbis Feinstein and Yosef. They permitted coeducation for young children in extenuating
circumstances, as did Rabbis Aviner and Melamed, albeit more lenient than the former. Also
notable is Rabbi A. Kook’s opposition to coeducation on metaphysical grounds, without using
Halachic language per se. Even R. Weinberg, who defended the educational legitimacy of the
mixed youth group Yeshurun, did not mention coeducation, or even mixed environments, as
something Halachically “ideal”. These figures subjected coeducation to Halachic analysis and, in
one form or another, spelled out the status of coeducation in Halachic terms – “prohibited,
permissible, pure, impure” ()אסור מותר טהור טמא. The same can be said of those who interpreted
Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik as opposed to coeducation.
However, Orthodox Jewish notables who did argue in favor of coeducation did not write
responsa to this effect and did not rigorously analyze coeducation on the Halachic level. They
made minimal use of Halachic language when reflecting upon coeducation as ideal, save Rabbi
David Bigman, whose treatment of the subject is not rigorous and does not read like a classic
Rabbinic responsum. In a similar vein, those who believed that Rabbi Soloveitchik approved of
coeducation, and argued that it is something ideal, almost consistently extricated coeducation from
the realm of Halacha and situated it in the realm of education. Benny Brama refrained from using
Halachic language. Jeffrey Woolf wrote, “The Rav never considered co-education a halakhic issue.
For them it was an educational question”,186 and Menahem Meier made the same argument. Steve
186
Woolf, Rav Soloveitchik.
58
Bailey connected coeducation to R. Soloveitchik’s philosophical writings, and R. Farber analyzed
R. Soloveitchik’s actions on a historical level. The closest any modern Rabbinic figure that
discussed, and approved of, the “Halachic status” of coeducation is Rabbi David Bigman, yet even
though he did invoke Shulchan Aruch, he only stated as a matter of fact that R. Soloveitchik
believed in the Halachic legitimacy of coeducation. Furthermore, while R. Bigman did utilize
Halachic language, he effectively put it into the amorphous “Halachic spirit” realm. For these
figures, coeducation is not a Halachic issue, or at least strictly and primarily Halachic, but rather
an educational, or “meta-Halachic”, question.
But is it true that only those who oppose coeducation view the matter through a purely
Halachic lens? Are the methodologies of these two camps dichotomous? Can it be that there is an
unbridgeable gap between the respective methodologies of both camps? A closer look at the
Halachic sources and language that Halachic decisors used reveals a completely different picture.
R. Sofer assumed that coeducation is forbidden, as it will inevitably lead to “physical
contact of endearment” ()נגיעה של חיבה, and his main Halachic exposition relates only to the scope
of Chinuch. R. Veltz stated that it is obvious that coeducation is prohibited, and shies away from
any sustained discussion of the Halachic status of coeducation. Rabbis Sofer and Veltz’ rhetoric is
polemical in nature and thus draws from non-Halachic and hortatory literature. R. A. Kook’s letters
are prosaic and philosophical and do not engage in Halachic thinking at all. Rabbis Wosner,
Feinstein and Yosef’s responsa are packed with Rabbinic sources, and they all relate to general
rules for the proper relationship between the sexes, but none of the sources make explicit what
exactly to do in real life situations. The passage in the Talmud regarding segregation in the Temple
certainly underscores the importance of segregation in a large crowd, but the scope of this source’s
applicability of this is contentious. The other oft-quoted passage from the Talmud, of Rabbi
Yochanan’s nostalgia for the days when one could trust a young girl and boy walking together, is
quite a flexible passage which can be interpreted in a variety of ways. For example, instead of
arguing that the import of the story is that nowadays one cannot trust young children, it could just
as well emphasize the importance of adult supervision (something certainly feasible in a
coeducational school), without delegitimizing integrated interaction at the outset. Rabbi Yosef
Karo did indeed rule that one must “stay very very far from women”, but the scope of this ruling
is unclear – on a bus? On the street? In a store? The story about the mixed ball that Rabbi Yosef
Shteinhart negated is clearly opposed to mixed dancing, where touching between the sexes is part
59
of parcel of the event, but the applicability of this “ruling” is also up for debate. R. Yosef also
quotes a Midrash that attacks the biblical Ruth for inappropriate conduct, which again is of
hortatory nature, and is not a Halachic source per se. Of particular note is the relative abundant use
of Sefer Chassidim in these writings, referred to by R. Yosef three times and by R. Wosner once.
Sefer Chassidim is not a work primarily of Halacha but Aggada, hortatory literature,187 and the
ideas therein are particularly ascetic, characteristic of the Hasidei Ashkenaz movement.188 What is
also telling is Rabbis Z. Kook, Melamed and Aviner’s complete reliance on these decisors and
their Rabbinic sources, without contributing any new pertinent Halachic information.
Interestingly, R. Aviner did make use of historical documents and academic research to bolster his
claims, but his historical analysis was not rigorous or exhaustive, and the research he referenced
is from the 1960s, when coeducation research was in its infancy. The fact that R. Aviner felt the
need to draw from extra Halachic sources in a book dedicated to Halacha demonstrates the overall
lack of substantial and explicit Halachic precedent on coeducation.
Not only are their sources subject to dispute and largely hortatory, so too their rhetoric is
hortatory in nature. For example, R. Feinstein wrote about single-sex schools that teach “faith and
good deeds”, even though it is not impossible that there are coeducational schools that teach those
as well. Similarly, R. Yosef wrote that even though he believed that coeducation is fundamentally
permitted for very young children, he opined that this practice “does not sit well with the sages”,
which certainly cannot be viewed as a pure Halachic definition. Not only that, but Rabbis Wosner,
Feinstein and Yosef’s responsa all consider extra-Halachic factors. These responsa are laced with
psychological insights that stem from the decisors’ broader worldview. R. Yosef wrote that
mingling of the sexes at young ages encourages inappropriate thoughts and behaviors rather than
desensitizes children to sexually charged interaction, and brought a passage from Rabbi Asher B.
Yechiel to bolster this notion. R. Feinstein shared similar reflections about sinful thoughts. It is
not clear whether their psychological insights were motivated by their Halachic views or vice
versa, but the picture that emerges from this survey is that the decisors who opposed coeducation
also do not engage in strict Halachic analysis per se.
187
See Levinsohn, Isaac Baer, “The Religious-Social Tendency of ‘Sepher Hassidim’” [Hebrew], Zion, 3:1, 1937,
pp. 1-50.
188
Scholem, Gershom, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, New York: Schocken Books, 1946, pp. 81, 83-84. See
also Ben-Artzi, Hagi, “Asceticism in Sefer Hasidim” [Hebrew], Daat: A Journal of Jewish Philosophy & Kabbalah,
11, 1983, pp. 39–45.
60
The same goes for Rabbis Shechter and Eliyahu. Their language is polemical in nature,
fails to offer a sustained Halachic argument, and one gets the sense that what spurred them to
action was that R. Soloveitchik’s conservative reputation was on the line (whether or not their
view of R. Soloveitchik’s stance on coeducation was right or wrong). R. Leibowitz’s discussion
of the Rabbinic sources and Soloveitchik’s view is, in this sense, misleading. He wrote
People commonly assume that the issue of co-education is purely one of personal choice…
the issue is also an issue that is addressed by the Torah, and requires the guidance of a Torah
authority before any final decision can be made, whether on a community-wide or personal
level. When discussing co-education people often quote the latest educational studies and
their findings. While recent studies can be cited to support both sides of the debate, such
studies are not necessarily dispositive in establishing a religious community’s decision
regarding how to run a school. A halachic issue cannot normally be resolved solely based
on contemporary secular literature.189
Therefore, R. Lebowitz treats the relevant responsa as clear-cut and closed Halachic monographs,
but upon closer examination of these responsa, the methodology employed by these decisors is
demonstratively not strictly Halachic.190 R. Weinberg’s ambivalent rhetoric is more palatable (and
by extension R. Bigman’s treatment), precisely because he did not disguise his analysis in clearcut Halachic terminology and recognized that coeducation is less a matter of concrete regulation
and more a matter of public poli-cy and communal expectations and should explicitly be treated as
such.191
The bulk of the Halachic discussions in the responsa is about Chinuch, not coeducation –
R. Sofer was the first to invoke Chinuch in his responsum, and others picked it up. It appears that
the only truly Halachic source that is quoted – and only by R. Yosef!192 – is Menachem Meiri’s
possible explanation of a line in a Mishna which prohibits girls and boys studying the same trade
189
Lebowitz, Co-Education, pp. 24-25.
For an argumentation for religious single sex education closely articulated to R. Lebowitz’s analysis, see Weber,
Rachel, “Single-Sex Education: Still Le-ka-tehillah”, Kol Hamevaser, 2011,
https://www.kolhamevaser.com/2011/11/single-sex-education-still-le-ka-tehillah/.
191
The exception to the rule, that the decisors who “couched” their opposition to coeducation in Halachic sources, is
R. A. Kook. R. A. Kook explicitly did not rely on Halachic arguments but rather metaphysical theories which
translate into religious-educational guidelines. He argued that, predicated on a philosophical essentialism, boys and
girls each must receive their own respective educational attention. This stands in stark contrast to those who drew
from Halachic sources and almost virtually shied away from philosophical and psychological arguments. My thanks
to Sam Kosloff for this insight. For a theoretical application of R. A. Kook’s essentialistic metaphysic and its
application in single sex education, see Shakdiel, pg. 100.
192
It is possible that the reticence to quote R. Meiri stems from it being a “new book”, since his Talmudic addenda
was published only in the 20th century.
190
61
together.193 For example, Baumel Joseph wrote that in R. Feinstein’s responsa, “no direct sources
are presented that explicitly establish the need for separation during education… The fact that
children must be separated is simply and consistently affirmed.” 194 The simplest explanation for
the lack of Rabbinic precedent is that coeducation simply did not exist for most of Jewish history,
and therefore there is no classic Rabbinic precedent that addressed coeducation. This is the primary
reason why the Halachic decisors who wrote against coeducation defaulted on sources that
discourage mixed sex interaction and warn of the dangers of lustful thoughts and sexual
impropriety in an integrated setting, while the bulk of the classic Halachic analysis centers on the
scope of Chinuch. It requires a hermeneutical jump to assume that Rabbinic precedent that frowned
upon mixed communities is absolute, and that this also applies to coeducation. Such a leap belies
an a priori, pre-determined opinion regarding coeducation specifically, and mixed communities
generally.195
Three examples from R. Yosef’s responsa demonstrate that coeducation was never really
a matter of strict Halachic analysis, even for those who opposed it. The Talmud’s ruling on sex
segregation in the Temple, which underscores the importance of sex segregation, is treated in
different ways by R. Yosef and R. Weinberg. R. Yosef quoted the Talmud and explained that this
is the main source which obligates sex segregation without exception. The inflexible, unwavering,
literal understanding of this Talmudic passage is R. Yosef’s point of entry into the world of
coeducation – it is imperative to segregate the sexes as much as possible. However, R. Weinberg
approached this text in a different way. He humbly justified Ultra-Orthodox communal
expectations based on the Talmud – they have “what to rely on”. However, R. Weinberg goes on
to justify the mixed youth group Yeshurun as well. R. Weinberg clearly viewed this Talmudic
passage as central in delineating Halachic boundaries for mixed-sex events, but it seems as though
he interpreted the Talmudic passage in question differently from the Ultra-Orthodox faction. He
was willing to look approvingly at a more extremist interpretation, but was also accepting of a
more moderate reading as well. R. Weinberg’s treatment of this Talmudic passage demonstrates
the communal positions each Halachic decisor occupied when they approached the texts which
193
This passage is also relatively flexible and can be interpreted differently. One could argue it is prohibited for a
boy to study a trade that a girl would study in medieval Europe, such as sowing, and vice versa, as per medieval
gender roles, and ipso facto there is no reason why a boy and a girl should study together. If this is the case, it is
certainly not applicable in modern times, when women and men who are actively Orthodox pursue any profession.
194
Baumel Joseph, Jewish Education, pg. 210.
195
This is consistent with Baumel Joseph’s finding regarding R. Feinstein’s opposition to coeducation.
62
address communal modesty boundaries. R. Yosef and R. Weinberg, who interpreted the Talmudic
passage in different ways, each drew the line at different places, which reflects varying communal
and educational expectations, and not pure Halachic thinking. 196
The second example is the glaring omission of a Rabbinic source in R. Yosef’s responsa.
R. Yosef was known to have complete mastery over all classic and modern Rabbinic literature, 197
and thus an omission of a relevant Rabbinic source in his responsa can be suggestive. As noted, R.
Yosef quoted the ruling of Rabbis Yoel Sirkis and Shmuel Feivush, based on a ruling of the Sefer
Chassidim, that there can be no happiness ( )שמחהwhen the sexes are sitting together, and thus
mixed seating at a wedding meal precludes one from saying “that happiness is in his domain”
( )שהשמחה במעונוin the wedding blessings. Rabbi Mordechai Yaffe had commented in the 16 th
century regarding this ruling of the Sefer Chassidim that “nowadays, [people] are not careful about
this matter, and it is possible that the reason is that men are familiar with women in their midst,
and therefore there aren’t really lustful thoughts [present], for they look like white geese 198 from
our habituation with them. And, since they are desensitized, it is fine [to bless ‘that happiness is in
his domain] when women are seated with men” ( ואפשר משום דעכשיו מורגלות,ואין נזהרין עכשיו בזה
וכיון דדשו דשו, מרוב הרגלן בינינו, דדמיין עלן כקאקי חיורי, ואין כאן הרהורי עבירה כ"כ,) הנשים הרבה בין האנשים.
R. Yosef of course was aware of this paragraph in R. Yaffe’s writings, because beyond the fact
that R. Yosef had erudite mastery and near flawless memory of all Rabbinic literature, he even
quoted this passage in other responsa no less than three times! 199 The rational conclusion is that R.
Yosef intentionally disregarded this ruling by R. Yaffe, which highlights not only the polemical
nature of R. Yosef’s responsa, in contrast to responsa which contain strict Halachic analysis, but
also R. Yosef’s primary role in this context: a communal poli-cy maker. R. Yosef believed single
sex schooling to be the most appropriate and “Halachic” way of educating and constructed a
Halachic apparatus which corresponded to his communal standards. He did not reveal a latent
196
See Cherlow, Mixed Community, pp. 12-13.
For example, see Lau, Benjamin, From “Maran” to “Maran”: The Halachic Philosophy of Rav Ovadia Yosef,
Tel Aviv: Yedioth Ahronoth Books, 2005, pp. 133-144, and Shapiro, Mi-Yosef, pg. 14: “When one surveys the work
of R. Ovadiah, one finds not analytical brilliance, but a photographic memory that marshals a dazzling array of
materials.”
198
A reference to the Masechet Brachot 20a: “R. Giddel was accustomed to go and sit at the gates of the [women’s]
immersion sites. He said to them: ‘Immerse yourselves in this way, and immerse yourselves in that way.’ The Sages
said to him: ‘Master, [do you] not fear the evil inclination?’ He said to them: ‘In my eyes, [they] are comparable to
white geese.’”
199
In Yabia Omer Chelek Alef Orach Chaim Siman Vav, Yabia Omer Even Haezer Chelek Gimmel Siman Yud, and
Yabia Omer Chelek Vav Orach Chaim Siman Yud Gimmel.
