Comment by throw9393u300
3 days ago
> Ashkenazi and general Jewish culture values education more than anyone
I would recommend you to visit Israel and traditional orthodox jews. Women are serving as "birthing machines", constantly pregnant, and doing all house chores. Education for women is strongly discouraged. Men are "studying", but useless memorizing of old texts.
Normal education in western sense is strongly discouraged in traditional jewish culture!
Two things can be true at the same, although I agree with your assessment of future prospects - and the recent OECD report on school performance could be read that way too (or blamed on the war as the government has).
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-plummets-to-worst-ever-...
Israel is not just one homogeneous people, there are some orthodox jews who study biblical texts, treat women as birthing machines, and (personal opinion) contribute little to our society.
Yes, orthodox jews are a significant part of the population (~1.4 million in 2025 [1]), and I wouldn't go there looking for modern ideas like women's rights, but go a couple km in any direction and you'd find completely different people, living modern lives just like in the rest of the western world. Schools, research universities (Tel Aviv University, Waitzmann Institue of Science, Technion), tech companies, startups, makerspaces, and many more.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haredi_Judaism
That is only one part of Israeli society.