God hates women who get higher education.

Ultra-Orthodox Jewish rabbis have banned women from going to university, The Independent has learned.

The strict Satmar sect issued the decree, seen by The Independent, warning that university education for women is “dangerous”. Written in Yiddish, the decree warns: “It has lately become the new trend that girls and married women are pursuing degrees in special education. Some attend classes and others online. And so we’d like to let their parents know that it is against the Torah.

“We will be very strict about this. No girls attending our school are allowed to study and get a degree. It is dangerous. Girls who will not abide will be forced to leave our school. Also, we will not give any jobs or teaching position in the school to girls who’ve been to college or have a degree.”

Dangerous for girls but not for boys? Why? Presumably because it would threaten the goddy arrangement by which men are the bosses and women are their inferiors who are required to obey and shut up about it – but the Indy doesn’t quote that part so maybe it’s not there. But that certainly is the implication. You can’t have a rule of that kind independent of the hierarchical implications. You could imagine an alternative world in which only inferiors have to get higher education, and superiors are free to skip it – but that’s not this world. In this world, forbidding Xs to get an education both says that Xs are inferior and does its best to make Xs inferior. It’s a relic, that way of thinking, an evil destructive relic.

Also, notice that they employ teachers who have no higher education – that they rule out teachers who do have higher education if those teachers are women. They insist on ignorant teachers to teach the girls (because obviously the only reason they have female teachers at all is to teach those worthless creatures, the girls). Girls can’t go to university, and they can’t even have university-taught teachers. Wham bam.

The decree was issued from the sect’s base in New York and will apply to followers of the faith group around the world.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews follow a pre-enlightenment interpretation of traditional Judaism and discourage interaction with the modern or secular world.

…

“There are probably other factors at play, but, ultimately, the results are devastating. Because people from similar communities are not provided with a foundational primary education, they cannot pursue higher education nor careers. When one does not have access to education, career opportunities are out of reach. It forces one to stay within the community as everyone’s personal lives are tied up with their professional lives as well.”

Like the Amish. Amish parents (fathers, that is) are allowed to pull their children out of school at 14 (cf Yoder v Wisconsin, one of the worst Supreme Court rulings in recent history), and the Amish are notoriously forced to stay within “the community.”

Dr Jonathan Romain, Rabbi of Maidenhead Synagogue and chair of the Accord Coalition which links religious and secular groups to promote inclusive education, told The Independent: “There is much to admired about the ultra-Orthodox, including the Satmar group, who are a very law-abiding community. However, their choice to separate themselves from much of the world around them is not a view shared by many other Jews, who see no problem with being both rooted in Jewish identity and integrated into wider society.

“Going to university is an experience to be valued, for both men and women, whom we regard as fully equal and who should have the same opportunities in education and the workplace. Limiting such abilities is a cause for regret.”

Or to put it another way, it’s a disgusting violation of human rights.