Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Date of Degree

9-2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Program

Sociology

Advisor

Thomas DeGloma

Committee Members

Philip Kasinitz

Barbara Katz Rothman

John Torpey

Subject Categories

Sociology

Keywords

Haredi, family, gender, religion

Abstract

Numerous researchers have tried to identify people’s motives in exit and their process of exiting both strict religious communities and specific roles, viewing exit as an agent-driven, intentional act with a purposeful goal. In my book, I examine exiters of American Haredi (ultra-Orthodox Jewish) communities and overturn this model of exit. Looking comparatively at Haredi divorcees with a range of exit experiences I argue that the act of exit is actually the culmination of a process in which the exiter is mostly passive. To arrive at this paradigm of exit, I employ a mixed methods approach, drawing on 54 in-depth interviews with divorcees and key informants; analyzing quantitative data from the American Community Survey to contextualize my findings; and reviewing hundreds of documents related to these cases, including custody agreements, court transcripts, affidavits, and media content produced by the Haredi community related to marriage, exit and divorce. My sample includes divorcees who left Haredi life together with their ex-spouse and only later got divorced; those who remained religious post-divorce; those who were religious at the time of their divorce but later exited the Haredi community; and those who left Haredi life before or during their divorce while their ex-spouse remained Haredi. Theoretically, I synthesize Albert Hirschman’s (1970; 1993) works on voice, loyalty and exit with Helen Ebaugh’s (1988) work on role exit, Irving Goffman’s (1961) concept of the total institution, and Mark Granovetter’s (1985) theory of economic embeddedness. I find that before divorcees intentionally and overtly exit their communities they are first disembedded and marginalized from Haredi life in numerous ways. These findings have applications in studies of other forms of exit and invite a reconsideration of the drivers and process of exit, whether that exit is from marriage, from a religious community, or from a particular role.

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