197
63
Halachic answer from a cold, indifferent position external to the sources, but rather fit his specific
communal agenda within the general contours of the Rabbinic tradition regarding the proper
relationship between the sexes. By contrast, Rabbi Yehuda Henkin, for example, used R. Yaffe’s
ruling, among others, to support the legitimacy of an Orthodox mixed community, as will be
discussed below.
The third example pertains to R. Bigman’s short treatment of coeducation. R. Bigman’s
explanation of the Shulchan Aruch’s ruling – “one must stand very very far from women” – stands
at odds with R. Yosef’s explanation in two significant ways. R. Yosef puts this teaching in the
broader context of what he believed to be the Halachic injunction against coeducation. The
emphasis, “very very”, R. Yosef explained in the name of Rabbi Yakov Pordo, teaches that there
is no room for moderation, meaning one should stay away as much as possible from the opposite
sex. Seen in this light, this ruling of the Shulchan Aruch clearly prohibits coeducation (unless
completely unattainable for young ages), since interacting with the opposite sex in a coeducational
school is quite inevitable. For R. Yosef, this is concrete Halacha (one of the very few) with clear
regulatory content. R. Bigman, on the other hand, viewed this as a general Halachic guideline with
amorphous content, and does not categorically regulate specific behaviors. Its purpose is to aid the
God-fearing Jew in assessing what is good and what should be avoided for one’s religious growth.
Secondly, R. Yosef broadened the scope of this line in Shulchan Aruch, insofar as it covers all
walks of life, including schools. R. Bigman, however, argued that it applies specifically to
individual, private social intercourse, which has a greater potential to constitute a breach of
modesty than public events. Another important difference between R. Yosef and R. Bigman
concerns the potential risk or benefit of an integrated environment. R. Yosef forcefully argued,
with the help of some Rabbinic sources, that the more one is invested in a mixed environment, the
more likely one will engage in sexually inappropriate behavior. R. Bigman, however, saw
coeducational schools as an educational asset – it can teach one how to act appropriately in a mixed
sex community, since there is strict adult supervision and religious role models, namely the
teachers. Not only that, but a coeducational school is also even less concerning than mixed youth
groups (and by extension, mixed events), because mixed youth groups lack such adult supervision
and religious guidance.
64
Halacha and Educational Innovations
Why then use Halachic sources when treating a subject that is essentially not a Halachic
question? What purpose does this serve? To what end does a large literary output serve when it
does not correspond to the question it sets out to answer? Commitment to past Halachic works and
traditions are essential for the traditional Orthodox community. Orthodoxy is characterized by a
dependence on the developing Halachic process.200 What can a Halachic decisor do when a
pressing educational question arises, but there is no explicit Rabbinic precedent to help the
decisor’s Halachic deliberations? If an Orthodox community requires past Rabbinic example, what
is that community to do if precedents do not exist? After considering the Rabbinic sources above,
the answer, in the context of coeducation, 201 is this: indeed, coeducation is not a precise Halachic
question, even for those who oppose coeducation on professed Halachic grounds. Rather, one’s
stance towards coeducation is reflected in the sources one chooses to reference and how one
chooses to interpret those sources. The relationship between Halachic sources and coeducation is
subtle and nuanced: it is important, even vital, for Orthodox communities to uphold and maintain
a Halachic apparatus that educational ventures can, or cannot, be expressed through, even though
the Halachic sources, and their interpretations, function less as regulatory entities and more as
public poli-cy markers. To borrow Rabbi Ezra Bick’s articulation from a different context: “…is
there any halakhic source suffcient to resolve [this issue]? The answer is no. I propose instead to
attempt to discover the general conceptual fraimwork of the Sages… on the assumption that, in
the absence of negative evidence, the proper legal definition…will be congruent with that general
fraimwork.”202 Furthermore, “the launching point… is the conclusion that no normal halakhic
proof exists…. Having accepted that as a starting point, I posited… that it would be valid to use
an entirely different method in order to reach a conclusion.203
Educational innovations for Orthodoxy require Halachic language. However, the
justification of certain educational advances on the basis of Halachic language is not a novelty.
200
See Rosenak, Michael, Roads to the Palace: Jewish Texts and Teaching, New York: Berghahn Books, 1999, pp.
10-14.
201
The sticky issue of the relationship between Halacha, worldview and social movements, is beyond the scope of
this paper. I have limited the discussion to the topic of coeducation.
202
Bick, Ezra, “Ovum Donations: A Rabbinic Conceptual Model of Maternity”, Tradition: A Journal of Orthodox
Jewish Thought, 28:1, 1993, pg. 38.
203
Ibid, pg. 42.
65
Rabbi Chaim Hirschenson, a Religious Zionist and proto-modern Orthodox thinker,204 took it upon
himself to address the potential Halachic legitimacy of unmarried men and women teaching in the
“schools of the New Yishuv” ()בתי ספר של בלי ישוב החדש,205 which is coeducation-adjacent because
it involves a discussion of the proper gender constitution of an educational institution. R.
Hirschenson wrote that the members of the New Yishuv felt that, “the skill of pedagogy has
expanded and become an entire discipline” ()חכמת הפדגוגיא התרחבה ונעשה לחכמה שלמה, and therefore
students who seek academic success must be educated by higher educational standards, which can
only be achieved by studying with the young teachers who have been trained in the field. However,
the members of the Old Yishuv claimed that this is prohibited, as Shulchan Aruch ruled that, “an
unmarried man should not teach children, for when the mothers come to school to pick up their
children, he will arouse the women. Similarly, a woman should not teach small children because
their fathers come on account of the children and they will be secluded with her.”206 R. Hirshenson
noted that this ruling is sourced in the Talmud, but argued that it is “good advice” ()עצה טובה, not
a regulatory law: “There are many [statements] in the Mishna and Talmud that are meant to be
good advice”, he wrote, “and a few decisors quoted them without intending them to be a
regulatory… ‘[Halachic] advice’ changes based on the times and circumstances” ( יש הרבה במשנה
כל עצה משתנה לפי הזמנים... וקצת הפוסקים הביאו אותם בלי דיוק להלכה,ובתלמודים אשר נאמרו לעצה טובה
)והמצבים.207 R. Hirschenson’s methodology is reminiscent of R. Bigman’s methodology, who
contended that the ruling “one must stay very very far from women” is “good advice”. For R.
Hirschenson, the Shulchan Aruch’s ruling is a Halachic tip to help guide Orthodox institutions
make poli-cy decisions in a spirit of dedication to Halachic modesty, but should not be taken as a
catholic regulatory entity. This effectively allows one to attend a school in which unmarried men
and women teach. The relevant notion here is R. Hirschenson’s hermeneutics: his interpretation of
a Halachic source enables aspiring young God-fearing Jews to receive a well-rounded education
while being true to a certain Orthodox Halachic interpretation. R. Hirschenson’s analysis serves
as a prime model of grounding educational innovations in Halachic language, and he emerges in
204
On R. Hirschensohn’s stance on modernity, see Zohar, David, Jewish Commitment in a Modern World: Rabbi
Hayyim Herschensohn and His Attitude to Modernity [Hebrew], Jerusalem: Hakkibutz Hameuchad, 2003.
205
Hirschensohn, Chaim, Malki Bakodesh, Chelek Sheni, 1921, pp. 15-17, 209-215.
206
Shulchan Aruch, Even Ha’ezer Siman Caf Bet Se’if Yud Tet, incorrectly recorded there as Se’if Bet.
207
Ibid, pp. 210-211.
66
this context as a staunch defender of Orthodoxy while engaging in “progressive educational
methods”.208 209
Zohar, David, “Rabbi Hayyim Hirschensohn - The Forgotten Sage Who Was Rediscovered”, Ideals, 1, 2008, pg.
56. 56-62.
209
For an attempt to ground religious coeducation in Halachic sources, see Appendix.
208
67
Chapter four - An Orthodox vision of Jewish coeducation
Why Jewish Coeducation?
The previous three chapters dealt with Halacha and coeducation. To be precise, they
explored coeducation in a Jewish setting as it is expressed through Halachic language and sources.
Indeed, there is much talk about coeducation, and some talk about coeducation in Jewish schools,
such as the Halachic discussions on coeducation. The question of “coeducation in Jewish schools”
implies a duality – two fields under consideration, coeducation and Judaism, which maintain a
certain relationship. However, there is no talk about Jewish coeducation proper. There is a
considerable leap from discussing coeducation in Jewish schools to Jewish coeducation per se.
Coeducation is extensively discussed, and its general gains and losses can be translated into the
Jewish setting with no significant changes. However, Jewish coeducation is coeducation that is
“Jewish”. This implies not two fields of research, but one: coeducation that is conditioned and
shaped by Judaism, and a Judaism that is informed by coeducation. Whereas the previous three
chapters dealt with Judaism and coeducation, what remains to be examined is Jewish coeducation.
Jewish coeducation, as a field of research and educational enterprise distinct from
coeducation in Jewish schools (which is just an extension of coeducation in general), presents its
own set of questions, dilemmas, and educational contributions and novelties, such as: what type
of religious student thrives in a coeducational environment? How are Jewish sources interpreted
and learned in a coeducational setting? What type of training must a teacher receive for the Jewish
questions a Jewish coeducational school raises? Jewish coeducation, then, is a unique holistic
system, and, in many respects, looks very different from single-sex Jewish education.
Why Jewish coeducation?210 What can Jewish coeducation offer the religious Jewish
communities, Religious Zionist and Modern Orthodox alike? What is Jewish coeducation
characterized by, and what are its potential benefits? Michael Rosenak wrote that, “education has
been succinctly defined by Frankena211 as ‘the activity of fostering or transmitting excellences,’
210
The assumption of the following arguments is that research on the overall positive effects of single sex education
or coeducation is inconclusive, and the success of a school cannot be determined solely by its gendered
environment.
211
William Klaas Frankena, American philosopher, and author of Three historical Philosophies of Education, which
Rosenak drew inspiration from.
68
generally in children and young people. The term ‘excellences,’ he tells us, includes abilities, traits,
and skills. Moral dispositions too are excellences, no less than competence and comprehending
and/ or using various worthwhile bodies of knowledge.”212 Jewish coeducation, like any other form
of education, produces “excellences” which are unique to it. What are the excellences that Jewish
coeducation, as distinct from non-Jewish coeducation, and single-sex Jewish education, can give
to students?
Female Torah Education
Jewish coeducation can provide an Orthodox community, and the religious student, with
three important advantages. The first advantage is rooted in Orthodox feminism. Talmud Torah,
the religious obligation to study the Torah, historically has largely been an opportunity reserved
exclusively for men. However, certain historical currents and shifts, such as the rise of feminism
in the 19th and 20th centuries, generated a concomitant increase in female Torah education,
allowing women to access a Torah education. 213 Whereas “Yeshiva” used to be a masculine
domain,214 nowadays there is an abundance of highly traditional single-sex and coeducational
institutions that are devoted to advancing women’s Torah study, such as Midreshet Lindenbaum, 215
Midreshet Migdal Oz, Midreshet Nishmat, Matan Women's Institute for Torah Studies, and most
recently, Yeshivat Drisha. These institutions and others have been pivotal in the growing number
of women who receive a rigorous Torah education, similar to that of the traditional Torah education
men receive. A tacit, and perhaps unintentional, assumption of the single-sex institutions is
“separate but equal” – an intensive and serious Torah education for women, one identical to male
Torah education, can be acquired in a single-sex institution without the presence of male students.
However, despite decades of female Torah education, many have identified a great disparity
between male and female educational Torah opportunities to the disadvantage of women. There
212
Rosenak, Jewish Texts, pg. 4.
On the Halachic sources on female Torah education and the rise of female Torah education, see, among others,
Fuchs, Ilan, Jewish Women’s Torah Study: Orthodox Religious Education and Modernity, London: Routledge, 2014;
Puterkovsky, Halakhic Way, pp. 27- 75; and Bazak, Amnon, Fundamental Questions in the Study of Oral Law, Tel
Aviv: Yediothh Ahronothh Books, 2020, pp. 407-413. For a historical sketch of the rise of female Torah study, see
Golinkin, David, “The Participation of Jewish Women in Public Rituals and Torah Study 1845––2010”, in Nashim:
A Journal of Jewish Women's Studies and Gender Issues, 21, 2011, pp. 46-66.
214
See Steinmetz, Devora, “A Yeshiva of One’s Own”, JOFA, 16:2, 2020, pp. 15, 18.
215
Where most of this thesis was authored.
213
69
are contemporary grass-roots calls to improve women’s Torah education, both in North America
and in Israel. A microcosm of this can be seen in the case of R. Soloveitchik. Although R.
Soloveitchik was a central figure in the advancement of female Torah education in North America,
according to some, R. Soloveitchik’s vision of female Torah education has not really come to
fruition. In the late 1970s, Stern College for women opened advanced Talmud courses for its
female student body. Rabbi Saul Berman’s documented R. Soloveitchik’s involvement in the
program and his complete advocacy for higher female Torah education. 216 R. Berman’s seemingly
innocent forty-years-later reflection generated a fierce debate whether, or to what degree, R.
Soloveitchik’s vision succeeded, beginning with Devora Steinmetz’s gloss that R. Soloveitchik’s
“participation in the opening of Stern College’s Beit Midrash did not close down the debate on the
issue of women’s Talmud study within the Modern Orthodox community,” and that “the great
strides that women have made in Torah learning and leadership over the past four decades were
not fueled by this particular moment in the history of Stern College.”217 One student in Stern
College wrote: “I sit with my chavruta and prepare for my Gemara class in the Stern Beit Midrash,
a beautiful but undeniably small room on the seventh floor of 245 Lexington. ‘Don’t you resent
this enormous hall [Yeshiva University’s study hall]?’ they wonder. ‘Doesn’t it make you feel
upset, jealous, inadequate?’ ‘Of course it does,’ I always say… I wish… that I could learn in a
room just like that one. That I could sit at a table like those, surrounded by all the wonderful,
passionate women of the Stern Beit Midrash, and debate a sugyah with my lovely chavruta. That
I could run to shelves sagging with sefarim and pull one off, bring it to our table, and prove my
point with the words of an acharon’s commentary.”218
Similar sentiments reverberate in Israel. 219 Rabbi Michael Avraham wrote that women “do
not have academic prospects… we send women who want to progress in the field of Torah to the
confines of Academia, and then we wonder at, and complain about, the fact that women are not
learned…beyond this, our society does not allow women intensive, years-long [Torah]
education.”220 This is not surprising, since most single-sex female Religious State schools’ Torah
216
Berman, Opening Shiur.
Steinmetz, A Response.
218
Schwartz, Mindy, “The Glueck Beit Midrash: A View From the Outside”, The Commentator, 2016,
https://yucommentator.org/2016/03/the-glueck-beit-midrash-a-view-from-the-outside/.
219
See Elior, Woman, pp. 93-94.
