Perceptions of English learning in a Hasidic Jewish sect

Abstract

The Hasidim, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish group with afew thousand adherents in Britain, have sought to maintain their segregated premigration life style. To these ends, they have maintained and reinforced the use of their heritage language, Yiddish, in speech and writing. Legal action in 1983 to establish whether the curriculum of a Hasidic school conformed to the Education Act turned the Spotlight on Hasidic educational methods andattainments. lanalyze the views there expressed, as a point of departure for an exploratory case study of the discourses about language among Hasidim of the Satmar sect. Interviews, backed by impressionistic observation, were conducted with a small group of Hasidim, mostly women. The focus was on their sense of the place of English and English-medium studies in their lives. This is sei in the context of Satmar and general Hasidic ethnicity, religious outlook, and economic circumstances. In Satmar schools, boys spend most of their day and girls half their day on religious studies, in Yiddish. My findings suggest that Satmar males intracommunally speak Yiddish almost exclusively; they see English as a if necessary evilt giving access to a corruptive secular culture but requiredby the Education Act and the demands ofeveryday life, while Yiddish is seen as a defense against such contact, that is, a substantial feature rather than a boundary marker. Females, by contrast, are seen as using English widely among themselves and as being more realistic about its importance than the men. But they are under pressure to use Yiddish to their menfolk, sometimes creating conflict.