WHO’S AFRAID OF A LITTLE AMBITION? By Yael Simon
R
ecently, I was raising money online for a match funding campaign. Many of my friends responded, but memorably, two women told me afterwards that the donation was from ‘their money’. Curiously, it occurred to me that there was no need for them to make this assertion and yet, I felt it was a deliberate and modest claim hinting at some independent financial choices they had made. It reminded me of a friend working in Fintech, Roxana Mohammadian-Molina, who often quotes her Persian grandmother as having taught her that ‘a woman must have money and a room of her own’. Breaking the taboo around women’s financial ambition is not unique to the orthodox community. In an era where gender equality is frequently debated, there is one area that is decidedly less developed, particularly in the orthodox world: women’s financial health and wellbeing. In the larger picture, money management, financial ambitions and investing remain a silent subject. Roxana notes that according to a report by Merrill Lynch Bank of America, 61% of women would rather talk about their own death than about money. For many people, women especially, money is filled with emotional meaning as a pathway to protect our family and our children, to provide them with a future. Having money symbolises opportunity, security, status, acceptance and power and its absence can mean the opposite. There is a lot to be celebrated when orthodox women have a sense of self-sufficiency. Rickie Burman reflects on this changing landscape and the effects migration has had on the woman’s role and her involvement in economic activities over the historical period of 1875-1930, when Jews fled Eastern Europe for England to escape the effects of the Tsarist oppression. The historical predominance of women as breadwinners was an accepted social construct underpinning the life of the shtetl at the turn of the century, where men went to learn, while the women were economically active as midwives, seamstresses, shopkeepers, and saleswomen. By contrast, Burman notes that most orthodox women who settled in Manchester during this period did not work after marriage, as this became the accepted norm. Despite this, there is evidence that a minority of orthodox women developed careers in the market trade, which held important advantages for women including flexibility, self-assurance, and self-sufficiency. In both contexts, Burman concludes that the identity of a community and the woman’s role within it is shaped in part by the response to the society in which it is located.
Enter the story of Haredi women in the Israeli workforce. Often considered the breadwinners in their households, Haredi women have typically funded and supported their husbands in their pursuit of lifelong learning, particularly following the Holocaust, to sustain cultural longevity. As a result of this responsibility shift, by the 1990s, two-thirds of Haredi women were employed. In July 2010, the Israeli government set employment targets for the subsequent decade for the population in general and Haredim in particular. The cumulative rise in Haredi employment has been credited largely to Haredi women. Between 2010 and 2019, the employment rate of Haredi women grew to 78%, a 21% increase. All over Israel, orthodox women are now reaping the benefits of shared workspaces and training centres dedicated exclusively to them. Temech, for example, is a workplace hub exclusively for women, and aims to provide the financial, socioeconomic, and professional tools needed to enable them to raise their employability and professional levels. In the US, there are several non-profit organisations, including The Jewish Women’s Entrepreneur (JWE), helping women launch and grow successful businesses by providing local collaborative support networks, business education and mentorship. They promote business longevity, self-fulfilment, financial independence for women and their families, and job creation to encourage economic development in the Jewish community. The winds of change are upon us. When I first moved to London from Bristol 20 years ago, I went to work to help support my large family. (continued page 7)
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