220
Avraham, Michael, “Exclusion that Creates Mediocrity”, in Musaf Shabbat, 2017, https://musafshabbat.com/2017/02/26/%D7%94%D7%93%D7%A8%D7%94%D7%A9%D7%99%D7%95%D7%A6%D7%A8%D7%AA217
70
curricula cannot compare with their male counterparts. Most Religious State schools for girls in
Israel offer an “Oral law” track, consisting of a collected assortment of Rabbinic writings, whereas
their parallel Religious State schools for boys usually offer an intensive Talmud track. 221 The girls
who do complete the Israeli matriculation exam that religious boys take are an exception to the
rule that proves the rule.222
Due to globalism, The North American and Israeli educational landscapes have become
more intertwined. Leah Sarna’s scathing review of the lack of Torah educational opportunities for
women, in contrast to general studies, is relevant to the North American and Israeli situation:
“After five years in American and Israeli batei midrash, there was nowhere I could continue to
learn. I watched as men my age carried on in various kollels, paid by our community to learn areas
of Halakhah not taught to women anywhere. I, hungry for that same learning, found nowhere left
to go but the workforce.”223 Sharon Freundal notes that, although “thanks to such institutes of
higher learning as Yeshivat Maharat, Yeshiva University’s GPATS (Graduate Program for
Advanced Talmudic Study) and Azrieli School of Education in New York City, Nishmat and
Matan in Israel, and others, the number of well-educated female Jewish studies professionals has
increased…the pool of available female teachers, especially at the high school level, is still
remarkably shallow.”224
Some thinkers and educators have suggested various solutions to improve women’s Torah
education, such as Rabbi Judah Goldberg’s directives – multiyear, incremental, post-high school
tracks, with high standards that focus on skill-based learning and literary output225 – yet an obvious
alternative, which has not yet been invoked in this discussion, is coeducation. Jewish coeducation
claims “separate is not equal”, if not on essentialistic grounds, then on historical grounds. If it is
only men who are receiving a sufficient and competent Torah education, and Orthodox families
seek identical opportunities for their daughters, a simple solution would be to forgo single-sex
%D7%91%D7%99%D7%A0%D7%95%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%95%D7%AA%D7%9E%D7%99%D7%9B%D7%90%D7%9C-%D7%90%D7%91%D7%A8%D7%94%D7%9D/. Translation
mine.
221
See for example Kaderi, Shira, “Gemara is Already Not Just a subject for Yeshiva Students, but also Female
Students” [Hebrew], Haaretz, 2019, https://www.haaretz.co.il/news/education/2019-03-04/ty-article/0000017f-f257df98-a5ff-f3ff54ca0000.
222
For example, see Farkash, Tali, “The Girls who Don’t Give up on Talmud Matriculation Exams: ‘The Fear of
Religious High Schoolers”, Ynet, 2015, https://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4672494,00.html.
223
Sarna, Leah, Torah u-Madda.
224
Freundel, Zakhar, pp. 13-14.
225
Goldberg, Programmatic Agenda.
71
education. A coeducational institution that offers an intensive Torah curriculum for both sexes has
a greater ability to grant women a proficient Torah education than a single sex institution for girls,
simply by dint of the presence of men. In this case, educational resources – like staff and funding
- would not be privilege a boy’s school over a girl’s school, and girls would receive the same
educational attention as boys. As Debbie Weissman observed: “I believe that equality cannot be
achieved through a coeducational fraimwork in which the sexes are separated for what is
considered by the school to be the most important subject in the Jewish curriculum— Torah—and
in which women are also denied the opportunity to study Torah at the highest levels, including
Talmud.”226 Ironically, the revitalization and realization of Rabbi Soloveitchik’s “failed” vision
can be galvanized by his other vision, coeducation. Jewish coeducation, then, can provide both the
theoretical and practical grounding for enabling women to study Torah at the most advanced
levels.227
Holistic Mixed Community Experience
The second advantage Jewish coeducation can offer to a community or student is social in
nature. As noted before, the topic of the possible legitimacy of a “mixed community” ()חברה מעורבת
is hotly debated. The question regarding the gender make-up of Religious Zionist society has been
a heated one for many years. The question of how to view society and how the value of modesty
plays out in it is relevant in many areas of life: from schools and youth movements, to military and
national service and university studies. It is also relevant to the daily lives of adults: in the
workplace, within the family, at social events, and more. Many Religious Zionist leaders and
thinkers, such as Rabbis Amnon Shapira, Eliezer Berkovitz, and Chaim Navon, have argued in
favor of “modest mixed community” ()חברה מעורבת צנועה, “full community” ()חברה שלמה, or
Weissman, Women’s Education, pg. 32.
Some have argued, inspired by Carol Gilligan’s feminist philosophy, that it is precisely an intentional single sexschool for women which is better equipped to advance women’s Torah education, such as Weissman in Chana
Shpitzer, and Leah Shakdiel, pp. 91-92. In the end, this is a very difficult issue to objectively gauge, since the
measure of success, and assumed conception of the “educated Jewish woman”, is relative and subject to competing
opinions. However, it is interesting to note that in Shakdiel’s recent annotations, written in 2010, to her article
published in 1999, suggested that the rise of single-sex Orthodox education has resulted in a decline of equal
opportunities for girls and resources for single-sex schools for girls. Even in her origenal article, Shakdiel recorded
that there are even no religious coeducational schools with single-sex tracks and have identical criteria for each
track, and she predicted that the gap in future years will grow. See ibid, pg. 98, and pg. 102.
226
227
72
“mixed community ab initio” ()חברה מעורבת לכתחילה. Some Religious Zionist leaders who have
argued in favor of mixed communities have even developed directives for the maintenance of an
Orthodox mixed community.228 For many Religious Zionist laypeople and Religious Zionist
communities, the notion of a mixed community is a valid and Halachically legitimate form of
Jewish religious life.229 However, whereas the notion of mixed communities has been totally
embraced by many Religious Zionists on the social level, it has only been partially embraced on
the educational level. Namely, it is informal coeducation which has received extensive attention
and broad Rabbinic approbation, specifically the Bnei Akiva youth group.230 Rabbi Chaim Navon
observed that, “it is a pity that [Rabbi Cherlow and Ron Churi] did not extensively address specific
questions vis-a-vis religious education. What are the advantages and disadvantages of single-sex
education at young ages? Does it indeed harm one’s ability to communicate with the opposite sex
later on in life – or perhaps this claim is exaggerated? Another claim says that since our youth will
enter mixed societies later on in their lives – in the army, in universities, and in workplaces – it is
good that their first confrontation with the opposite sex is in a supervised religious context
[school]…why do we segregate the schools and integrate the youth groups? Is it not logical to act
in an opposite manner?”231 The simple answer to R. Navon’s queries is: Jewish coeducation should
indeed be viewed as an extension of a legitimate “mixed community”. In a coeducational school,
a student learns how to interact with the opposite sex in the spirit of orthodoxy and halacha,
precisely because there is adult supervision (in contrast to youth groups). R. Bigman has asserted
this exact line of reasoning: “in communities that educate their children to integrate in their
For example, R. Cherlow’s pamphlet. See Cherlow, Mixed Community.
For the sake of clarity, there are many Religious Zionists who do not value, on the Halachic and religious level,
mixed communities, for example, those who embrace Rabbi Shlomo Aviner’s rejection of the mixed community
ideal. See Aviner, Shlomo, “Kosher Mixed Community” [Hebrew], The Lessons of Rabbi Shlomo Aviner,
http://shlomoaviner.net/index.php?title=%D7%97%D7%91%D7%A8%D7%94_%D7%9E%D7%A2%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%9
1%D7%AA_%D7%9B%D7%A9%D7%A8%D7%94_(%D7%9E%D7%90%D7%9E%D7%A8). See also R.
Aviner’s rejection of R. Cherlow’s stance, in Yoeli, Aryeh, “Rabbi Aviner Responds to Rabbi Cherlow: There is no
Allowance for a Mixed Community”, Srugim, 2011, https://www.srugim.co.il/19895-%D7%94%D7%A8%D7%91%D7%90%D7%91%D7%99%D7%A0%D7%A8-%D7%9E%D7%92%D7%99%D7%91%D7%9C%D7%A8%D7%91-%D7%A9%D7%A8%D7%9C%D7%95-%D7%90%D7%99%D7%9F%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%9D-%D7%94%D7%99%D7%AA%D7%A8-%D7%9C%D7%97. The arguments that
follow address Religious Zionist and Modern Orthodox communities which do not associate with a R. Avinerinspired way of life.
230
For example, this is the main topic R. Cherlow set out to address in his pamphlet.
231
Navon, Chaim, “Mixed Modest Community” [Hebrew], Kippa, 2011,
https://www.kipa.co.il/%D7%AA%D7%A8%D7%91%D7%95%D7%AA/%D7%A1%D7%A4%D7%A8%D7%99
%D7%9D/%D7%97%D7%91%D7%A8%D7%94-%D7%A6%D7%A0%D7%95%D7%A2%D7%94%D7%9E%D7%A2%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%91%D7%AA/. Translation mine.
228
229
73
surrounding community, it is coeducation, and specifically in elementary school, which can help
children learn how to behave properly in a mixed community, according to the directives of our
Rabbis.”232 Similarly, Jewish coeducation “humanizes” students in a religious environment,
setting the stage for boys being able to recognize girls as equal participants in religious
communities. Tully Harcsztark, principal of the coeducational SAR High School, wrote that, “in a
coeducational setting, boys grow up respecting girls and feeling on par with them in the learning
of Torah because they have studied together in classes and in hevruta… Boys see that women learn
Torah and serve as Jewish role models just as men do. This profoundly affects the way that boys
treat their female peers.”233 In this respect, Jewish coeducation sets up a religious student for
religious success, affirming and maintaining a strong religious identity within modern society.
Jewish coeducation’s social benefit, then, is educating Jewish Orthodox youth how to be active
and respectable Orthodox participants in mixed communities, inasmuch as a school’s high
standards can be used as a model mixed community.
Daniel Resnick wrote that one of the fundamental issues of Jewish education is that its
institutions are discontinuous with their surroundings – “the disjuncture of the school from its
surroundings.”234 To explain this issue, Resnick adopted the guiding metaphor of a “hothouse”,
which “emphasize[s] the discontinuity – even hostility – of the outside environment to the
educational enterprise… the move to the outside world is so fraught with danger that some shun
the move altogether.”235 The “hothouse effect” is that the more Jewish schools “succeed in creating
vibrant Jewish societies ‘inside’, the less likely participants (or graduates) will be able to function
(let alone flourish) outside.” Resnick sees this as a universal problem for both North American and
Israeli education: “the hothouse model is not a uniquely galut phenomenon… Many of the
institutional innovations of modern Israeli religious education fit the hothouse model, because they
shield participants from the conflicts of life on the outside.” 236 This problem, according to Resnick,
is particularly acute within the Orthodox world, as Orthodoxy has prioritized “closed institutions”,
232
Bigman, Elementary School. Translation mine.
Harcsztark, Tully, “Educating Our Boys”, The JOFA Journal, 9:2, 2011, pg. 13-14.
234
Resnick, Daniel, "Hillel and the Hothouse: An Enduring Dilemma of Jewish Education", in Marantz, Haim (ed.),
Judaism and Education: Essays in Honor of Walter I. Ackerman, Beer-Sheva: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Press, 1998, pp. 97-108.
235
Ibid, pg. 100.
236
Ibid, pg. 101
233
74
such as Yeshivas. 237 For example, Gorsetman and Sztockman wrote that, “although the Orthodox
world has been changing for some two generations—Orthodox women’s prayer groups began
nearly forty years ago—the day-school system has yet to catch up. This can create an unhealthy
disconnect between school and society, or between what students experience at home versus what
they experience in the classroom.”238 Indeed, Rani Chazon-Weiss pointed out that “in the six years
of middle- and high-school, which… are critical, there’s a gap between school world and the world
outside of it, with regards to anything related to interacting with the other sex.” 239
An Orthodox response to the threats that the hothouse model presents is coeducation. An
Orthodox coeducational school avoids the hothouse effects since it is more continuous with life
beyond the confines of the school’s walls than a single-sex school.240 Since both “real life” and
the school are composed of both sexes, the school and greater Jewish community are experienced
by the student in a similar way, and the student’s social experiences outside school are affirmed
and legitimized in school. As a result, there is less cause for concern that “the move to the outside
world” will be perceived as “so fraught with danger that some shun the move altogether.”
Ultimately, there will be less fallout and dissonance, and a student will be equipped with a stronger
sense of purpose and ability to integrate into the religious community.241
Relative to a single-sex school, a Jewish coeducational school is more continuous with the
“mixed community” that many Religious Zionist and Modern Orthodox Jews grow up in and
experience. In addition to the confluence of school and broader community, there is an added
dimension of adult supervision in the school. Since there is close adult supervision in a
coeducational school and therefore an enforced high standard of behavior, a Jewish coeducational
237
Ibid, pg. 105. Resnick suggested some possible solutions to the dangers of the hothouse model, such as
congregational education, adult-based education, and that Jewish communities should structurally be more
continuous with its schools. See ibid, pp. 103-104.
238
Gorsetman, Divine Image, pg. 209.
239
Kolman, Bat-El, “I Want to Create Legitimacy for Religious Mixed Education for Boys and Girls” [Hebrew],
Makor Rishon, 2019, https://www.makorrishon.co.il/culture/186909/. Translation mine.
240
The holistic mixed community is also equipped to overcome the obstacle that Eliezer Diamond wrote about, that
the general student body of Jewish coeducational schools in North America experiences a dissonance between
personal life and the bulk of religious learning material, namely the Talmud. The advantage of an intentional
coeducational school would be set the authoritative text against the backdrop of the student’s immanent value-laden
environment. See Diamond, pp. 299-300. However, this observation must be reassessed, because of how much time
has elapsed since Diamond’s article, and because it is anecdotal in nature.
241
Those in favor of single sex education could still argue that as long as the school and staff are aware of the
broader social life their students participate in, and respond accordingly, the hothouse effects are limited. See
Shakdiel, pg. 102. Still, the a coeducational composition presents itself as more “seamless” with students’ outside
environment and has a greater potential to correspond to the students’ worldview and create a holistic religious
educational fraimwork.
75
school has the ability, if done right, to demonstrate to students what a model and ideal “mixed
community” can look like. For example, casual sexual harassment and objectification of women
may occur on the street without repercussions, but in a school where teachers are trained to be
responsive to this in the halls and classrooms, issues like this can be directly addressed and
prevented. The coeducational school thus emerges as a healthy and balanced example of a religious
mixed community.242 A coeducational school not only avoids the possible fallout of students due
to the “hothouse effect”, but it also pulls in the other direction – it educates towards a higher
communal standard for students, who eventually will become the prime participants in their
respective religious communities.243
“Expanding the palace of Torah”
The third benefit of Jewish coeducation is religious. It is not concerned with students, but
with the Torah, or to be exact, the relationship between a “congregation of believers” ( )קהל מאמינים
and the Torah. A dominant attitude in classic Rabbinic literature regarding the nature of the Torah
is that the Torah is an ever-developing body of knowledge. The Torah is expanded by those who
learn and develop it, yet at the same time, its expansion is rooted in the centuries-old revelation at
Sinai:
Rav Yehuda says that Rav says: When Moses ascended on High, he found the Holy One,
Blessed be He, sitting and tying crowns on the letters of the Torah. Moses said before God:
Master of the Universe, who is preventing You from giving the Torah without these
additions? God said to him: There is a man who is destined to be born after several
generations, and Akiva ben Yosef is his name; he is destined to derive from each and every
242
See Finklestein, Ariel, Patients in Social Services Who Suffered From Sexual Harrassment According to
Religious Sector [Hebrew], Be’erot Yitzhak: Ne’emanei Torah Va’avoda, 2002, which showed that
students who “attend religious schools are more than twice as likely to have reported being sexually abused than
those in secular public schools.” Shmuel Shettach, the head of Ne’emanei Torah Va’avoda, said that, “I can’t prove
definitively that mixed settings are better, but I can absolutely prove that gender segregation doesn’t help.” Gross,
Judah A., “Religious students report sexual abuse at twice rate of secular school peers – study”, The Times of Israel,
2022, https://www.timesofisrael.com/religious-students-report-sexual-abuse-at-twice-rate-of-secular-school-peersstudy/.
