Monday, February 8, 2010

Chareidi musical conservatory in Har Nof


JPost

A visit to the Ron Shulamit Music Conservatory in the haredi Har Nof neighborhood of Jerusalem may not melt away the animosity an anti-haredi feels toward the community, but it will certainly force him to use more than one flashlight when illuminating its largely veiled world. Besides training haredi girls to play and teach classical music and opening the doors for potential careers in the arts or music education, the 15-year-old institution is slowly changing perceptions – that of the girls and their families toward the outside secular world of culture, and also of society’s accepted but tainted view of the haredi world as a backward society where culture is disdained and scorned.[...]

3 comments :

  1. ha ha, I want to see how hareidi fathers let their daughters play in front of a mixed audience.

    It is wonderful that a conservatory should be opened. Up until now, I was very disappointed that the hareidi world should always settle for the most superficial solutions (minimum work, maximum effect) when it comes to music.

    However, let's be realistic: being hareidi and female is equivalent to NOT embracing a musical career.

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  2. The charedim have much bigger problems than a music conservatory.

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  3. I'll take it as a general positive, but there's a long way to go before this is really effective in changing charedi-chiloni relationships. I assume that the vast majority of these girls will not be able to turn their skills into significant parnassah (there are only so many openings for charedi music teachers, and it seems unlikely that they will be able to have any legitimate performance/recording careers). I can hope, however, that by gaining exposure to the good and beautiful in the outside world, these girls will be less likely to buy into the extreme ghetto-ization that denies any value to secular culture.

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