Haredi Community Research Articles

The evolving dynamics of Haredi Judaism in Israel: Ideological shifts and political influences

This article analysed the evolution of Haredi Judaism in Israel, highlighting its deep-rooted fundamentalist beliefs and its transformation from a marginalised group to a central force in Israeli society. As the fastest-growing demographic, the Haredi community exemplified the tension between fundamentalism and modernity. The study explored the defining characteristics, political ideologies and social influence of Haredi Judaism in Israel, detailing how it transitioned from insular religious enclaves to active participants in national politics. The article also examined the Haredi impact on Israeli-Palestinian relations, focusing on their influence on party politics, land disputes and Jerusalem-related issues.Contribution: The study enhanced the understanding of Haredi Judaism’s ideological evolution and political integration within Israeli society. It highlighted the Haredim’s influence in shaping Israel’s national identity and policy directions. Additionally, the research elucidated the significant impact of the Haredi community on Israeli-Palestinian relations.

Rethinking economic socialization: the intersection of culture, gender and economic life in a religious enclave

Abstract This article explores how economic socialization serves as a bridge between individual economic behaviors and the broader social and cultural contexts that shape them. Drawing on a post-functionalist approach to socialization, the study examines the ultra-Orthodox Jewish (Haredi) community in Israel, where distinct gender roles, cultural norms and patterns of economic participation create a unique context for investigating divergent economic socialization pathways. Comparing four groups within the Haredi community—average/below-average and high-income women, men with work experience, and men who study at religious seminaries (Yeshiva/Kollel)—analysis of an original survey study reveals how differential exposure to economic life leads to significant variations in financial risk-taking, loss-aversion, financial literacy and competitiveness. The findings problematize explanations attributing economic gender gaps to innate differences, instead highlighting the profound impact of the cultural framing of gender roles vis-à-vis economic integration. By foregrounding economic socialization as a sociological phenomenon, the study contributes to discourses on culture’s role in economic behavior and opens new avenues for examining how individuals acquire economic dispositions through socialization pathways shaped by structural constraints and power relations.

Unorthodox Alliances at the Margins of the State: Haredi Jews, the Israeli State, and the Collaborative Battle Against Sexual Violence

Over the last decade, ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) Jewish society in Israel has witnessed an unprecedented attempt to place sexual violence high on the agenda, calling for concerted communal action and assistance to individuals in need. Based on a long-term anthropological fieldwork, I explore in this article how this revolution from within the Haredi sector catalyzes and is further solidified by unorthodox alliances with various agencies of the Israeli state. By this, I mean a range of pedagogic, discursive, and institutional processes of collaboration and trust-building, established between Haredi community leaders and representatives of the secular Israeli state. These unorthodox alliances constitute a two-way street of communication and adjustment, advancing, on the one hand, the socialization of Haredi populations to state laws, logics, and discourses, and requiring, on the other hand, that the state tailor its services and procedures to exercise culturally sensitive considerations. I analyze the labor invested in these alliances through the framework of “the margins of the state.” I contend that these alliances establish, or at least experiment with, arrangements that may ultimately reconfigure and recalibrate the relationship between the two sides.

Reform Imperatives for Israel’s Future: Balancing Haredi Growth and the Nation’s Democratic Liberal Foundations

The rapid growth of the Haredi community in Israel presents significant challenges to the nation’s democratic and liberal foundations. This article explores the demographics and implications of the Haredi population growth, emphasizing the need for reform to balance Haredi growth and Israel’s West-aligned core values. It proposes strategies to address key areas such as education, employment, women’s empowerment, queer rights, military and national service, security implications, and the influence of the Haredi community on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and Zionism. By promoting integration, accommodating diverse perspectives, and fostering open dialogue, Israel can navigate this complex situation and create a more inclusive society that upholds its foundational values. The article acknowledges the need for respectful and empathetic dialogue while recognizing the limitations of this perspective. The proposed reforms can be a starting point for discussion and collaboration, potentially inspiring similar efforts in other religious communities worldwide. Israel’s willingness and ability to unite its religious and secular worlds will determine its long-term identity as a democratic and inclusive homeland for the Jewish people.