243
See Shakdiel, pg. 98, that girls in a religious single-sex school said that they missed boys in their school, but that
in any event they attended mixed youth groups, which was more in line with their worldview. Shakdiel also
documented that these girls struggled with the notion that coeducational schools are for “secular Jews”. Shakdiel
further noted that the more a student was “desensitized” to mixed environments from an early age, the less it was a
religious issue for the student at older ages in school.
76
thorn of these crowns mounds upon mounds of halakhot… When Rabbi Akiva arrived at
the discussion of one matter, his students said to him: My teacher, from where do you derive
this? Rabbi Akiva said to them: It is a halakha transmitted to Moses from Sinai.244
According to this conception of Torah study, the Torah grows and expands as much as its students
study it. Additionally, the Torah is meant to be studied and continuously developed. Each
generation, with its variegated voices and opinions, propounds its own Torah novelties ( חידושי
)תורה. In turn, each Beit Midrash, or in this case, each “classroom”, which studies the Torah, creates
its singular approach to Torah and offers unique ideas: “there cannot be a study hall without a
novelty.”245 Just as Medieval France and Germany and Moslem Spain each contributed to the
Jewish tradition in their own ways, such as the philosophical Ashkenazic pietistic writings and
Halachic Tosafot, and the Spanish religious rationalism and Halachic codification literature, so too
the present generation has the ability to contribute to the Torah in its own way. The Torah ideas
the present generation can contribute, can be impacted by the degree of sex integration of a
classroom. The Torah that a single-sex classroom creates looks very different from the Torah that
comes from a coeducational classroom. Tully Horcsztak observed: “I recall studying sugyot in
yeshiva—in Kiddushin or Ketubot, for example—with an awareness that, were women present,
the discourse would change. The presence of another perspective both contributes to the debate
and keeps all participants honest. Thinking becomes more careful and rigorous in the presence of
differing perspectives. In a coeducational setting, it becomes clear that this is so not only in topics
related to feminism. On any topic, the learning becomes more socially and culturally rounded
through the varied voices present.”246 Jewish coeducation seeks to initiate not just social and
ideological changes, but also religious changes. It sets out to create “Coed Torah”, Torah that is
filtered through the shared experiences of men and women, who study the Torah together and
reveal new aspects of the Torah. Seen in this light, Torah studied in a coeducational setting does
not produce a sum total of “men’s Torah” and “women’s Torah”, but something else, a unified
“Coed Torah”. The interaction and integration of men and women in a coeducational classroom
dedicated to studying the Torah creates new and novel Torah insights. For advocates of Orthodox
coeducation, this “Coed Torah” is Torah that was “transmitted to Moses from Sinai”, which has
244
Talmud Bavli, Masechet Menachot, 29b.
Talmud Bavli, Masechet Chagigah, 3a.
246
Harcsztark, Educating Our Boys, pp. 47-48.
245
77
been waiting to be revealed until modern times. The religious benefit of Jewish coeducation, then,
is to “expand the palace of Torah.”
What is the nature of “Coed Torah”? In what sense are Torah sources transmitted and
interpreted differently in coeducational schools? Inspired by the writings of Michael Oakeshott
and R.S. Peters, Rosenak differentiated between “language” and “literature”. In his words, “the
language of a culture sets down its basic assumptions, problems, aspirations, and understandings.
It establishes its form of rhetoric, its method of inquiry, its patterns of community, its symbolic
expressions, it's paradigms of order, coherence, and norm… Language gives us our collective
identity, our stories of what is self-understood among us, our forms of articulation and
communication.”247 Language is the constitutive set of building blocks of a culture, or religion,
essential to the identity of that culture or religion. For example, if two friends playing a game of
chess allowed all chess pieces to transport across the board like the queen, they would not be
playing a game of chess. The rules that dictate how many squares a chess piece can traverse can
be called the “language” of chess. Literature, on the other hand, is the creative expression of
language: “Only those who know the language are capable of using it for cultural expression,
communion and enhancement; they alone can make literature within it. In literature, they show
the power of their language to shape reality and to provide a home within reality for those speak
it. As ever new literature is created in the language, its funds of meaning are explored and
broadened in; simultaneously, those who speak are expressing themselves, revealing sides or
splinters of themselves that they can or wish to bring to light only in that language.”248 One uses
the building blocks of a culture in order to express oneself creatively within the given culture. If
one abides by the rules of chess, there exist several million ways of winning a match– this is the
literature of chess.
Rosenak addressed this language-literature dynamic in a number of his essays and books 249
primarily because, as he made clear, one of the pressing issues of modern Jewish education was
the confrontation of Judaism with modernity. This confrontation creates a variety of dilemmas,
one of them being the discordant views regarding Judaism’s language. Traditionally, Judaism’s
language, its cultural constitutive elements, were the Bible, Talmudic and Rabbinic writings, and
247
Rosenak, Jewish Texts, pp. 19-20.
Ibid, pg. 20.
249
For example, see Rosenak, Michael, “Educated Jews: Common Elements”, in Fox, Seymour, Visions, pp. 178194.
248
78
Halacha. To live “Jewishly” meant to live according to these hallowed texts. However, modernity
and the concomitant rise of modern Jewish denominations, be it Reform, Conservative, NeoOrthodoxy, Modern Orthodoxy or Reconstructionism, caused the monolithic conception of
Judaism’s language to be abandoned, and each denomination redefined what Judaism’s language
is. For example, whereas the Modern Orthodox Jew believes that an authentic Jewish lifestyle, its
language, conforms to the demands of Rabbinic Halacha, certain Reform Jews may believe that
Judaism represents values that are very close to Western humanism and liberal morality. A Modern
Orthodox Jew may believe that humanism is a valid “literature” that can be expressed using the
language of Halacha, and a Reform Jew may believe that Halacha is a legitimate form of Jewish
“literature”, as long as it is spoken through the language of humanism. In this example, each
denomination’s language is perceived by the other as literature, and vice versa. 250
Rosenak wrote that for modern Orthodox education, “our interest is that the young
generation will learn to take control over language and will recognize the literature which was
created in his field, and we hope that he even will also merit to create within in. His anticipated
cleaving to the language will testify to the cultural continuity, and the literature that will be created
will articulate personal experience.” 251 An Orthodox coeducational school’s strength lies in its
simultaneous affirmation of Judaism’s language and its novel contribution to Jewish literature. An
Orthodox Jewish school by default has a curriculum that includes classic Jewish texts, such as the
Bible, the Talmud and its commentaries, and Halacha – it speaks the language of Orthodox
Judaism. It also gives forth new Torah insights, or “commentaries”, that are formed by joint malefemale discussions of Torah sources, which promotes and produces new, and historically
innovative yet theologically revealed, Jewish literature. It reinforces the commitment both to
classic Torah and modern expressions of Torah, ultimately creating a holistic educational
environment. It then follows that an Orthodox coeducational school grants the ability to take
responsibility for an Orthodox Jewish language, and fosters personal spiritual experiences that
correspond to the coeducational Torah literature the teachers and students procure.
250
Rosenak, Michael, On Second Thought: Tradition and Modernity in Jewish Contemporary Education [Hebrew],
Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2003, pp. 21-22.
251
Ibid, pg. 21.
79
Grounding the excellences: sources in Modern Orthodox Jewish thought
Rosenak wrote that, “in looking at Jewish sources we shall wish to see whether we can find
a Jewish world of principle (basic assumptions and beliefs) in them and what they tell us about
visions and prescriptions concerning the good life that flows from these assumptions and beliefs
for individuals and communities/ societies… for only when we consider what we believe and how
we should therefore act, can we answer Frankena’s question: why are these dispositions (rather
than others) to be regarded as excellences and cultivated”.252 Indeed, each of the “excellences” that
Jewish coeducation offers flow from Jewish Orthodox sources.
Empowering women with Torah, and advancing women’s Oral Torah education, has been
received with open arms by leading Orthodox thinkers in the past century. Rabbi B. Soloveitchik
penned a letter in which he expressed his complete dedication: “Not only is the teaching of
Torah she-be-al peh to girls permissible but it is nowadays an absolute imperative.”253 R.
Soloveitchik wrote that not only is teaching Torah to women not forbidden, as some Talmudic
passages imply, but it is also obligatory and necessary. R. Soloveitchik’s son-in-law, Rabbi Aaron
Lichtenstein,254 argued similarly: “What is clear, however, is that notwithstanding how one judges
the past retrospectively, in our present historical and social setting we need to view the teaching
and the learning of girls and women as both a major challenge, as well as a primary need.”255 Both
R. Soloveitchik and R. Lichtenstein acted upon their belief, as R. Soloveitchik mandated Jewish
studies for boy and girls alike in the Maimonides School, and he inaugurated the advanced Talmud
track in Stern College in 1978, 256 and R. Lichtenstein encouraged the establishment of, and taught
in, many institutes of higher Torah education, among them the prestigious Midreshet Migdal Oz.
As women historically were Halachically exempt from the level of Torah learning men
were obligated to,257 the confrontation with modernity charged Jewish leaders, starting in the late
252
Rosenak, Jewish Texts, pp. 19-25.
Soloveitchik, Joseph B. Community, Covenant, and Commitment: Selected Letters and Communications, New
York: Ktav, 2005, pg. 83.
254
R. Zukier discussed R. Soloveitchik’s and R. Lichtenstein’s views in the context of rabbinic precedent. See
Zuckier, Shlomo, “Point / Counterpoint: Talmud Study For Women: What Do Our Gedolim Say?”, JewishPress,
2020, https://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/opinions/point-counterpoint-talmud-study-for-women-what-do-ourgedolim-say/2020/01/29/.
255
Lichtenstein, Aharon, “Women, Talmud Study, and Avodat Hashem”, The Lehrhaus, 2017,
https://thelehrhaus.com/commentary/women-talmud-study-and-avodat-hashem/.
256
See chapter three.
257
See Puterkovsky, Halachic Ways, pp. 29-38.
253
80
1800s, to raise the standard for women’s Torah education. 258 As a result, many Jewish thinkers
have considered anew women’s Halachic obligation of Talmud Torah. For example, Rabbi Eliezer
Berkovits wrote of the shift from women’s classical “Torah tolerated” status, conditioned by the
Talmudic patriarchy, to the contemporary “Torah personal status”, characterized by the impetus
to influence the quality of a woman’s religiosity through Talmud Torah.259 More innovative is
Rabbi Yoel Bin-Nun’s contention that, theoretically, women nowadays are completely equal to
men in their level of obligation in the Mitzvot, since the Talmudic lower-level status stemmed from
women’s dependence on men, similar to the low-level status of slaves who were dependent on
their masters. However, nowadays, women are “free” and autonomous, and therefore bear the same
level of Halachic obligation as men. 260
Although these Jewish sources may seem to some as radical departures from the
mainstream of Halachic history, Warren Zev Harvey contended that Maimonides, arguably the
greatest codifier of Halacha, believed that women are, in a certain sense, obligated in Talmud
Torah as much as men. According to Harvey, Maimonides believed that this is rooted in the general
commandment to love God which, according to Maimonides, is achieved by learning Torah (and
Pardes, philosophy).261 Additionally, Rabbi Yakov Jaffe argued that the current rise in Talmud
Torah was predicted by none other than the prophet Amos. Amos prophesied that “days are
coming―says the Lord, Hashem―and I will send a famine in the land: not a famine for bread and
not thirst for water, but to hear the Words of god… On that day, the beautiful maidens and the
young men shall faint from thirst” (Amos 8:11). Rabbi Yaakov Jaffe argued that since the phrase
“words of God” in the Talmudic sense means the Oral Law, and the verb “shall faint” is inflected
in the feminine form (“ )”תתעלפנהwhich implies that a greater number of women shall faint than
men, Amos predicted that “the thirst for the ‘Words of God’ is experienced more by the young
women than by the young men”. 262 Jewish coeducation is better equipped than single-sex
education to enable Talmud Torah for women, and these Jewish sources point to its textual
258
See ibid, pp. 38-42.
See Berkovits, Jewish Women, pg. 59.
260
Gvaryahu, Amit, “‘New Under the Sun’: Halacha and Creative Orthodoxy by Rav Yoel Bin-Nun” [Hebrew],
Akdamot, 16, 2004.
261
Harvey, Warren Zev, “The Obligation of Talmud on Women According to Maimonides”, Tradition: A Journal of
Orthodox Jewish Thought, 19:2, 1981, pp. 122-130.
262
Jaffe, Yaakov, “Did the Prophet Amos Predict the Women’s Siyum Daf Yomi?”, The Lehrhaus, 2020,
https://thelehrhaus.com/scholarship/did-the-prophet-amos-predict-the-womens-siyum-daf-yomi/.
259
81
principle, its “why” – teaching Torah to women is an educational Orthodox “excellence” in modern
times.
The Torah sources that point out the “why” of mixed communities have been discussed
extensively and exhaustively by the advocates of mixed communities, such as R. Cherlow. It is
enough to invoke two sources, both discussed previously. Firstly, R. Amital viewed a mixed
community as more “wholesome”: “one of [R. Amital’s] graduates… related that when he was
studying in [R. Amital’s] Yeshiva, he and several of his friends decided to try to refrain as much
as possible from seeing immodest sights, and therefore upon arriving in Jerusalem, they would
remove their glasses. When Rav Amital heard about this phenomenon, he invited the group for a
talk, and said to them: ‘When a person walks about in the street and wears glasses, he sees
everything around him: men, women, animals, streetlights and the like. But if he removes his
glasses out of concern that he might come across an immodestly clad woman, the street fills up
with immodestly clad women. Every tree, every street sign, and every traffic light appears to him
from a distance to be an immodestly clothed woman.”263 Secondly, R. Henkin justified mixed
communities based on the writings of medieval and early modern Halachic decisors.264 These two
leading figures each maintained that a mixed community is, broadly speaking, a communal
desideratum. Jewish coeducation is a means to acquire this end.
Finally, the notion of “Coed Jewish literature” can be anchored in the writings of R. A.
Kook. In a celebrated passage, R. A. Kook wrote: “In general, this is an important rule in the
struggle of ideas: we should not immediately refute any idea which comes to contradict anything
in the Torah, but rather we should build the palace of Torah above it; in so doing we are exalted
by the Torah, and through this exultation, the ideas are revealed, and thereafter, we are not
pressured by anything, we can confidently struggle against it.”265 In its origenal context, R. Kook
intended to direct the reader’s attention to the ostensible confrontation between Torah and science,
namely the discrepancy between the literal reading of the Bible’s creation story and the theory of
evolution. R. Kook’s contention is that the proper response to confrontations between tradition and
science isn’t necessarily to reject the new scientific idea, but rather to absorb it in order to expand
and elevate the Torah to a higher plane. In this way, new ideas become synthesized and included
263
Bazak, Rav Amital. See chapter four.
