Masculinity and Marginality in the Experience of ‘Modern’ Haredi Students with Haredi Society and the Academic Environment

Abstract

In this article, I examine the assimilation processes of young Lithuanian men of ‘modern Haredi’ society among the Israeli society of the majority incorporate a unique configuration of ‘marginal masculinity’ that involves a ‘double marginality’. The article focuses on 20 qualitative interviews with Lithuanian youths who chose to exchange Torah study at the Kollel for Academic studies. The findings show that these young men’s experience of exclusion and gender-related marginalization is twofold, as it takes place both within the Haredi society from which they came and in their academic surroundings. In the article, I maintain that these young men, who lose their hegemonic status as Torah learners, are then reframed as part of a marginal masculinity both in Haredi society as well as within Israel’s society of the majority. This repositioning as a marginal masculinity in opposition to two different social groups that the article points to led to implications over the success of the assimilation processes of Haredi men into the social majority in Israel.