Into the looking glass on cultural and religious competent care: optimizing healthcare for Haredi individuals with mental illness

Previous research has shown that minority groups tend to underuse healthcare services. One community whose experiences remain particularly under-researched in the Western world is Haredi Jews- a diverse group of individuals committed to traditional Talmudic and Halakhah teachings and observances. This presentation aims to enhance participants' understanding of mental health-seeking behaviours and challenges faced by Haredi individuals. We conducted a qualitative study that involved in-depth interviews with 24 adults who identified as Haredi and used mental health services, as well as informal consultations with local rabbis and community leaders. Interviews were transcribed and analyzed using thematic analysis techniques. Analysis revealed several important themes, including: (1) Strength of religious practices, community, and relationship with God as a factor determining mental well-being. (2) Implications of devotion to religion within the patient-physician encounter. (3) Stigma and acknowledged lack of awareness surrounding mental health in Haredi communities. These themes will be explored in the presentation, which will aim to bring light to participants’ lived experiences. We hope to address the proverbial "elephant in the room" often ignored or overlooked, as encountered by Haredi community members and their interactions with the healthcare system. We will present the unique strengths and challenges related to mental health encountered by Haredi Jews in our study, while discussing potential measures that can produce better health outcomes and culturally sensitive care for Haredi individuals.

Police legitimacy in the making: the underlying social forces for police legitimacy among religious communities

ABSTRACT Literature focusing on race and policing has consistently reported a decline in recent years in police legitimacy among minority communities. Yet, the effect of religion on policing has not received similar attention. A focus on police-Haredi community relations provides an opportunity to explore how a religious community might present positive change in police legitimacy, indicated by trust and cooperation. Utilising a mixed method approach, this study aims to (a) clarify what role religion plays in police legitimacy, as distinguished from race or ethnicity; and (b) identify major social forces that shape police legitimacy as a collective and historic phenomenon. The findings highlight the complex interplay of religious constraints, cultural integration, and police legitimacy, showcasing a gradual, yet significant shift in the Haredi community's approach to law enforcement and societal engagement. The study suggests that religion may be a negotiable factor, and that legitimacy fluctuates along with movements of modernisation. The findings are further theorised and discussed along with directions for future investigation.

Barriers and facilitators towards recovery and health service utilization among Haredi Jews with mental illness

IntroductionEvidence suggests that minorities tend to under-utilize mental health services, and may face specific barriers and facilitators towards recovery. One community which remains particularly under-researched in the Western World are Haredi Jews — a diverse group of individuals characterized by a shared devotion to traditional Talmudic and Halakhah teachings and observances.ObjectivesThe overarching aim of this study is to document and analyze barriers and facilitators towards recovery and mental health service utilization among Haredi Jews with a history of mental distress. Specific objectives include: (i) eliciting and understanding participants’ mental health knowledge, beliefs, behaviours & attitudes; (ii) exploring their pathways and barriers to mental health care, especially examining the role of religiosity, religious community and rabbinical advice; and (iii) investigating their experience within the official mental health care system.MethodsTo gain an in-depth understanding, we conducted a qualitative study. This involved semi-structured interviews with 24 participants who (i) identified as Haredi Jews; (ii) had used mental health services; and (iii) were 18+ years of age. It also included interviews with several key stakeholders, for example local Rabbis and other community leaders. Data was analyzed using thematic analysis techniques.ResultsParticipants typically had experienced mild to moderate mental distress, and tended to view mental health services in a positive light, mainly expressing satisfaction with services received. The analysis revealed three important facilitators and three important barriers to recovery. Facilitators comprised of (i) high levels of social support within the community, including specific well-being support groups; (ii) a positive relationship and connection with G-d, considered to provide guidance and support during troubled times; and (iii) the presence of many bridges and resources within the local Haredi community, including community-run health services, and Rabbis who encouraged mental health care utilization where appropriate. Barriers comprised of (i) stigma related to marriageability of self and offspring, inhibiting disclosure and mental health care use; (ii) acknowledged lack of awareness and knowledge about mental health, mental illness, treatments, and therapies; and (iii) generic health service issues, including long waitlists, limited availability and lack of appropriate therapists.ConclusionsStudy participants tended to have positive views of psychiatric services, and utilized different health care and community-based resources to help foster recovery. However, ongoing issues of stigma and low levels of mental health literacy may inhibit mental health care use and recovery. This implies a need for religiously-informed and community-grounded mental health literacy campaigns among Haredi Jewish communities.Disclosure of InterestNone Declared