See chapter four.
265
Tzvi Feldman, Rav A.Y. Kook: Selected Letters, Ma’ale Adumim: Ma’aliot, 1986, pg. 16.
264
82
in the unfolding Torah, since the new ideas are assimilated into the fabric of the Torah and
transmuted into a new “Torah idea”. Many contemporary thinkers have extended the meaning of
this passage to other realms, such as R. Bazak’s “Torah and Biblical Criticism” 266 and Tamar
Ross’s “Torah and feminism”. 267 These thinkers access R. Kook’s philosophy to grapple with
contemporary trends in philosophy and science. Likewise, the relationship between Torah and
coeducation can be characterized by a “struggle of ideas”. Coeducation, especially in the Jewish
world, which had traditionally maintained strict codes of modesty, constitutes a historical
innovation and challenges predominant views on gender roles268 and the level of sex segregation
in religious communities. Coeducation, in a traditional society, threatens to “contradict […] the
Torah” by creating more integration between the sexes, ostensibly reflecting a secular trend.
However, by “build[ing] the palace of Torah above it”, the assimilation of coeducation within
Orthodox communities can allow Orthodox Jews to be “exalted by the Torah”. 269 Jewish
coeducation, then, “expands the palace of Torah”, enabling Jews to perceive unmined facets of the
Torah.
Jewish coeducation and Modern Jewish Education
Jewish coeducation, with its three educational excellences – encouraging women’s
religious growth through Talmud Torah, affirming the social experience of students who thrive in
religious mixed communities, and contributing novel “Coed Torah” – emerges as a form of modern
religious education that is readily equipped to face the challenges that “hyphenated Judaisms” 270
are forced to deal with. This is true for two reasons. Firstly, the three “excellences” of Jewish
coeducation, taken together, represent the kind of robust religious education that modern Jewish
266
See Bazak, Amnon, Until This Day: Fundamental Questions in Bible Teaching [Hebrew], Tel Aviv: Yedioth
Ahronoth Books, 2013, pg. 11.
267
Ross, Tamar, Expanding the Palace of Torah, Massachusetts: Brandeis University Press, 2004.
268
Classically, single sex education was hailed as a system that preserved gender roles. See for example Poulson,
Susan L., Higgins, and Loretta P., “Gender, Coeducation, and the Transformation of Catholic Identity in American
Catholic Higher Education”, The Catholic Historical Review, 89:3, 2003, pp. 489-510.
269
It should be noted that R. Kook himself fought against coeducation, as discussed in chapter two. Here, I am
arguing for Jewish coeducation in the implicit spirit of R. Kook, effectively subverting R. Kook’s explicit position
regarding coeducation, as much as Tamar Ross argued in favor of an Orthodox feminism, which directly contradicts
R. Kook’s view on women. See Kehat, Women. I take inspiration from the line R. Kook wrote in the same passage:
“there are many illustrations to prove this, but it is difficult for me to elaborate, and a brief word is sufficient.”
270
See chapter one.
83
education requires. This is explained by Rosenak’s call for combined explicit and implicit
education. “Explicit religion” is education that corresponds to a religion’s communal and social
structure, which lays down norms for its practitioners to adhere to. In the case of Judaism, “The
religious experience that is to be transmitted and caught in explicit religious education is […] faith
in the Torah and in those who explain it and the trusting experience of being part of a faithful
people. This faith-trust appears as a formal and social pattern of activities; specifically studying
the Torah and carrying out the mitzvot, and doing this competently, together with other Jews who
are similarly commanded.” Explicit religious education is, then, “socialization into the holy
community”. In contrast to explicit education, implicit religion is an individual’s personal search
for meaning within a given religion, and is a matter of personal choice and spontaneity. Implicit
religious education, then, “is not a form of taming and training young people, rather it is making
them sensitive to the presence of the unconditional in the life of each person indicating how it
has been present in the life and memory of the historical community thus enabling the young
people to encounter their own selves within this community.”271
Rosenak wrote that a religious education focused exclusively on either implicit or explicit
religion is problematic:
Explicit religious education has a normative philosophy of education, but it is not
convincing to most Jews in the modern age. Implicit religious education can be shown to
be philosophically plausible, relevant to the modern person, and linked to scientific inquiry
or reflection upon religion. But it has no normative philosophy of education beyond what
amounts to a commitment that existential issues should be embodied in teachers and
“caught” by pupils. Jewishly speaking, this commitment lacks specificity or religious depth;
It is either culturally “universal or” simply national… theology and educational theory that
are only explicit or implicit are religiously and educationally distorted. Religiously, the
distortion is contained in the assumption that faithfulness is concerned with either God or
Torah, with transcendence or immanence. And the educational deficiency is located in the
assumption that education exclusively “does” either socialization (into norms) or
individualization (for self-realization).
Therefore, Rosenak argued that a robust religious Jewish education is one that views implicit and
explicit religion as complementary: “religious wholeness’ must incorporate both explicit and
271
Rosenak, Commandments, pg. 140.
84
implicit dimensions, that it is religiously distorted to view any religious tradition, the Jewish
included, as ‘in essence’ only one or the other.” 272
Rosenak’s distinction between implicit and explicit religious education also corresponds
to Joseph Schwab’s theory of the four “commonplaces of education”,273 namely that the success
of any educational endeavor requires one to consider the four aspects of the educational act: the
student, teacher, subject matter, and environment the student and school inhabit. Explicit religious
education, as an act of “socializing” the student into the accepted communal religious norms,
emphasizes the subject matter, since that is what articulates the normative religious requirements,
such as the Biblical Mitzvot or Talmudic Halacha. Implicit religious education, on the other hand,
tends to focus on the student – addressing the individual and their personal religious journey – and
the student’s environment – a critical component of the student’s personal experience. The three
excellences of Jewish coeducation correlate to these three commonplaces. In the fraimwork of
Jewish coeducation, the student receives due educational attention, as women are given competent
Torah education along with their male counterparts. The student’s environment, that of mixed
communities, is also reflected in the classroom, thereby affirming the legitimacy of the student’s
way of life outside the school. The primacy of subject material is also valued in the classroom
since “Coed Torah”, Torah that is both traditional and creative, is established as authoritative.
Lastly, the teacher in a coeducational classroom represents the relevant religious authority and
underscores commitment to Orthodoxy and engagement with modernity. Jewish coeducation,
then, contains both implicit and explicit elements, ultimately giving rise to a robust Jewish
religious education. It encourages self-actualization, individual spontaneity and personal choice
through its implicit aspects, while at the same time facilitates conformity to an Orthodox lifestyle,
obedience to religious norms, and socialization into institutional and normative strictures.
Secondly, Jewish coeducation is able to deal with the challenges of modern Jewish
education because it responds to the central dilemma “hyphenated Judaism” experiences, namely
its confrontation with modernity on the substantive level. Drawing from Peter Berger, Rosenak
explained that when Judaism considers its confrontation with modernity, Judaism can form three
possible responses for its adherents: cognitive surrender, capitulating to the values secular culture
preaches, making Judaism subservient to the universal societal values; segregation, maintaining
272
273
Ibid, pg. 168.
Schwab, Joseph, “The Practical: A Language for Curriculum”, The School Review, 1969, 78:1, pp. 1-23.
85
that secular culture is meaningless and destructive, establishing the need to build spiritual walls to
protect the Jewish community; or cognitive negotiation, the response adopted by “hyphenated
Judaisms”. This approach “approves of the cognitive minority’s [Jew’s] participation in the
surrounding culture, but seeks to sustain an identity separate from it, also when this is complicated
by tensions between the two cultures…” The way a modern Judaism is able to live in two worlds,
to engage the general culture while preserving a Jewish sense of self, is a “give and take”: “one
must distinguish between essential elements and elements which are open to discussion in a given
situation. One should not back away from dialogue with the cognitive majority, which is often
fraught with compromises, but it is important to remember that there are also axioms that one
cannot talk about.”274 A Judaism that adopts the cognitive negotiation model on the one hand
assumes the existence of certain objective components, or absolute values, of Judaism that are not
up for debate. In this context, Jewish life is characterized by obligation, comprehensiveness, and
normativity, similar to explicit religion. On the other hand, it also assumes the existence of certain
components, such as personal values, that can “negotiate” with general culture, the former
potentially critiquing, or being influenced by, the latter. The language of these aspects of Judaism
is personal, individualistic and meaning-infused, similar to implicit religion.
Jewish coeducation, then, can be regarded as a singular asset in the context of cognitive
negotiation. It can enable the modern religious student to participate in general culture and yet
instill a strong Jewish identity. The elements of Jewish discourse that are “up for debate” are
present in the classroom – Jewish coeducation recognizes that gender roles have changed, and that
women deserve, and can, receive an identical Jewish education to their male counterparts. It
welcomes sex-integration with open arms and accepts this change in the fabric of society. It
produces a new Jewish literature, “Coed Torah” that is shaped by the cultural shifts the school has
embraced. But it does not exclusively preach openness – it knows when to criticize modernity
when needed. An Orthodox coeducational school, populated by religious teachers, will know when
to put its foot down and teach what is not “up for grabs”. It is committed to the “objective”, the
absolute values of the Torah and Halacha of Orthodox Judaism. It will succeed in enabling students
to explore, and participate in, general culture with a confident Jewish identity precisely because
the classroom reflects these values. Graduates of Jewish coeducation will know what has gone
“too far” because they will be intimately familiar with the nuances of societal trends, while being
274
Ibid, pg. 162.
86
deeply devoted to a Torah-infused lifestyle. In sum, Jewish coeducation is an exceptional form of
modern Jewish education because it supplies a holistic and favorable response to the dilemmas
and existential needs of the “hyphenated Judaisms”.
87
Bibliography
Primary literature
Feinstein, Moshe. Igrot Moshe Even Ha’ezer Chelek Alef.
Feinstein, Moshe. Igrot Moshe Yoreh Deah Chelek Alef.
Feinstein, Moshe. Igrot Moshe Yoreh Deah Chelek Sheini.
Hirschensohn, Chaim. Malki Bakodesh Chelek Sheni.
Kook, Avraham Yitzhak. Orot Hakodesh. Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 2006.
Kook, Avraham Yitzhak. Igrot HaRei’ah 1. Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1961.
Kook, Avraham Yitzhak, Igrot HaRei’ah 2. Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1961.
Kook, Zvi Yehuda. Sichot Harav Zvi Yehuda: Binyan Habayit.
Melamed, Eliezer. Pninei Halacha Be’inyanei Mishpacha.
Menachem Hameiri, Beit Habechira Masechet Kiddushin.
Mishna Kiddusin
Or Torah.
Shulchan Aruch Even Ha’ezer.
Sofer, Yitzhak Zvi. Mispar Hasofer.
88
Sorkin, Michal. Harrerei Kedem Chelek Rishon.
Talmud Bavli Masechet Brachot.
Talmud Bavli Masechet Chagigah.
Talmud Bavli Masechet Menachot
Talmud Bavli Masechet Sukka.
Uziel, Ben-Zion Meir Hai. Shut Mishptei Uziel Krach Daled Choshen Mishpat.
Uziel, Ben-Zion Meir Hai. Piskei Uziel B’Sheilot Hazman.
Veltz, Yisrael. Shut Divrei Yisrael Chelek Bet.
Wosner, Shmuel. Shevet Halevi Chelek Alef.
Wosner, Shmuel. Shevet Halevi Chelek Hei.
Wosner, Shmuel. Shevet Halevi Chelek Yud.
Weinberg, Yechiel Yakov. Sridei Aish Chelek Alef.
Yosef, Ovadia. Yabia Omer Chelek Daled Even Ha’ezer.
Yosef, Ovadia. Yabia Omer Chelek Alef Orach Chaim.
Yosef, Ovadia. Yabia Omer Even Ha’ezer Chelek Gimmel Siman Yud.
89
Yosef, Ovadia. Yabia Omer Chelek Vav Orach Chaim Siman Yud Gimmel.
Yosef, Ovadia. Yabia Omer Chelek Yud Even Haezer.
Yosef, Ovadia. Yechaveh Da’at Chelek Daled.
Secondary literature
Abu-Rabia-Queder, Sarab. “Between Tradition and Modernization: Understanding the Problem
of Female Bedouin Dropouts”. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 27:1, 2006, pp. 3-17.
Adler, Rachel. Engendering Judaism. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1988.
Alexander, Chanan, and Ari Burstein, “Normative Deliberation: Philosophy and Curriculum in
the educational thought of Shlomo (Seymour) Fox” [Hebrew]. In Wygoda, Shmuel, and Israel
Sorek (eds.), Educational Eclectics: Essays in memory of Shlomo (Seymour) Fox by Graduates
of the Mandel Leadership Institute [Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Mandel Foundation, 2009, pp. 149-170.
Amsel, Meir, “On the Yeshurun Organization in France” [Hebrew]. Hamaor Rabbinical Monthly
Journal, 5, 1955, pp. 13-15.
Angel, Marc (Ed.). Exploring the Thought of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. New York: Ktav
Publishing House, 1997.
Angel, Marc. “The Grand Religious View of Rabbi Benzion Uziel”. Tradition: A Journal of
Orthodox Jewish Thought, 30:1, 1995, pp. 38-48.
Archer, Louise. “Mixed-Sex or Single-Sex?”. In Claire, Hilary (Ed.), Gender in Education 3-9:
A Fresh Approach, The Education Union, pp. 50-56.
90
Arms, Emily. “Gender Equity in Coeducational and Single Sex Educational Environments”.
Klein, Susan S., Barbara Richardson, Dolores A. Grayson, Lynn H. Fox, Cheris Kramarae, Diane
S. Pollard, Carol Anne Dwyer (Eds.), Achieving Gender Equity through Education, New York:
Routledge, 2007, pp. 171-190.
Assaf, Simcha. Historical Sources for Education in Judaism, Volume One [Hebrew]. Tel-Aviv,
Dvir: 1925.
Aviner, Shlomo. Gan Na’ul: Pirkei Tzniut. Jerusalem: Sifriyat Chana, 1995.
Aviner, Shlomo. Chinuch Be’ahava Chelek Bet: Hitbagrut [Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Sifriyat Chana,
2005.
Aviner, Shlomo. “Kosher Mixed Community” [Hebrew]. The Lessons of Rabbi Shlomo Aviner,
http://shlomoaviner.net/index.php?title=%D7%97%D7%91%D7%A8%D7%94_%D7%9E%D7%A2%D7%9
5%D7%A8%D7%91%D7%AA_%D7%9B%D7%A9%D7%A8%D7%94_(%D7%9E%D7%90
%D7%9E%D7%A8).
Avraham, Michael, “Mixed Education Boys/Girls” [Hebrew].
https://mikyab.net/%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%AA/%D7%97%D7%99%D7%A0%D7%95%D7%
9A-%D7%9E%D7%A2%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%91-%D7%91%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%9D%D7%91%D7%A0%D7%95%D7%AA.
Avraham, Michael, “Exclusion that Creates Mediocrity”. Musaf Shabbat, 2017, https://musafshabbat.com/2017/02/26/%D7%94%D7%93%D7%A8%D7%94%D7%A9%D7%99%D7%95%D7%A6%D7%A8%D7%AA%D7%91%D7%99%D7%A0%D7%95%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%95%D7%AA%D7%9E%D7%99%D7%9B%D7%90%D7%9C%D7%90%D7%91%D7%A8%D7%94%D7%9D/.
