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When I was in high school, I applied to be a counselor at Bais Yaakov Camp. I was completely honest on the interview and told them that I am not a Bais Yaakov girl, but I would really love to work in the camp. I mentioned that I wore pants (at the time) and the interviewer said that they didn’t want the campers to get “mixed messages”, and what if they were to see me in the grocery store wearing pants outside of camp hours? At that point I volunteered that I would stop wearing pants for the entire summer. I was not hired and I found something else to do that summer with no hard feelings.
It recently occurred to me: it took me several years after that to stop wearing pants on my own. But what if I had been offered that job at Bais Yaakov Camp? After wearing skirts only for an entire summer, and being in that type of frum environment, might I have continued to wear skirts in the fall and to take on other mitzvot? Might that have been a learning opportunity for me?
Assuming I would have been a competent counselor (I worked at other camps with no problem), would you have not hired me because you wanted the camp staffed entirely by Bais Yaakov girls, or because you were worried I would run into a camper in the fall while wearing pants? Would you davka have hired me as an act of kiruv?
Just curious to see what the olam thinks. Obviously, things happened as they did for a reason, but I was just wondering what if…
Interesting. Likely.
Really, the camp didn’t articulate their reason very well. The real reason is they want the counselors to be role models generally for the hashkafa they want to teach, and presumably you didn’t have those hashkafos. I don’t know why they said a stupid reason like seeing you in pants on an off day.
I think the objection the camp mentioned is a potentially valid one.
They should have been direct: Orthodox women who wear pants are Modern, Bais Yaacov is very much opposed to Modern Orthodoxy, and therefore, there is no fit. They want teachers to model and embody the type of values they want to instill in their children. It’s for that reason that you generally wouldn’t see someone with semikha from YCT, let’s say, being offered a rebbe job in a school like Torah Vodaas or Tiferes Elimelech. We live in a world where ideological lines are often fiercely upheld, and frankly, to put myself in their shoes, if I were the type of parent who was sending my daughter to a BY camp, I wouldn’t want someone who doesn’t share those values (no TV, no university, no movies, no computers, no pants, etc.) to have a hashpa’ah on my kid.
That’s how these people think. Of course, logically, it would make no sense to us, but this is just the nature of things.
Wow. Daniel. “us” vs “them”. Good one.
Just wondering. At what point does the word “moron” stick?
jewishfeminist: Many people would see being hired in order to be mekareved as condescending, and had you been hired, it is possible you would have ended up feeling pressured by the many subtle rules required in frum camps. Plus, you don’t hire someone in order to help them change, just like you don’t marry someone in order to change them.
However, you should know that I think it is admirable that you wanted to change in this way, and I am sure the directors were impressed. 🙂 But I would have been wary of hiring you nonetheless.
jewishfeminist: I am sure that your qualifications were excellent. The issue is not coming from a BY environment.
I am sorry that this bothers you until today. Perhaps you should contact the directors and tell them how you still feel hurt by their rejection. I am sure they would ask you for mechila.
I don’t have a specific answer to the OP’s question. But I like the idea of hiring as kiruv in general. What if there were big frum organizations that would either give a job to, or find a job for, any Jew that needed help? (Or as Rambam discussed as the highest level of charity, helping the person set up their own successful business.) Now that could be effective kiruv — if Orthodox Jews were perceived as helping the non-Orthodox economically (instead of the opposite perception among chilonim in Israel). I think Chabad runs some job-training programs in Israel…
i think that in general, its a good idea. However, I feel that chinuch is the major exception to the rule because you don’t want the children questioning their own hashkafa as a result of their mechanchos doing “hypocritical things” so to speak. I mean, tznius is a really big deal, and there seems to be this major idealistic picture in the yeshivish velt of the “good girl”.
I will admit that as a bais yaakov girl myself, the “good girl” concept is pretty much the same thing as in the secular world glorifying celebrities. I don’t have a problem with aspiring to perfect one’s middos because that is part of our avodas Hashem, however, when I was at seminary, I heard girls who go to, just to name a few schools, mesores rachel, meohr, pninim, machon raaya and other places say that they weren’t “good enough girls” to go to bjj, tiferes, and hadar. That is when it gets extreme. And there girls are really good girls, however, I would not want them to be morahs at a modern orthodox zionist camp like moshava, because modern orthodoxy (and this is very much a three weeks type of post) will say that they despise chareidim, and modern orthodox jews don’t raise their daughters to wear lots of dark colors, duty length skirts, or necessarily cover their elbows and knees.
Let me know if you chap what I am saying.
would you work in a catholic school? same concept.
but how could you preach something you dont practice? Also, the term here would be Catholicism.
JF: No, I don’t think that is what vogue meant. I think she was using it as a crude example to show an idea.
indeed, I was.
I knew better than to bring up controversial topics like TV.
But if a camper had brought up the topic, would you have been able to provide an honest answer in line with the camp’s Hashkafah?
I think the issue is that even though you promise to behave only as is the standard of that camp, yet that is all until you decide to behave so.
Meaning that if you for whatever reason that you are fed up with the more orthodox lifestyle and dress code, you can decide no longer to lead this temporary life style.
Not that I think you will do so, only that the camp has the right to think so.
More so, I would be upset if the camp I send my children hire staff that are below the camps standard, and rely on the staff to change for the summer.
you have to keep in mind that a camp is not just someones personal business venture, parents put a lot of trust in the camp,which includes in hiring staff that are up to the standard in yiddishkeit.
There are frum people who work in Catholic schools. I know a frum woman who did P3 tutoring in the morning in Catholic schools and in the afternoon in Jewish schools. Guess which kids were better behaved?
I suspect there are frum teachers who actually work for Catholic schools. Obviously, they don’t teach religion, but math is math.
I know of a girl from a MO background who was hired by a BY day camp. She dressed and acted appropriately. Some of her campers eavesdropped on a conversation she was having with another staff member in which she mentioned movies. From that time on, her campers (little BY girls, maybe 1st or 2nd graders) tormented her, calling her all kinds of nasty names, making her cry.
I think the idea of hiring for the sake of kiruv is a very poor idea. When looking to fill a position, generally the best way to go about it is by looking for the person most suitable for the position. Doing otherwise will just lead to problems. I’m not saying you weren’t qualified to be a counselor at that point. It’s probable though that they found someone more suitable for this particular position. I doubt they kept the position empty. As much as you know Bais Yaakov and its standards, it’s possible that one day you would slip up and accidently forget to wear a skirt that’s long enough for their standards. That’s less likely to happen if they hire one of their own graduates. If you were the director of a Bais Yaakov daycamp and had the choice of hiring someone like you were then or a Bais Yaakov graduate, which would you choose?
It doesn’t bother me. I had completely forgotten about it until recently. I was just curious to see what others would think, and want to make sure you have the background facts before you weigh in.
You clearly were hurt by this, as evidenced by your repeated justifications for why you should have been accepted.
I recognize and validate your hurt feelings. You really wanted to grow, and this option was closed to you, and your neshama is pained by it to this day.
However, our justifying your hurt feelings is not going to give you the closure you need. Our criticizing the camp will do even less to give you that closure, and is simply sinas chinam.
The right thing for you to do is go to the people who hurt you, tell them what they did, and they will certainly ask you for mechila.
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