Spectrum of Response Styles in a Religious-Orthodox Community to Civilian Disasters: The Responses of the Haredi Community to the Meron Crowd Crush (2021) as a Case Study

Over the past few decades the Haredi community has been expanding and it includes a diversity of groups characterized by wide margins, therefore it may be considered an imagined community. On Lag Ba’Omer 2021, 45 people died, and over 150 were injured in the Meron Crowd Crush, most of them from the diverse Haredi community in Israel. Coping with disasters in a religious community includes a religious-faith level, and a social level. In this study, we will examine the response styles to a disaster in the Haredi community, as a case study of religious communities coping with a civilian disaster. This study will assist in understanding the community’s narrative, and the place of the community in coping with a disaster. The study uses the qualitative-constructivist method and applies a categorical analysis of 1146 verbal responses to an internet survey that was conducted subsequent to the disaster. We propose a theoretical-categorical model that divides the responses into five pairs of categories: Emotional, Religious, Spiritual-Transcendental, Social, and Civil responses, each pair divided into past and future. Emotional responses: expressing grief and mourning (past), or paralysis, anxiety, and instability, (future); Religious responses: search for a religious reason (past), or a call for religious strengthening (future); Spiritual-Transcendent responses: dealing with questions of faith (past), or viewing the disaster as a transcendent message, and seeking spiritual comfort (future); Social-Spiritual responses: attributing the disaster to collective punishment due to ‘corruption’ (past), or recommendations for ‘correction’ of the social world (future); Civil responses: including searching for deficiencies, blaming entities (past), or suggestions for improvements and correction of deficiencies (future). We discussed a spectrum of response styles, while distinguishing between responses that are concerned with finding a reason or explanation for the disaster (past), and those who wish to draw a conclusion (future). Furthermore, social injustices are seen as religious offenses that led to the disaster. That is, it is a religious soul-searching that deals, less with traditional offenses and more with social injustices. We also discussed the volume of the different responses: In the emotional reactions and civil reactions, the Past Category is larger than the Future, whereas in the religious and spiritual responses, the Future categories are larger. This finding may symbolize a tendency to channel the pain in a positive way to a practical and active direction. Religious actions provide a sense of agency and self-efficacy. At last, we noticed that the disaster led to the strengthening of the community and sense of community, despite its size and diversity; as well, we suggested that the findings regarding religious-orthodox communities and their coping with disasters can be inferred.

Haredi Fundamentalism in the State of Israel

Since its establishment in 1948, the State of Israel, which defines itself as Jewish-nation state, has been providing Haredi Jewry, also known as ultra-Orthodoxy, with a vast autonomy in education, enabling the development of a Jewish “Society of Learning Men.”This goes back to the Status quo regulations, which blocks the separation of state and religion in the country. In this framework, Haredi Jewry, which was nearly extinct after the Shoah, has developed into a striving and confident fundamentalist religious Jewish movement. At the same time, it has become the demographically most dynamic Jewish current. The influence of Haredi Jewry in Israel is crucial, for its leadership and its members do consider their isolationist, counter-acculturative, anti-modern moulding as the only authentic and “pure” form of Judaism, and they actively combat liberal Jewish interpretations or denominations.In this paper, a discussion about the definition of Haredism as fundamentalism will be provided. Furthermore, it will be argued that through the basic requirement of the Status quo between State and Jewish (orthodox) religion, the Haredi society’s attempt to organize itself as a cultural and communal autonomy has been highly successful also against the background of the societal restrictions of this effort given the dependant relationship that has developed between the Haredi community and general Israeli society. As illustrations for this case study, the educational autonomy, the Haredi judicial power over Jewish and non-Jewish citizens and the struggle over the Shabbat regulations will be examined.

Birth of a Movement: Narratives of Israeli Haredi Feminist Political Emergence in Israel

This qualitative analysis examines the emergence of a revolutionary and novel feminist movement within Israel's ultra-conservative Haredi community. Based on interviews with leading Haredi feminist activists, four affective narratives of political becoming are identified: First, struggles for survival driven by economic need, socio-cultural pressures, and an existential threat to women's wellbeing. The second depicts disruption and becoming—broken cultural scripts and a need to reassign accountability and reimagine futures. Third, an awakening of voice despite cultural and political mechanisms of silencing and erasure at communal and national levels. Fourth, an emergence of political subjectivity and critical consciousness, coalescing various standpoints into collective identity and shared action. Read together, these narratives clarify the movement's birth and potential. Shaped by individual experiences of discrepancy and dissonance produced by the intersection of multiple broad forces—economic, political, cultural, and social, Haredi feminism endorses the reimagination of individual lives, communal structures, and Israeli society.