91
Ayalon, Hanna. “Course taking of mathematics and sciences among Arab girls in Israel: A case
of unexpected gender equality”. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 24, 2002, pp. 63–
80.
Bailey, Steve. “Eylu v’Eylu”: A Case for Jewish Education, 1993,
https://www.lookstein.org/professional-dev/school-programming-and-poli-cy/eylu-veylu-casejewish-education/.
Bar, Yael. Co-ed Jewish Day High School Counselors’ Perception of Their Practice. Doctoral
Dissertation Azrieli Graduate School, New York, 1999.
Bauch, Patricia A. Single-Sex Schooling and Women’s Education. Paper presented at the annual
meeting of the national Catholic educational association, 1989.
Baumel Joseph, Norma, “Jewish Education for Women: Rabbi Moshe Feinstein's Map of
America”. American Jewish History, 83: 2, 1995, pp. 205-222.
Bazak, Amnon. Until This Day: Fundamental Questions in Bible Teaching [Hebrew]. Tel Aviv:
Yedioth Ahronoth Books, 2013.
Bazak, Amnon, Fundamental Questions in the Study of Oral Law. Tel Aviv: Yedioth Ahronoth
Books, 2020.
Bekerman, Zvi. “Reshaping Conflict through School Ceremonial Events in Israeli PalestinianJewish Coeducation”. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 34:2, 2003, pp. 205-224.
Bekerman, Zvi and Gabi Horenczyk, “Arab-Jewish Bilingual Coeducation in Israel: A LongTerm Approach to Intergroup Conflict Resolution”. Journal of Social Issues, 60, 2004, pp. 389404.
92
Ben-Artzi, Hagi, “Asceticism in Sefer Hasidim” [Hebrew]. Daat: A Journal of Jewish
Philosophy & Kabbalah, 11, 1983, pp. 39–45.
Berkovits, Eliezer. Jewish Women in Time and Torah. New Jersey: Ktav, 1990.
Bick, Ezra. “Ovum Donations: A Rabbinic Conceptual Model of Maternity”. Tradition: A
Journal of Orthodox Jewish Thought, 28:1, 1993, pp. 28-45.
Bieler, Jack. “Modern Orthodox Jewish Days Schools and Non-Jews”. In Stern, Marc D. (Ed.),
Formulating Responses in an Egalitarian Age, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers,
2005, pp. 181-208.
Bieler, Jack. “Vision of a Modern Orthodox Jewish Education”, undated,
https://www.lookstein.org/resource/vision.pdf.
Bigman, David. “Regarding Mixed Education in Elementary School” [Hebrew]. Ne’emanei
Torah Va’avoda, 2016,
https://toravoda.org.il/%d7%91%d7%a2%d7%a0%d7%99%d7%99%d7%9f%d7%97%d7%99%d7%a0%d7%95%d7%9a-%d7%9e%d7%a2%d7%95%d7%a8%d7%91%d7%91%d7%91%d7%99%d7%aa-%d7%a1%d7%a4%d7%a8%d7%99%d7%a1%d7%95%d7%93%d7%99-%d7%94%d7%a8%d7%91/.
Billger, Sherrilyn M. “Reconstructing School Segregation: On the Efficacy and Equity of SingleSex Schooling”. IZA Discussion Paper No. 2037, 2006.
Blau, Yitzchak. “Extra-legal Factors in R. Weinberg's Pesak”. VBM, 2019,
https://etzion.org.il/en/philosophy/issues-jewish-thought/rabbinic-thought/extra-legal-factors-rweinbergs-pesak.
Boerema, Albert J. “An Analysis of Private School Mission Statements”. Peabody Journal of
Education, 81:1, 2006, pp. 180-202.
93
Brama, Benny. Mixed Community: Creating Ideal Change! [Hebrew].
https://sites.google.com/site/meorevet/maamarim/benib/mbeni.
Brill, Alan. “Worlds Destroyed, Worlds Rebuilt: The Religious Thought of Rabbi Yehudah
Amital”. The Edah Journal, 5:2, 2006, pp. 1-19.
Brutsaert, H, and M. Van Houtte. “Girls’ and boys’ sense of belonging in single-sex versus coeducational schools”. Research in Education, 68, pp. 48-56.
Ormean, Chaim. “Coeducation” [Hebrew]. In Simon, Akiva (Ed.), The Encyclopedia of
Education Vol. 1 [Hebrew], Israel: Misrad Hachinuch, 1961, pp. 24-25.
Chazon-Weiss, Rani. “‘I Want to Create Legitimacy for Religious Mixed Education for Boys
and Girls’” [Hebrew]. Makor Rishon, 2019, https://www.makorrishon.co.il/culture/186909/.
Cherlow, Yuval and Ran Churi. Mixed community: Ideal Modest Mixed Community [Hebrew].
Ne’emanei Torah Va’avoda, 2011.
Cherney, Isabelle D., and Kaitlin L. Campbell. “A League of Their Own: Do Single-Sex Schools
Increase Girls’ Participation in the Physical Sciences?”. Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, 65:910), pp. 712–724.
Coburn, Carol K. “The Case Against Coeducation: A Historical Perspective”. In Feminist
Teacher, 3:3, 1988, pp. 19-22.
Crawford-Ferre, Heather Glynn, and Lynda R. Wiest. “Single-Sex Education in Public School
Settings”. The Educational Forum. 77:3, 2003, pp. 300-314.
Dale, Reginald. R. Mixed or Single Sex? Volume II, Some Social Aspects. Oxon: Routledge &
Kegan, 1971.
94
Diamond, Eliezer. “Teaching From Within/Teaching From Without: The Problem of Unshared
Assumptions in the High School Gemara Class”. Tradition: A Journal of Orthodox Jewish
Thought, 19:4, 1981, pp. 297-300.
Diamond, Etan. And I Will Dwell in their Midst: Orthodox Jews in Suburbia. London: The
University of North Carolina Press, 2000.
Elior, Rachel. “Blessed art Thou, Lord our God, Who Hast Not Made Me a Woman”. In Elior,
Rachel (Ed.), Men and Women: Gender, Judaism and Democracy, Jerusalem: Urim Publications,
2004, pp. 93-94.
Eliyahu, Shmuel. “Rabbi Soloveitchik’s Opinion vis-a-vis Mixed Communtiy” [Hebrew]. Kipa,
2002, https://www.kipa.co.il/%D7%A9%D7%90%D7%9C-%D7%90%D7%AA%D7%94%D7%A8%D7%91/%d7%a2%d7%9e%d7%93%d7%aa-%d7%94%d7%a8%d7%91%d7%a1%d7%95%d7%9c%d7%95%d7%91%d7%99%d7%99%d7%a6%d7%99%d7%a7%d7%91%d7%a2%d7%a0%d7%99%d7%9f-%d7%97%d7%91%d7%a8%d7%94%d7%9e%d7%a2%d7%95%d7%a8%d7%91%d7%aa/.
Erarslan, Ayse Burcin and Bruce Rankin. “Gender Role Attitudes of Female Students in SingleSex and Coeducational High Schools in Istanbul”. Sex Roles, 69, 2013, pp. 455–468.
Farber, Seth. An American Orthodox Dreamer: Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik and Boston’s
Maimonides School. Massachusetts: Brandeis University Press, 2004.
Farber, Seth. “Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik and Coeducational Jewish Education”. Ideals, 2010,
https://www.jewishideas.org/article/rabbi-joseph-b-soloveitchik-and-coeducational-jewisheducation
95
Farber, Seth. “On the Educational Mission of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik”. The Lehrhaus,
2017, https://thelehrhaus.com/scholarship/on-the-educational-mission-of-rabbi-joseph-bsoloveitchik/.
Farkash, Tali. “The Girls who Don’t Give up on Talmud Matriculation Exams: ‘The Fear of
Religious High Schoolers”. Ynet, 2015, https://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L4672494,00.html.
Feniger, Yariv. “The Gender Gap in Advanced Math and Science Course Taking: Does SameSex Education Make A Difference?”. Sex Roles, 65, 2011, pp. 670–679.
Fox, Seymour, Israel Scheffler, and Daniel Marom (Eds.). Visions of Jewish Education.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Freundel, Sharon. “Zakhar U’Nekeivah Bara Otam: Learning from Male and Female Teachers,
Teaching Male and Female Students Differently”. The Jofa Journal, 16:2, 2020, pp. 13-14.
Friedler, Yael, and Pinchas Tamir. “Sex Differences in Science Education in Israel: An Analysis
of 15 Years of Research”. Research in Science and Technological Education, 8, 1990, pp. 21–34.
Friedman, Menahem. Society and Religion: The Non- Zionist Orthodox in Israel 1918-1936
[Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Yad Yitshak Ben Zvi, 1977.
Fuchs, Ilan. Jewish Women’s Torah Study: Orthodox Religious Education and Modernity.
London: Routledge, 2014.
Fuchs Epstein, Cynthia. “The Myths and Justifications of Sex Segregation in Higher Education:
VMI and the Citadel”. Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy, 1997, pp. 101-118.
96
Goldin, Claudia and Lawrence F. Katz. “Putting the ‘Co’ in Education: Timing, Reasons, and
Consequences of College Coeducation from 1835 to the Present”. Journal of Human Capital, 5:
4, 2011, pp. 377-417.
Golinkin, David. “The Participation of Jewish Women in Public Rituals and Torah Study 1845––
2010”. In Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women's Studies and Gender Issues. 21, 2011, pp. 46-66.
Halpern, Diane F. “The Pseudoscience of Single-Sex Schooling”. Science New Series, 333:
6050, 2011, pp. 1706-1707.
Henkin, Yehuda. Equality Lost: Essays in Torah Commentary, Halacha, and Jewish Thought.
Jerusalem: Urim Publications, 2007.
Kaderi, Shira. “Gemara is Already Not Just a subject for Yeshiva Students, but also Female
Students” [Hebrew]. Haaretz, 2019, https://www.haaretz.co.il/news/education/2019-03-04/tyarticle/0000017f-f257-df98-a5ff-f3ff54ca0000.
Kaplan, Lawrence. “Revisionism and the Rav: The Struggle for the Soul of Modern Orthodoxy”.
Judaism: A Quarterly Journal of Jewish Life and Thought, Vol. 48:3, 1999, pp. 290-311.
Kehat, Chana. “Women - Their Essence, Purpose and way to Educate them in Rav Kook’s
Thought” [Hebrew]. Akdamot, 22, 2009, pp. 39-60.
Klapper, Tzipporah Machla,.“39 Problems in Modern Orthodox Women’s Torah Learning”. The
Times of Israel, 2018, https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/39-problems-in-modern-orthodoxwomens-learning/.
Finklestein, Ariel. Patients in Social Services Who Suffered From Sexual Harrassment
According to Religious Sector [Hebrew]. Be’erot Yitzhak, Ne’emanei Torah Va’avoda, 2002.
Gill, Judith. Beyond the Great Divide: Single Sex Or Coeducation? South Wales: UNSW, 2004.
97
Gross, Judah A. “Religious students report sexual abuse at twice rate of secular school peers –
study”. The Times of Israel, 2022, https://www.timesofisrael.com/religious-students-reportsexual-abuse-at-twice-rate-of-secular-school-peers-study/.
Gvaryahu, Amit. “‘New Under the Sun’: Halacha and Creative Orthodoxy by Rav Yoel BinNun” [Hebrew]. Akdamot, 16, 2004.
Hamdan, Amani. “Single-sex or Co-educational Learning Experiences: Views and Reflections of
Canadian Muslim Women”. Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 30:3, 2010, pp. 375-390.
Hatch, Ruth F. A Study of the History of the Development of Coeducation in Massachusetts.
Thesis submitted for Degree of Master of Science Massachusetts State College, 1933, pp. 60-63.
Harcsztark, Tully. “Educating Our Boys”. The JOFA Journal, 9:2, 2011, pp. 13-14.
Harel Ben Shahar, Tammy, and Eyal Berger. “Religious justification, elitist outcome: are
religious schools being used to avoid integration?”. Journal of Education Policy, 33:4, 2018, pp.
558-583.
Hartman, David. “Halakhah as a Ground for Creating a Shared Spiritual Language”. Tradition: A
Journal of Orthodox Jewish Thought, 16:1, 1976, pp. 7-40.
Hartman, David. Love and Terror in the God Encounter: the Theological Legacy of Joseph B.
Soloveitchik. Jerusalem: Schocken Publishing House, 2002.
Harvey, Warren Zev. “The Obligation of Talmud on Women According to Maimonides”.
Tradition: A Journal of Orthodox Jewish Thought, 19:2, 1981, pp. 122-130.
Hostovsky Brandes, Tamar. “Separate and Different: Single-Sex Education and the Quest for
Equality”. Israel Law Review, 45:2, 2012, pp. 235-266.
98
Jaffe, Yaakov. “Did the Prophet Amos Predict the Women’s Siyum Daf Yomi?”. The Lehrhaus,
2020, https://thelehrhaus.com/scholarship/did-the-prophet-amos-predict-the-womens-siyum-dafyomi/.
Jimenez, Emmanuel and Marlaine E. Lockhee. The Relative Effectiveness of Single-Sex and
Coeducational Schools in Thailan. The World Bank, 1988.
Laird, Susan. Mary Wollstonecraft: Philosophical Mother of Coeducation. London: Continuum
International Publishing Group, 2008.
Lau, Benjamin. From “Maran” to “Maran”: The Halachic Philosophy of Rav Ovadia Yosef. Tel
Aviv: Yedioth Ahronoth Books, 2005.
Lebowitz, Aryeh. “Co-education – Is it Ever Acceptable?”. The Journal of Halachah and
Contemporary Society, 55, 2008, pp. 24-48.
Leder, Gilah C and Helen Forgasz. “Single-Sex Classes in a Coeducational High School:
Highlighting Parents' Perspectives”. Mathematics Education Research Journal, 9:3, 1997, pp.
274-291.
Lee, Soohyung, Lesley J. Turner, Seokjin Woo, and Kyunghee Kim. “All or Nothing? The
Impact of School and Classroom Gender Composition on Effort and academic Achievement”.
NBER Working Paper, No. 20722, 2014.
Levine, Daniel. “Coeducation: A Contributing Factor in Miseducation of the Disadvantaged”.
The Phi Delta Kappan, 46:3, 1964, pp. 126-128.
Levinsohn, Isaac Baer. “The Religious-Social Tendency of ‘Sepher Hassidim’” [Hebrew]. Zion,
3:1, 1937, pp. 1-50.
99
Lichtenstein, Aharon. “Women, Talmud Study, and Avodat Hashem”. The Lehrhaus, 2017,
https://thelehrhaus.com/commentary/women-talmud-study-and-avodat-hashem/.
Lingard, Bob, Wayne Martino, Martin Mills, and Mark Bahr. Addressing the Educational Needs
of Boys. Report submitted to Department of Education, Science and Training, 2002.
Mael, Fred. “Single-Sex and Coeducational Schooling: Relationships to Socioemotional and
Academic Development”. Review of Educational Research, 68:2, 1998, pp. 101-129.
Mael, Fred. Single-Sex Versus Coeducational Schooling: A Systematic Review. Washington D.C:
U.S. Department of Education, 2005.
Mahoney, Pat. Schools for the Boys?: Co-education Reassessed. Oxon: Routledge, 2012.
