What bothers me about seminaries

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Forum -> Chinuch, Education & Schooling -> Seminary Info

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amother

↑ Whitewash

Sat, Sep 28 2024, 6:03 pm

amother Cream wrote:

Shabbos was definitely my hardest day in sem! When your away from your family and trying to make friends and on top of that you don't enjoy to shnorer its extremely hard.
Most weeks I stayed in sem but there was no proper meal there, the girls woke up at 3 and just ate cake. Was definitely not good memories.

Wow, just cake the entire shabbos?

amother

Brass

Sat, Sep 28 2024, 6:05 pm

This is not all seminaries. My seminary had in house meals every week with the eim bayit or another teacher who would come with fam. They encouraged girls to stay. Everyone should learn from Meohr ❤️

amother

↑ Cream

Sat, Sep 28 2024, 6:11 pm

amother Whitewash wrote:

Wow, just cake the entire shabbos?

Shabbos morning. They had some dried out chicken overnight in a warming drawer that no one dared touch. It was petty depressing.

gottago

Sat, Sep 28 2024, 6:11 pm

AFAIK These days almost all seminaries, certainly the more yeshivish ones, have an option to stay in for Shabbos every week.
BH This changed for exactly the reasons mentioned here.

justforfun87

Sat, Sep 28 2024, 6:12 pm

I remember this time fondly 20 years ago. Now as a busy mom who doesn't YET live in Israel I can totally agree this is really not right of the seminaries. That being said if a girl asks to come and she is a stranger I could see why she would want to bring 1 friend. I don't think I would have ever gone myself.

notshanarishona ↓

Sat, Sep 28 2024, 6:14 pm

My personal opinion: seminaries should share the wealth and pay families for hosting girls, that is the only way they can prove they are doing it lishma for the Israeli experience and not just to save $.
Second preference, Shabbos should be offered in the dorm every single week and the girls can go out if they want.
Shabbos to me was the worst part of seminary, having to spend all week worrying about where to go, calling strangers with vague connections and begging to be hosted, each week meeting new people, many awkward meals.
And I am talking as someone who just a year later was living independently and making Shabbos every week with a few roommates, but in seminary that’s not really an option

keym ↓

Sat, Sep 28 2024, 6:23 pm

gottago wrote:

AFAIK These days almost all seminaries, certainly the more yeshivish ones, have an option to stay in for Shabbos every week.
BH This changed for exactly the reasons mentioned here.

I don't know. That's not what I see.

My daughter is in a local Lakewood seminary but has many many friends in EY and she talks to them.

Some seminaries have options to stay in any week and some only if there's a certain amount of girls. It's also stressful to put together a group of 20 girls who will stay

And Yomim Tovim are really complicated. Many people don't have space for sleeping guests for a 3 day RH and if they have older boys or married couples who come for Sukkos.....

I know that Shabbos and Yom Tov seudos are the biggest stress that my daughters friends are dealing with, particularly at the beginning when they're still meeting friends and figuring out their way around.

amother

Gold ↓

Sat, Sep 28 2024, 6:35 pm

I've lived in Israel for many years by now, and from the first week practically, I've felt the pressure of asking to be hosted by seminary girls.
My husband is very introverted and does not like chatting with girls at the table. We are on a tight budget. We have very, very little space. It's a big strain. How do I EXPLAIN this to naive clueless young girls who are just desperate for somewhere to eat?

How is this acceptable?
Why do I need to feel guilty for putting my husband and our family's basic needs first? It's worse when the girl says her grandmother knows my mother , and another girl says she's my father's cousin? And then my clueless mother ( with an 8 bedroom house ) wonders why I said no.

I especially resent the fact that ultimately these desperate girls are usually way more well off than we are, (or at least can somehow afford seminary fees ) and I feel judged and embarrassed at my humble ability to host.

To the poster who said she learned what kind of shabbos table she wanted and didn't want from being hosted - well, do you think it feels good to have young girls decide they do or DON'T want a home like yours ? Do you also want to be a spectacle, open for judgement and discussion ?

And I agree, at the very least , the seminary should pay for the cost of the food. But the whole system is unacceptable.

amother

Charcoal ↓

Sat, Sep 28 2024, 6:47 pm

I loved the seminary experience overall. However, looking back finding a place for most Shabbosim and holidays was a big stress for me and probably an even bigger stress for my parents. Some Fridays I would call them crying that I still hadn’t found a place to go. Then my mother had to go call every random person she might know who knew someone who lived in Israel. It was extremely awkward. When I went there, I got the vibe that I and my friend if I managed to bring one was not really wanted there. I felt like I had to help the family out with babysitting cleaning , saying a dvar Torah that we learned at the very least to give something back to them. If the placement person at the school placed me, it was usually at a very poor family. Sometimes, we slept on the floor in their main living space. I felt like they didn’t even have enough food for themselves, how can we eat their foods? It was definitely a learning experience! But so so awkward and embarrassing. I feel like most people had where to go because they had either a family member or a friend who they went to all the time if they had nowhere else. I had zero family and was an introvert, not someone who meets someone and becomes instant friends. This part of seminary was very difficult for me and I dreaded it every week.

amother

DarkOrange ↓

Sat, Sep 28 2024, 7:15 pm

My MO seminary had RH and YK as in chagim and luckily I figured out places to go for succot and the school helper everyone else also. Imamother really loves to hate seminary but it was such a wonderful time.