Sociocultural and Religious Perspectives Toward the COVID-19 Pandemic in the Haredi Jewish Community.

The Haredi Jewish community is centered around its religious life and commitment to Jewish law. Understanding aspects of the community’s faith, as well as Jewish history and culture, are essential in examining the social determinants of health that affected the community’s perspective in its response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The American Haredi community’s trajectory throughout the pandemic was marked by high caseloads early on and throughout the pandemic, and a deep yearning to return to religious life. Some community members’ non-adherence to public health guidelines led to public attention and scrutiny, which led many community members to feel unfairly targeted. This exacerbated feelings of dissonance toward the medical community, which to date has led to low communal vaccination rates. We examined religious texts, along with cultural factors and historical precedencies that contributed to the Haredi response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We offer guidance as to how understanding the religious and sociocultural makeup of the Haredi community could have resulted in a more effective and engaged pandemic response and provide a framework for creating a more beneficial alliance with the community in the future.

Haredi Anti-Zionist Ideology as the Driving Force Behind the Ultraorthodox Protests in Israel

Since its establishment as an independent state, Israel has witnessed waves of protests, sometimes violence, from the Haredi (ultraorthodox) community. Focusing on clashes between Haredi protesters and the police from 2000 onward, this study suggests a new theoretical explanation for Haredi protests and violent activities. By using a mixture of the following three major theories—primordial, constructivism, and contingency—the article provides a new model for analyzing Haredi patterns of confrontation with the Israeli authorities. It concludes, inter alia, that the Haredi community is a permanent passive protest movement that responds, usually immediately, to official initiatives to change the status quo involving the state, politics, society, and religion in Israel.

Israel’s new government and the implications for Israeli foreign policy

As a result of legislative elections held in November 2022, Israel is forming what will be its most right-wing government in history and former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu will return to power for a third time. The government will include ministers deferential to the wishes of Israel’s growing Haredi (strict Jewish Orthodox) community, which will inflame domestic tensions about the group’s influence on public policy. The government’s decisions will have significant effects on Palestinian issues, Israel’s approach to Iran’s rapidly advancing nuclear programme and its relationships with the United States and with other countries in the Middle East.

PhD-educated Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Women as an Interpretive Cultural Phenomenon

Abstract Ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) society in Israel is in a process of change involving growing integration into academia, the labor market, and the military. This study deals with the integration of Ultra-Orthodox women into academia. Specifically, it examines how Haredi female PhDs cope with two different value systems. The study utilizes the sociological definitions of dominant culture, subcultures of values, and countercultures. The methodology is qualitative: twenty semi-structured interviews with women with a PhD in Israel in 2021. The findings highlight the motivation to learn as a way of personal expression and development; the attitude of the Haredi community toward female PhDs as rebellious and critical of Ultra-Orthodox values; the women’s integration into academia and subsequent exposure to new values; and their creation of a hybrid subculture in order to function within their two different worlds.

A test of faith? Attitudes of ultraorthodox Jewish parents of children with down syndrome toward prenatal testing

The Haredi (ultraorthodox Jewish) community in Israel presents distinct views on disability and prenatal testing compared to the pro-testing attitudes of the Israeli general public. Based on qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews with Haredi parents of children with Down syndrome, this study explores the interplay between their personal experiences and community norms in the creation of views on disability and pregnancy management. The experiences of life with disability carry varied positive and negative aspects, for both secular and religious parents. However, while this variability sometimes led to re-consideration (for better or worse) of views on disability and prenatal testing among secular parents, we demonstrate that parenting a child with disability did not change the views of Haredi parents regarding the futility of prenatal testing and the value of disability. For them, the Haredi model of disability remained the dominant framework through which life is experienced.