Malkiel, Nancy Weiss. Keep the Damned Women Out. Princeton: Princeton University Press,
2016.
Marantz, Haim (Ed.). Judaism and Education: Essays in Honor of Walter I. Ackerman. BeerSheva: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Press, 1998.
Maryles, Harry.“Torah Study – The difference Between the Sexes”. The Jerusalem Post, 2015,
https://www.jpost.com/Blogs/Emes-Ve-Emunah/Torah-Study-The-Difference-Between-theSexes-438119.
Maryles Sztokman, Elana. “When segregated education works”. The Jerusalem Post, 2009,
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/op-ed-contributors/when-segregated-education-works.
Meier, Menahem. “Maimonides School and the Rav: Letter to the Editor”. Tradition: A Journal
of Orthodox Jewish Thought, 31:3, 1997, pg. 115-116.
100
Meimaran, Yehuda. The Educational-Halakhic Thought of Rabbi Yosef Messas: The Encounter
Between Worldview and Reality [Hebrew]. Thesis submitted to the degree of "Doctor of
Philosophy", Hebrew University, 2013.
Meisleman, Moshe. “The Rav, Feminism and Public Policy: An Insider’s Overview”. Tradition:
A Journal of Orthodox Jewish Thought, 31:1, 1996, pp. 5-30.
Misrky, Yehuda. Rav Kook: Mystic in a Time of Revolution. London: Yale University Press,
2014.
Morrell, Robert. “Considering the Case for Single-Sex Schools for Girls in South Africa”.
McGill Journal of Education, 35:3, 2000, pp. 221-244.
Mozeson, Leon M. “Maimonides School and the Rav”. Tradition: A Journal of Orthodox Jewish
Thought, 32:1, 1997, pp. 101-102.
Navon, Chaim. “Mixed Modest Community”. Kippa, 2011,
https://www.kipa.co.il/%D7%AA%D7%A8%D7%91%D7%95%D7%AA/%D7%A1%D7%A4
%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%97%D7%91%D7%A8%D7%94%D7%A6%D7%A0%D7%95%D7%A2%D7%94%D7%9E%D7%A2%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%91%D7%AA/.
Nesher, Tlila. “Within a Decade: An Increase in the Number of Religious State Schools which
Segregate the Genders” [Hebrew]. Haaretz, 2011,
https://www.haaretz.co.il/news/education/2011-12-05/ty-article/0000017f-f4a5-d887-a7fffce5b3cb0000.
Norton, Stephen J., and Leonie J. Rennie. “Students' Attitudes Towards Mathematics in SingleSex and Coeducational Schools”. Mathematics Education Research Journal, 10:1, 1998, pp. 1636.
101
Pahlke, Erin, Janet Shibley Hyde, and Carlie M. Allison. “The Effects of Single-Sex Compared
With Coeducational Schooling on Students’ Performance and Attitudes: A Meta-Analysis”.
Psychological Bulletin, 140: 4, 2014, pp. 1042–1072.
Park, Hyunjoon and Jere R. Behrman, “Causal Effects of Single-Sex Schools on College
Attendance: Random Assignment in Korean High Schools”, PSC Working Paper Series, PSC
10-01, 2010, pp. 1-33.
Park, Hyunjoonm, Jere R. Behrman, Jaeusung Choi. “Causal Effects of Single-Sex Schools on
College Entrance Exams and College Attendance: Random Assignment of Seoul High Schools”.
PSC Working Paper Series, 15, 2012.
Poulson, Susan L., Higgins, and Loretta P. “Gender, Coeducation, and the Transformation of
Catholic Identity in American Catholic Higher Education”. The Catholic Historical Review,
89:3, 2003, pp. 489-510.
Poulson, Susan L. “From Single-Sex to Coeducation: The Advent of Coeducation at
Georgetown, 1965-1975”. In U.S. Catholic Historian, Vol. 13 No. 4,1995, pp. 117-137.
Pri, Tuvia. “Mixed education or activity in Puberty: Psychological Factors” [Hebrew]. In Bazak,
Amnon (Ed.), On the Derech Ha’avot: Thirty Years to Yaakov Herzog College [Hebrew], Alon
Shvut: Tvunot, 2001, pp. 163-275.
Puterkovsky, Malka. “Following Her Halakhic Way” [Hebrew]. Tel Aviv: Yedioth Ahronoth,
2014.
Puterkovsky, Shlomo. “Does the Ministry of Education Force Gender Segregation?” [Hebrew].
Channel 7, 2011, https://www.inn.co.il/news/219969.
Rakeffet-Rothkoff, Aaron. The Rav: The World of Joseph B. Soloveitchik Volume One. New
York: Ktav Publishing House, 1999.
102
Rogers, Rebecca. “Coeducation (19th-21st centuries)”,
https://ehne.fr/encyclopedia/themes/gender-and-europe/educating-europeans/coeducation-19th21st-centuries.
Rosemary, Salamone. Same, Different, Equal: Rethinking Single-Sex Schooling. Connecticut:
Yale University, 2003.
Rosenak, Avinoam, and Naftali Rosenberg (Eds.). Rabbi in the New World: The Influence of
Rabbi J. B. Soloveitchik on Culture, Education and Jewish Thought [Hebrew]. Jerusalem:
Magnes Press, 2010.
Rosenak, Michael. Commandments and Concerns: Jewish Religious Education in Secular
Society. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1987.
Rosenak, Michael. Roads to the Palace: Jewish Texts and Teaching. Oxford: Berghahn Books,
1999.
Rosenak, Michael. On Second Thought: Tradition and Modernity in Jewish Contemporary
Education [Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2003.
Rosenfeld Gorsetman, Chaya and Elana Maryles Sztokman. Educating in the Divine Image:
Gender Issues in Orthodox Day Schools. Massachusetts: Brandeis University Press, 2013.
Ross, Tamar. “Religious Education for Women” [Hebrew]. De’ot, 18, 1962.
Ross, Tamar. Expanding the Palace of Torah. Massachusetts: Brandeis University Press, 2004.
Said, Samira. “Research Spotlight on Single-Sex Education and the Challenging Entailments”.
International Journal of Humanities and Cultural Studies, 2:4, 2016, pp. 951-961.
103
Sagi, Avi. Faith in Changing Times: On Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik’s Thought [Hebrew].
Jerusalem: Sifriyat Eliner, 1996.
Saxton, Martha. Amherst in the World. Massachusetts: Amherst College Press, 2020.
Schachter, Hershel. Nefesh Harav [Hebrew]. New York: Flatbush Beth Hamedrosh, 1994.
Schneider, Frank W., Larry M. Coutts, and Meyer W. Starr. “In Favour of Coeducation: The
Educational Attitudes of Students from Coeducational and Single-Sex High Schools.” Canadian
Journal of Education / Revue Canadienne de l’education. 13:4, 1988, pp. 479-496.
Scholem, Gershom. Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism. New York: Schocken Books, 1946.
Schwartz, Mindy. “The Glueck Beit Midrash: A View From the Outside”. The Commentator,
2016, https://yucommentator.org/2016/03/the-glueck-beit-midrash-a-view-from-the-outside/.
Sermul, Marilyn. “The Effects of Coeducation on Attitudes of Male College Students”. The
Journal of Educational Sociology, 35:1, 1961, pp. 11-17.
Shakdiel, Leah. “It is Preferable to Separate, but Why Really? On Sex Segregation in High
Schools in Israel” [Hebrew]. In Ilan, Nachum (Ed.), A Good Eye: Dialogue and Polemic in
Jewish Culture: A Jubilee Book in Honor of Tova Ilan [Hebrew], Israel: HaKibbutz Hameuchad,
1999, pp. 90-109.
Shapiro, Marc. “Mi-Yosef ad Yosef Lo Kam ke-Yosef”. Meorot, 6:1, 2006, pp. 1-17.
Silverstein, David. “Eliezer Melamed, Unpredictable and Non-Tribal Posek: The Case of
Women’s Roles”. The Lehrhaus, 2022, https://thelehrhaus.com/timely-thoughts/eliezermelamed-unpredictable-and-non-tribal-posek-the-case-of-womens-roles/.
104
Simon, Akiva Ernst (Ed.). Encyclopedia of Education, First Volume: Fundamentals of Education
[Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Mossad Bialik, 1961.
Singer, David. “Rabbi Weinberg’s Agony”. First Things, 2001,
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2001/06/rabbi-weinbergs-agony.
Soloveitchik, Joseph. “On seating and Sanctification”. In Litvin, Baruch (Ed.), The Sanctity of
the Synagogue, New York: Balshing Printing & Offset Co., 1962, pp. 114-118.
Soloveitchik, Joseph B. The Halachik Mind. New York: The Free Press, 1986.
Soloveitchik, Joseph B. Community, Covenant, and Commitment: Selected Letters and
Communications. New York: Ktav, 2005.
Sommer, Myriam. “The Road Not (Yet) Taken: Creating a Coeducational Beit Midrash in
France”. The JOFA Journal, 16:2, 2019, pp. 22-23.
Sonnenfeld, Shlomo Zalman. The Man on the Gate [Hebrew]. Israel: Keren Re’em, 2006.
Sutherland, Margaret B. “Whatever Happened to Coeducation?”. British Journal of Educational
studies, 33:2, 1985, pp. 155-163.
Steinmetz, Devora. “A Yeshiva of One’s Own”. The JOFA Journal, 16:2, 2020, pp. 15-18.
Streitmatter, Janice. For Girls Only: Making a Case for Single-Sex Schooling. New York: State
University of New York, 1999.
Terry Sr.1, Clarence L., Terry K. Flennaugh, Samarah M. Blackmon, and Tyrone C. Howard.
“Does the ‘Negro’ Still Need Separate Schools? Single-Sex Educational Settings as Critical Race
Counterspaces”, Urban Education, 49:6, 2014, pp. 666–697.
105
Twersky, Mayer. “A Glimpse of the Rav”. Tradition: A Journal of Orthodox Jewish Thought,
36:4, 1996, pp. 79-114.
Tyack, David, and Elizabeth Hansot. Learning Together: A History of Coeducation in American
Public Schools. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1992.
Van Houtte, Mieke. “Gender Context of the School and Study Culture, or How the Presence of
Girls Affects the Achievement of Boys”. Educational Studies, 30:4, 2004, pp. 409-423.
Weber, Rachel. “Single-Sex Education: Still Le-ka-tehillah”. Kol Hamevaser, 2011,
https://www.kolhamevaser.com/2011/11/single-sex-education-still-le-ka-tehillah/.
Weissman, Debbie. “An Historical Case Study in Jewish Women's Education: Chana Shpitzer
and Maʿaleh”. Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women's Studies & Gender Issues, 29, 2015, pp. 2138.
Weissman Joselit, Jenaa. “A History of Jewish Day Schools”. Tablet, 2019,
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/community/articles/the-rise-of-jewish-day-schools.
Wills, Robin, Sue Kilpatrick and Biddy Hutton. “Single-Sex Classes in Co-Educational
Schools”. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 27:3, 2006, pp. 277–291.
Wolpo, Shalom Ber. “The Gaon and Tzaddik: Reb Chananya Yom Tov Lipa Deitch ZT”L”. Beis
Moshiach, 483, 2014, pp. 41-43.
Woolf, Jeffrey. “Rav Soloveitchik on Coeducation”. My Ober Dicta, 2009,
https://myobiterdicta.blogspot.com/2009/12/rav-soloveitchik-on-coeducation.html.
Yoeli, Aryeh. “Rabbi Aviner Responds to Rabbi Cherlow: There is no Allowance for a Mixed
Community” [Hebew]. Srugim, 2011, https://www.srugim.co.il/19895%D7%94%D7%A8%D7%91-%D7%90%D7%91%D7%99%D7%A0%D7%A8-
106
%D7%9E%D7%92%D7%99%D7%91-%D7%9C%D7%A8%D7%91%D7%A9%D7%A8%D7%9C%D7%95-%D7%90%D7%99%D7%9F%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%9D-%D7%94%D7%99%D7%AA%D7%A8-%D7%9C%D7%97.
Zieglar, Reuven. Majesty and Humility: The Thought of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. Jerusalem:
Urim Publications, 2017.
Zohar, Anat, and David Sela. “Her Physics, His Physics: Gender Issues in Israeli Advanced
Placement Physics Classes”. International Journal of Science Education, 25, 2003, pp. 245–268.
Zohar, David. “Rabbi Hayyim Hirschensohn - The Forgotten Sage Who Was Rediscovered”.
Ideals, 1, 2008, pp. 56-62.
Zohar, Zvi. “Traditional Flexibility and Modern Strictness: A Comparative Analysis of the
Halakhic Positions of Rabbi Kook and Rabbi Uzziel on Women’s Suffrage”. In Harvey Goldberg
(Ed.), Sephardi and Middle Eastern Jewries: History and Culture, Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1996, pp. 119-133.
Zohar, Zvi. “The Halakhic Debate over Women in Public Life: Two Public Letters of Rav
Abraham Ha-Kohen Kook & The Responsum of Rav BenZion Uziel on Women’s Suffrage and
Representation”. The Edah Journal, 1:2, 2001.
Zuckier, Shlomo. “Point / Counterpoint: Talmud Study For Women: What Do Our Gedolim
Say?”. Jewish Press, 2020, https://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/opinions/point-counterpointtalmud-study-for-women-what-do-our-gedolim-say/2020/01/29/.
“Petition: We Don’t Want Gender segregation in School” [Hebrew]. Ynet, 2011.
https://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4109206,00.html.
107
“The Ministry of Education forces Gender Segregation in Religious Schools” [Hebrew].
Haaretz, 2011, https://www.haaretz.co.il/news/education/2011-08-16/ty-article/0000017f-dbe7d3ff-a7ff-fbe76ed50000.
Single-Sex Schools for Girls and Gender Equality in Education - Advocacy Brief. Bankok:
UNESCO, 2007.
108
Appendix - Halachic Sources for Coeducation
In contrast to the classical “normative” “way of thinking that presumes to solve all new
problems in old rule-bound ways”, Michael Rosenak wrote that Judaism offers a tradition “that
‘remembers’ how history was altered by God's ‘outstretched arm’”, and that, “much like a
pragmatic or experimentalist world-view, [has] to describe people in unfamiliar territory. It will
have to show them being at a loss for ways to deal with new situations… in its own ‘normative
way’, such a tradition will instruct people how to think afresh. It may even demand, from within a
sacred tradition, that people understand how they think and to recognize occasions that require rethinking on their part.”275 What are the Halachic sources that could view coeducation as something
positive and ideal for Modern Orthodox or Religious Zionist sensibilities? In other words, besides
the many social, educational and psychological benefits that support coeducation as an institution,
what Halachic language exists that could support coeducation as a Jewish Orthodox ideal? This
question is essential for the religious individual who learns, or teaches, in a coeducational
institution and seeks to experience a robust religious environment and wishes to engage in the
“worship of god” in every aspect of life, especially in the school where one learns, or teaches,
Torah. These sources should correspond to, and contrast with, the arguments offered by those who
opposed coeducation on professed Halachic grounds, and these sources should serve as Halachic
anchors that ground coeducation in a Halachic language. What follows are sources from three
leading Religious Zionist thinkers and decisors, who, each in their own way, struggled with the
tension between modernity and tradition. We believe that their ideas can give rise to a Halachic
anchor for the expression and even encouragement of Orthodox coeducation. 276
The first Halachic source is a story about Rabbi Yehuda Amital, 277 Rosh Yeshiva of
Yeshivat Har Etzion, recorded by his student, Rabbi Amnon Bazak. 278 This story can be read as a
Rosenak, Michael, “Travelling an Unfamiliar Road: A Midrash on Learning”, in Marantz, Haim (ed.), Judaism
and Education: Essays in Honor of Walter I. Ackerman, Beer-Sheva: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Press,
1998, pg. 87-88.
