‘It is Our Custom from Der alter Heim’: The Role of Orthodox Jewish Women’s Internet Forums in Reinventing and Transmitting Historical and Religious Tradition

Introduction

There is a story of a Hassidic sect whose members would bend their knees at a point during the Simchat Torh hakafot.¹ When asked about the custom, younger members explained that it was of Kabbalistic origin and done for generations in “Der alter Heim,” (“the old home,” e.g. Europe). Hearing this, an elderly Hassid shook his head. “The young, they talk such foolishness. Our last Rebbe in Poland was very tall and our shteibl had a low beam on one side,” he recalled. “When the Rebbe reached the beam during the hakufes (hakafot) he would bend his knees to pass underneath.” After the war, one of the hassidim who found refuge in America remembered the Rebbe’s action, but didn’t recall the reason, so today an entire sect bends their knees at that phrase, even though there is no longer a tall Rebbe, no longer a low beam, and no longer a wooden shteibl.

In their study of invented traditions, Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger argue that traditions which claim to be ancient can actually be recent in origin, invented as the result of a single event or over a short time. Using invented continuities, which fictitiously link them to a suitable historical past, these traditions and customs are “responses to novel situations which take the form of reference to old situations, or which establish their own past by quasi-obligatory repetition.”² According to Hobsbawm, invented traditions occur more frequently at times of rapid social transformation when older traditions are disappearing. This is both a result of societal change and a response to the growing need for social cohesion and collective identity in a society in flux.

This article focuses on an unconventional medium of transmitting revived customs and invented traditions in a society in flux. The society in question is Orthodox and particularly ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) Jewry since the end of the Second World War, and the medium under discussion is Orthodox Jewish women’s Internet forums, colloquially known as “virtual communities.” In this article I posit that although none of the forums were created for this purpose, over time some have become vehicles for transmitting revived customs and invented traditions to a younger generation of Orthodox and Haredi women. What role do such forums play in imparting and transmitting revived customs and invented traditions which are now an integral part of Orthodox society? What can the dynamics of these discussions teach us about the historical development and unfolding culture of the world of Orthodox women? What can we learn from the discussions about gendered family tasks, women’s education and comportment, religious ritual, and accepted boundaries of female behavior in the Orthodox and Haredi sectors? These are some of the broader issues that I will address through an examination and analysis of Internet forum discussions about customs of “Der alter Heim.”

Here I claim that by embracing the task of transmitting information about customs to Orthodox women and encouraging discussions about traditions and their origins, these forums have also become a central source of information among an expanding group of Orthodox women. By functioning as a virtual quasi-religious authority regarding the correct way these customs should be practiced, these forums also act as a constructor of collective identity and an expanding source of stability within a society in flux.

In view of the growing interest in the internal dynamics of the Orthodox and particularly the ultra-Orthodox world, ³ I claim that we can use these forums to better understand the changing nature of this “society in flux.” In particular, I believe that they can assist us in perceiving and interpreting some of the changes that have taken place in Orthodox and Haredi “women’s society”⁴ over the past decades and charting some of the internal responses to the challenges which this society has faced.

Who are the Women?

The subjects of our study are Modern Orthodox (MO)⁵ and ultra-Orthodox women, known as Haredim.⁶ MO and Haredim...