amother

↑ Gold ↓

Sat, Sep 28 2024, 7:21 pm

amother Charcoal wrote:

It's terrible.
And imagine how that poor family felt , hosting you on their floor. Awkward isn't even the word, but what can they say to a desperate mother on the phone?
I was just asked by a girl I know , a family friend, to come for Rosh Hashana. My husband doesn't really talk on Rosh Hashana , we have short meals and mostly say Tehillim. It's not fair to him to turn it into a party, but I'm so embarrassed to have to refuse, I feel like I'm betraying her, because she doesn't know many people. I'm so sad that I'm stuck in this position, especially because my instinct is to discourage my relationship with this girl so she should stop asking . Which is a shame , because I don't mind her coming over to hang out, so why deny her a friend as well? But what else can I do?
The seminaries should not allow the girls to eat out, let alone demand it!

amother

↑ Gold

Sat, Sep 28 2024, 7:27 pm

[quote="amother DarkOrange"]My MO seminary had RH and YK as in chagim and luckily I figured out places to go for succot and the school helper everyone else also. Imamother really loves to hate seminary but it was such a wonderful time.[/quote

You know what I resent? Calling people's homes "places" to go.
Actually , it's people you are going to. People who are putting themselves out. But the perception is that its the school helper who "helped" you , and those hosts are anonymous, and the main thing is that you had a good time.
I've experienced this expression many times. I even once had a girl ask me last minute to host an additional friend, and then when the additional friend left she profusely thanked her friend for saving her day. And I was watching and wondering why actually I wasn't the one who saved the day.
But I doubt she noticed who actually hosted her.

bruriyah

Sat, Sep 28 2024, 7:28 pm

It’s obvious that this evolved as a profit-tactic for seminaries. The cover is to let the young women “see pashtus and Torah” up close and “gain independence” by having to schnorer meals. It is ridiculous. What kind of Torah and life skill does it teach you to knock on people’s door (or call, same thing) and ask for shabboss and YT meals?? All while the seminaries charge American tuitions. A seminary that doesn’t provide in-house shabboss and YT meals doesn’t deserve your daughter.

↑ Ruchi ↓

Sat, Sep 28 2024, 7:29 pm

The seminaries charge fat fees and then want to impose on poor families to host girls, without providing them any basic remuneration?
These values are very bad for a girls chinuch, IMHO .

amother

↑ Charcoal ↓

Sat, Sep 28 2024, 7:41 pm

There was also the expectation that we needed to bring a gift to the family that was hosting us. This is actually good chinuch and a nice thing to do. However, it was another big pressure for a seminary girl like myself who was on a tight budget using my own money to rush out Erev Shabbos to buy a candy platter or a small gift for the families.
I’m a big advocate for going to seminary , but this is a problem that the seminaries could fix by providing in Shabbosim every week for those that prefer to stay in or don’t have a place to go regularly. It’s not suitable for an 18 year to fend for themselves in this way. It’s also not right to impose guests on families and pressure them to take in girls that they don’t really want to host. As an adult who has been through all kinds of experiences, I would still have trouble doing this today many years later.

abound ↓

Sat, Sep 28 2024, 7:42 pm

I host sem girls...usually freinds daughters or relatives. I am happy to. Im not sure I would appreciate having strangers though...
Most sems do have in house meals, and they actually have a rotation of girls who have to stay so that the girls who dont have a place have nice meals.

↑ abound ↓

Sat, Sep 28 2024, 7:47 pm

amother Gold wrote:

Just say....my husband does not appreciate girl guests. If he does not want you to say that maybe he wont mind ......"my husbands rebbi holds no sem girls..".

amother

DarkRed

Sat, Sep 28 2024, 7:59 pm

In my Israel seminary, we had a shabbos rotation where some girls were required to stay in, but anyone else who wanted to could join as well. We knew from the beginning of the year which shabbasos would be our turn to stay in, maybe two or three the whole year.

They also offered the option of being placed with families personally known and recommended by the eim bayit. She had connections to a wide range of cities and families, and everyone who was placed always had a great experience.

They also organized a beautiful second seder and arranged for us to be hosted by different teachers for the second-day meals of Sukkot and Pesach when it was still Yom Tov for us but not for them. This was the perfect balance — we didn’t have to worry about finding second-day meals, yet we avoided seminary-catered food. Each teacher prepared a delicious meal for her group of girls, and I’m sure the seminary helped cover the cost.

Throughout, they always encouraged us to stay in and not stress about finding places to go. The dorm truly felt like home.

amother

Petunia

Sat, Sep 28 2024, 8:06 pm

I didn't go nor did most of my sister's. I have one sister there now and she's the first one to go in our family. We dont have many relatives there. First week we had an in Shabbos so she stayed in. Last week. She could not find anywhere to go And ended up staying in with another six girls. This week my brother found her somewhere to go and she went with a friend. She is Very nervous for YT.
RH she is staying in and YK. Succos she needs to find a place to go. She is also extremely homesick and this doesn't help one bit.

amother

↑ Slateblue

Sat, Sep 28 2024, 8:08 pm

Ruchi wrote:

For the price the seminaries charge, shabbos and chagim ought to be included.

Where my daughter is, it is. And we have plenty of family in Israel. She still chose a place that gives meals 7 days a week. I think the more chareidi seminaries give all meals and Yomim Tovim.

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