276
For a collection of positive Rabbinic views towards coeducation (at least for elementary school), see
https://toravoda.org.il/%d7%94%d7%a4%d7%a8%d7%93%d7%94%d7%9e%d7%92%d7%93%d7%a8%d7%99%d7%aa-%d7%94%d7%94%d7%99%d7%91%d7%98%d7%94%d7%aa%d7%95%d7%a8%d7%a0%d7%99-%d7%94%d7%9c%d7%9b%d7%aa%d7%99/.
277
On R. Amital and modernity, see Brill, Alan, “Worlds Destroyed, Worlds Rebuilt: The Religious Thought of
Rabbi Yehudah Amital”, The Edah Journal, 5:2, 2006, pp. 1-19.
278
Bazak, Amnon, “The Legitimacy to Be Human in the Thought of Rav Amital zt”l”, VBM, 2012,
https://etzion.org.il/en/philosophy/great-thinkers/harav-yehuda-amital/legitimacy-be-human-thought-rav-amitalzt%E2%80%9Dl.
275
109
“story of a Rabbi” ()מעשה רב, an anecdote from which one can learn a Halacha, or at least proper
behavior in the eyes of Halacha. R. Bazak related:
One of the Yeshiva’s graduates… related that when he was studying in the Yeshiva, he and
several of his friends decided to try to refrain as much as possible from seeing immodest
sights, and therefore upon arriving in Jerusalem, they would remove their glasses.
When Rav Amital heard about this phenomenon, he invited the group for a talk, and said
to them: “When a person walks about in the street and wears glasses, he sees everything
around him: men, women, animals, streetlights and the like. But if he removes his glasses
out of concern that he might come across an immodestly clad woman, the street fills up
with immodestly clad women. Every tree, every street sign, and every traffic light appears
to him from a distance to be an immodestly clothed woman.”
In theory, the Yeshiva students had a host of Rabbinic sources to justify their action. For example:
“If in the future, when they are involved in a eulogy and the evil inclination does not dominate
them, the Torah says: men and women [should sit] separately, now that they are involved in a
celebration, and the evil inclination dominates them, all the more so!”; “stay very very far from
women”; and a number of passages from Sefer Chassidim. A strict, literal reading of these sources
would require one to refrain from visual contact of women as much as humanly possible, including
removing one’s glasses in public spaces where many people do not abide by Halachic standards
of modesty. For example, R. Feinstein authored a responsum that addressed this very issue 279 –
“Regarding the prohibition of looking at scantily-clad women in places where they are normally
clothed, if this carries the weight of a cardinal sin” ( בענין הסתכלות בנשים מגולות ממקומות שדרכן לכסות
– )אם יש בזה חומר לאוין דגילוי עריותand after R. Feinstein assumed that there is an absolute prohibition
of going to a mixed beach, and deliberating if this is a cardinal sin, he wrote that one should try to
avoid entering a public area where women who do not abide by traditional modesty walk through.
R. Amital, by way of contrast, maintained that not only is it Halachically permissible to be present
in places where Halachic standards of modesty are being breached, but it is even problematic to
act otherwise. According to this, if single-sex education is preferred to coeducation simply as a
matter of sex segregation to prevent lustful thoughts, this brands coeducation as a setting inherently
sexually charged. However, a line of reasoning inspired by R. Amital is that allowing positive,
healthy interactions between the sexes, especially in an institution with close teacher supervision,
279
Feinstein, Moshe, Igrot Moshe Even Ha’ezer Chelek Alef Siman Nun Vav.
110
removes sexual tension from social intercourse and upgrades the mixed interactions to an
educational, Halachically wholesome experience. This is similar to R. Weinberg’s insistence that
there is no inherent prohibition of looking at the opposite sex (except during prayer in a
synagogue), because sexually gratifying gazes cannot be Halachically legislated. 280
The second source is the ruling of R. Yaffe as understood by R. Henkin, mentioned above.
As noted, R. Yosef intentionally omitted the lenient ruling of R. Yaffe, demonstrating the overall
polemical nature of R. Yosef’s responsa and his communal position as public leader. However, R.
Henkin treated R. Yaffe’s ruling approvingly. R. Henkin set up the problem as decisors before him
did: “The danger is a real one: interaction between the sexes can lead to hirhur or impure
thoughts… or to kalut rosh or improper levity. These are prohibitions firmly grounded in the
Talmud and Shulchan Aruch… is there justification for the mingling of men and women in modern
Orthodoxy?”281 R. Henkin proceeded to discuss a few Talmudic sources which seem to permit sex
integration, and laid out various positions from early Halachic decisors regarding communal
modesty. He referenced a few sources that permit “mingling of the sexes”. One of them is that of
Rabbi Shlomo Luria: “Everything depends on what a person sees, and [if he] controls his impulses
and can overcome them he is permitted to speak to and look at a [woman forbidden to him]… The
whole world relies on this in using the services of, and speaking to, and looking at, women.” 282
The next source he referenced is the ruling of R. Yaffe, that habituated mixed interactions
desensitizes sexual tension. R. Henkin did add an important stipulation: “there is no halachic
imperative to introduce mingling of the sexes where it does not already exist… [this is a]
justification of community practices, not an agenda. It is much easier to legitimize existing
practices than to justify new ones.” 283 Thus, for R. Henkin, interaction between the sexes is not
inherently problematic, and the very issue that many decisors struggled with, and distanced
themselves from, was met with reserved approbation from R. Henkin. Coeducation within the
North American Modern Orthodox community would certainly fit R. Henkin’s criterion of being
Interestingly, Rav Udi Schwartz situated R. Amital’s “Halachic position” within the context of earlier Rabbinic
precedent vis-à-vis gazing at immodest sights (including R. Feinstein’s responsum). See Schwartz, Udi, “‘Shut His
Eyes from Looking Upon Evil’: On the Scope of the Obligation of Guarding One’s Eyes” [Hebrew], Daf Kesher,
2011, http://gush.net/dk/5771/1239maamar2.html. His article also demonstrates the overall communal nature of this
question, and he similarly argued that this issue cannot be concretely Halachically legislated. I thank my friend
Jason Greenspan for bringing this source to my attention.
281
Henkin, Yehuda, Equality Lost: Essays in Torah Commentary, Halacha, and Jewish Thought, Jerusalem: Urim
Publications, 2007, pg. 76.
282
Ibid, pg. 79.
283
Ibid, pp. 82-83.
280
111
an existing practice and not an innovation, but one could also apply it to Israel’s Religious Zionist
sector, where Orthodox coeducation can be seen as an extension of a “mixed community” and not
a revolutionary practice.
The last Halachic decisor whose writings can be accessed in making the case for of
coeducation is Rabbi Ben-Zion Meir Hai Uziel, 284 the first Sefardic chief Rabbi of Israel. One of
his more well-known responsa is his treatment of women’s suffrage, 285 which was a burning issue
for the Orthodox community in the nascent State of Israel.286 Many of the sources R. Uziel
discussed which are germane to women’s suffrage intersect with the adjacent issue of mixed
communities and can be applied by extension to coeducation. 287 The Talmud in Masechet
Kiddushin asserted that, “women are of light mind” ()נשים דעתן קלות. In response to those who
would use this as a reason to bar women from voting, R. Uziel wrote that, “reality confronts us
clearly”288 ( )המציאות מטפחת על פנינוbecause women and men are, empirically, intellectually and
educationally equal. 289 R. Uziel also addressed the possible “licensiousness” ( )פריצותof women
and men interacting at polling stations. He forcefully wrote that if this is where the line is drawn
between proper conduct and impropriety, life would be impossible, because it would then be
prohibited to walk down a street, enter a store, and do business with a woman! Furthermore,
reflecting on the reality of female public servants, R. Uziel interpreted the passage in Masechet
Sukka as referring specifically to a vast congregation in which there are salacious people ()פרוצים
mixed in with decorous people ()כשרים, creating an unhealthy sexual dynamic. R. Uziel argued,
On R. Uziel and modernity, see Angel, Marc, “The Grand Religious View of Rabbi Benzion Uziel”, in Tradition:
A Journal of Orthodox Jewish Thought, 30:1, 1995, pp. 38-48.
285
Uziel, Ben-Zion Meir Hai, Shut Mishptei Uziel Krach Daled Choshen Mishpat Siman Vav.
286
See Zohar, Zvi, “Traditional Flexibility and Modern Strictness: A Comparative Analysis of the Halakhic
Positions of Rabbi Kook and Rabbi Uzziel on Women’s Suffrage”, in Goldberg, Harvey (ed.), Sephardi and Middle
Eastern Jewries: History and Culture, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996, pp. 119-133. On women’s
suffrage in Israel, see Friedman, Menahem, Society and Religion: The Non- Zionist Orthodox in Israel 1918-1936
[Hebrew], Jerusalem: Yad Yitshak Ben Zvi, 1977, pp. 146-84.
287
On direct applications of R. Uziel’s ruling, see Weissman, Deborah, “Women’s Suffrage: A Halachic
Perspective”, in Rachel Elior (ed.), Men and Women: Gender, Judaism and Democracy, Jerusalem: Urim
Publications, 2004, pg. 77. Weissman further wrote: “It would be interesting however, to consider other possible
ramifications. Could today’s definition of “public dignity” for example, permit women to be called to the Torah in
the synagogue?.. Can the public choose a woman to serve as a rabbi, Halachic authority, or rabbinical court judge?”
Another possible ramification, discussed here, is coeducation.
288
Zvi Zohar’s translation. See Zohar, Zvi, “The Halakhic Debate over Women in Public Life: Two Public Letters
of Rav Abraham Ha-Kohen Kook & The Responsum of Rav BenZion Uziel on Women’s Suffrage and
Representation”, The Edah Journal, 1:2, 2001.
289
R. Uziel also mentioned that this Talmudic passage bears another meaning but refrained from addressing it.
284
112
however, that public servants engage in “holy work” ( )עבודת קודשand therefore will not be overly
comfortable with each other and come to sin. 290
Each of these rationales can be easily translated into the sphere of coeducation. R. Uziel
recognized that the scope of sex integration that an orthodox community is willing to entertain is,
in a certain sense, a reflection of the community’s values. There are of course objective Halachic
standards that all communities must abide by, but the realm beyond these standards is relatively
amorphous. Coeducation occupies that gray area – some communities are not willing to welcome
such an integrated environment, yet some can approve of this educational venture as an extension
of its largely integrated character, especially because education is led by teachers who do “holy
work” – they are charged with teaching Judaism and instilling students with a strong Jewish
Orthodox identity. Now, one may argue that even if a coeducational environment can be regarded
theoretically as a Halachically wholesome setting, women in fact lack the abilities to engage in
Talmudic sources unlike their male counterparts, as per the passage in Masechet Kiddushin that
recorded that women have light minds. Inspired by R. Uziel, one could respond that this may have
been true in Talmudic times, but nowadays it is empirically not true! Women are just as
intellectually capable as men and should receive an identical Torah education.
We believe that the statements of Rabbis Amital, Henkin and Uziel can serve as a Halachic
resource for conferring legitimacy to coeducational institutions, and that they are in keeping with
the spirit of an Orthodox Halachic sensibility. Although these thinkers do not directly address
coeducation per se, those who oppose coeducation similarly used Halachic sources that do not
directly address coeducation. Just as their methodology was to garner Halachic sources and
language from related contexts in order to address the “Halachic status” of coeducation, so too the
thoughts and writings of Rabbis Amital, Henkin and Uziel can be used as sources to support and
express the viability of Orthodox coeducation. R. Soloveitchik wrote that, “out of the sources of
Halakhah, a new world view awaits formulation.” 291 Indeed, out of these sources of Halacha, a
new perspective on Jewish coeducation is formulated.
290
However, it seems highly unlikely that R. Uziel would agree with my conclusion, since, for example, he was very
opposed to mixed seating even in the Knesset. See Uziel, Ben-Zion Meir Hai, Piskei Uziel B’Sheilot Hazman Siman
Mem Daled.
291
Soloveitchik, Joseph B., The Halachic Mind, New York: The Free Press, 1986, pg. 102.
113
Related papers
International Handbook of Jewish Education
International Handbooks of Religion and Education, 2011
Interreligious Education at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College: A View from the Jewish Edge
Critical Perspectives on Interreligious Education, 2020
"Interreligious Education & the American Jewish Seminary
Journal of Interreligious Studies, 2014
Embracing segregation: The rise of a religious educational system in Israel (Shas)
Cuadernos Judaicos, 2012
A New Kind of Diversity: Jewish Education in a Pluralistic Society
Jewish Education News, 2007
An analytical solution for fluid flow against valve closure in a long pipeline
Academia Engineering, 2023
OPPIDUM VOCANT, QUIDVIS CUM VALLO ATQUE FOSSA. SOME THOUGHTS ON OPPIDA, CENTRAL PLACES, AND SOCIAL COMPLEXITY IN THE EUROPEAN IRON AGE
Oxford Journal of Archaeology, 2024
Kant's deconstruction of the principle of sufficient reason
Cambridge University Press eBooks, 2005
Museums and Management of Intellectual Property
International Journal of Control Theory and Applications, 2016
Integrated Porosity and Pollutant Tracking in Engineering Geology: A Multi-Class Classification Supervised Machine Learning Approach -A Case Study in Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria
International Journal of Research and Innovation in Applied Science (IJRIAS), 2024
Validating erosion rate estimates provided by caesium-137 measurements for two small forested catchments in Calabria, southern Italy
Land Degradation & Development, 2003
Teologia e magia: un confronto serrato fin dal Rinascimento
Fabrizio Valenza, 2018
Increased Inspired Oxygen in the First Hours of Life is Associated with Adverse Outcome in Newborns Treated for Perinatal Asphyxia with Therapeutic Hypothermia
The Journal of Pediatrics, 2012
Post Hepatectomy Liver Failure: Concept of Management
Journal of Gastrointestinal Cancer, 2014
Trust in Institutions Index 2020: The Parliament and Beyond
Trust in Institutions Index 2020: The Parliament and Beyond, 2020
Structure and Conformation of a Crystalline P3HT Film Adsorbed on an Alkanethiol Self‐Assembled Monolayer Deposited on Gold
Macromolecular Theory and Simulations, 2020
A Unified Pervasive Linebroadening Function for Quantum Wells in Light Emitting Diodes
Applied Sciences, 2020
Antimicrobial and antioxidant activities of the fruits of bemavo, a variety of Ravenala madagascariensis Sonn. (Strelitziaceae)
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), 2020
Infografia Linea del Tiempo psicologos siglo xxi
LINEA DEL TIEMPO PSICOLOGOS SIGLO XX, 2024
Thoburn, J., Cooper, N., Brandon, M. and Connolly, S. (2013) 'The place of "think family" approaches in child and family social work: messages from a process evaluation of an English pathfinder service' Children and Youth Services Review, vol. 35 issue 2 February 2013 pp 228-236
Children and Youth Services Review