A Haredi Myth of Female Leadership: Rebbetzin Batsheva Kanievsky

Rebbetzin Batsheva Kanievsky (1932–2011) served as a spiritual guide for many; her prominence and influence were a unique phenomenon in the Haredi (Jewish ultra-Orthodox) community in which she grew up, where women, lacking Talmudic knowledge or other sources of authority, are generally found only at the margins of the public sphere. Her multi-faceted activity was focused on offering blessings and advice. She also innovated a few segulot (magical techniques) and religious rituals. Her leadership is characterized, on the one hand, by the preservation and even strengthening of the existing Lithuanian Haredi ethos, particularly in the context of the wife’s complete self-abnegation for her husband’s Torah study. On the other hand, it fostered emotional and experiential elements that are closer to the ethos of the Hasidic and Sephardi communities and are associated with folk piety and a quasi-magical orientation. Rebbetzin Kanievsky thus created a type of female religious leadership that can be characterized as anti-leadership, in which she embodied the Haredi conception of ideal womanhood. Consequently, she was not perceived as a threat to Haredi values but rather as their promoter. However, this model of leadership enabled her to break, almost despite herself, the limitations of the gender hierarchy of the Haredi community and serve as an almost singular female role model in that community’s pantheon.

Conceiving Agency: Reproductive Authority among Haredi Women by Michal S. Raucher

Reviewed by: Conceiving Agency: Reproductive Authority among Haredi Women by Michal S. Raucher Rolin G. Mainuddin Raucher, Michal S. Conceiving Agency: Reproductive Authority among Haredi Women. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2020. Michal Raucher is a religiously observant (dati) Jew. Given the Haredi norm of modesty, however, as a non-Haredi female the author was not able to interview any Haredi males—husbands or rabbis. In view of her feminist perspective, it is noteworthy that she had a liberal upbringing. The author challenged what David Ellenson called "halakhic formalism" (18), the prevailing practice of textual analysis of the scripture for discovering Jewish ethical principles. [End Page 247] The main argument of the book is that the "embodied experience" (110) of pregnancy, which connects women to God in being conferred by God, facilitates Haredi women making reproductive decisions "without" (3) rabbinic authorities, husbands, and medical professionals. Thus, the Haredi women—who are not countercultural and do not refer to themselves as autonomous or as having agency—challenged the Haredi patriarchal hierarchical structure. Consequently, the author holds that the normative gap between textual morality and lived experience must be bridged for Jewish ethics. Along with an introduction and conclusion, the work is organized into five chapters: medicine, books, pregnancy, theology, and abortion. In applying an ethnographic methodology with snowball sampling, Raucher interviewed twenty-three Haredi women between 2009 and 2011. Also, she interviewed about twenty-five medical professionals, including thirteen doctors and nurses along with eleven doulas. Furthermore, she was a participant-observer with EFRAT, the largest anti-abortion organization in Israel. (EFRAT activism through financial help is examined in chapter 5.) Rabbis play a gatekeeper role for the Haredi laity. This includes ritual contamination prevention of the kinship line when undergoing fertility treatments. Given the financial risk of losing their religious clientele, including a hospitalization grant for each hospital birth from the National Insurance Institute of Israel, doctors accept involvement of rabbis, nurses, and midwives in birth-control measures, menstruation, and prenatal testing (e.g., fetal ultrasound). Given the gendered spheres of Haredi life, men stay busy with religious books and learning while women take care of the home and children. Thus, both books and babies provide status in the Haredi community. Raucher cautions that in spite of displaying pregnancy books at home the Haredi women disavow using such books for their reproductive knowledge. Nevertheless, the author notes two themes through an examination of two books. B'Shaah Tovah: Madrich Refui Hilchati Lherayon v'Leida (In a good time: A medical and halachic guide for pregnancy and labor), coauthored by a nurse–midwife and her rabbi husband, integrates medical and religious knowledge during pregnancy. In addition to ascribing an integral role of God for fetal development, the religious teaching includes three commandments for women during labor: niddah, challah, and Sabbath lights. In contrast, many of the contributors in Hachana Ruchanit L'Leida (Spiritual preparation for labor) are emphatic about women having a say in their medical care during pregnancy. [End Page 248] Rituals in dress, eating, language, sexuality, and behavior distinguish the Haredi women from the out-group in cultivating a spiritual relationship with God. The tradition of gender-segregated upbringing and arranged marriage engenders silence about pregnancy even among family and friends. Also, there is a lack of communication regarding pregnancy among young couples. Furthermore, a Haredi wife will not approach her rabbi without the intermediary of her husband. All these societal practices leave Haredi women room to make reproductive decisions for themselves. Raucher finds that it is during the third pregnancy that Haredi women assert their autonomy in challenging advice from doctors and rabbis. Moving from distinguishing rituals to the unique (female only) embodied experience of pregnancy endows the Haredi women with divine authority, argues the author. This is because the act of creation takes place through the woman's body—a kli, a vessel for God in generating a new life. Metaphorically, labor is messianic redemption. In a rejoinder to rabbinic reproductive theology stressing fetus as God's creation, Raucher is emphatic that her Haredi women interviewees held their kli role as both "fundamental and significant" (122). Established as a "homeland" for diasporic Jews, an irony of Israel is...

The Effects of Sociocultural Transitioning on Accessibility to Healthcare: The Case of Haredi Jews Who Leave Their Communities.

Minority groups and immigrants encounter complex issues when attempting to access healthcare. This study examines factors affecting access to healthcare by a group of individuals in Israel who decided to leave their Haredi Jewish communities. We conducted 23 semi-structured interviews with individuals disaffiliating from Haredi communities in Israel in order to identify hurdles encountered during the process of seeking healthcare. We focused on specific steps in this process, including recognizing the need for help, deciding to actually turn to the health system, interaction with the system, and behavior after referring to the health system. We identified approximately 20 factors which can be either barriers or catalysts affecting healthcare access at the various stages. These were then traced to religious upbringing, hurdles of sociocultural transition, and unique characteristics of individuals reshaping their lives. The findings can be instrumental in designing culturally adapted health programs for individuals leaving the Haredi community. Moreover, the methodology that we are proposing can serve other investigations studying access to healthcare among various groups undergoing sociocultural transitions.

Haredi labor market integration policy in a neoliberal environment

ABSTRACT Over the past several decades, welfare states across the developed Western world, including Israel, have adopted differential employment policies for disadvantaged marginal populations that perform poorly in the labor market and are underrepresented in it. The intensive and rapid shift from Keynesian welfare policy to a more economical and efficient neoliberal approach sparked great turbulence in Israel's labor market, leaving broad swaths of the country's marginal populations outside of the capitalistic post-scarcity economy. In this article, we examine third-sector initiatives and governmental employment policies aimed at integrating and advancing Haredim (ultra-Orthodox Jews) in the Israeli labor market. We also explore the tension between welfare, with its associated benefits and governmental assistance mechanisms, and the neoliberal approach, with its reliance on economic efficiency tests. The article looks at how the Haredi sector's labor market integration process has evolved. We aim to understand parallel developments between the processes outlined by the state and the Haredi community's socioeconomic needs under a neoliberal regime that prizes competition, achievement, and materialism – a regime in which social institutions are being reshaped, adjusted, and disciplined in accordance with market-oriented principles. We will examine the forces working behind the scenes to integrate Haredim in the economy and in society as a whole – the top-down policy forces striving to increase Israeli economic output, and the bottom-up internal-civic forces that want to create normative and economically feasible alternatives to the Haredi “society of learners” that developed under welfare-state auspices. The article seeks to answer three main questions in light of the aforementioned processes: How did the shift from a Keynesian welfare state to state workfare contribute to Haredi integration in the Israeli employment market? Who were the key political-social-economic actors and forces that shaped the process of Haredi labor market integration? And finally: how has neoliberal employment policy affected the Haredi community on the gender, spatial (center-periphery), class, and community planes, i.e., has this policy approach helped strengthen the Haredi middle class, and if so, how?

אדמו"רים ברחובות תל אביב, 1965-1940

From the late thirties to the mid-sixties of the twentieth century, Tel Aviv was the seat of dozens of Hasidic courts creating Hasidic precincts in the southern and central parts of the city. The article explores the reason for the Hasidic leaders’ choice to settle in the city with their followers and offers a glimpse of their courts. Hasidic communities distributed throughout the city filled the streets of Tel Aviv with a Hasidic atmosphere. Daily life brought different segments of the population into frequent contact, and generated a unique inter-sectoral mosaic, primarily around special calendar occasions. In the early sixties, the Haredi community in Bnei Brak began to expand and establish educational institutions for the Litvishe and Hasidic communities. As a result, Haredi and Hasidic families slowly moved away from Tel Aviv to Bnei Brak. This trend led, inter alia, to the transfer of several Hasidic courts to Bnei Brak and Jerusalem during the sixties and seventies. The article concludes with a discussion of the diverse reasons for the departure of the Hasidic courts from Tel Aviv and addresses the impact of various processes on Haredi society in the course of the second half of the twentieth century.