Team:TECHNION-ISRAEL/Conference

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confrence

Science and Religion Conference

Background

The religious community in Israel is very diverse, and made up of several religious groups such as Haredis (Ultra-Orthodox Jews), Orthodox Nationalists, Bnei Menashe, Muslims, Christians and many more. Each group has a different way of life and a unique perspective. For example, a strong value in the orthodox and ultra-orthodox Jewish community is family rearing. As such, mothers want to devote their time to caring for their children.

We believe that it is very important to have scientists from all backgrounds and genders. Thus, we wanted to show young orthodox women that religion and motherhood do not preclude a scientific career. We hoped to achieve this goal by sharing the personal stories of impressive orthodox women who successfully combined their scientific careers with a religious and family oriented lifestyle.
To this end we organized a conference for young religious high-school girls. We targeted the Orthodox Nationalists and “Bnei Menashe” communities. The Beni Menashe are a small community of Orthodox Jews who recently immigrated from northern India. As such, they lack information regarding academic studies. We hoped to provide motivation and resources to these young women with the aim of helping them integrate into the academic and scientific world more easily.

The Conference

We invited three leading orthodox female scientists from the Technion to share their stories:
Assistant Professor Shenhav Cohen, director of a lab studying the mechanisms of myofibril breakdown during atrophy, from the Biology Faculty. She told her personal story, including tales of her pregnancies throughout her BSc, MSc and PhD studies, as well as her time in the United States with her husband and four children during her post-doctoral studies.

PhD. Candidate Shlomit David, from the Chemistry of Foods and Bioactive Ingredients lab, Biotechnology and Food Engineering Faculty. Shlomit told the girls about her transition from a life in a tightknit religious community to life in the mixed, and secular, environment of the Technion University dormitories. Additionally, she spoke about the difficulties and solutions for religious students in secular surroundings. She explained that she views her scientific career as a mission and that instead of detracting from her religious lifestyle it imbues it with even more meaning.

PhD. Candidate Reut Shapira, from the lab of Organic Chemistry, Chemistry Faculty. Reut spoke about her family, her research and about her work as teaching assistant. Mainly, she assured the attendants that science and religion are not mutually exclusive.

In order to answer questions and provide more pertinent information, we invited two additional speakers:
Ms Maytal Szabo, director of the “Beyahad Technion Organization.” “Beyahad” is an organization of orthodox students that create a warm and welcoming community for the religious students of the Technion. The director, a female orthodox student in the Technion, spoke about her personal perspective regarding undergraduate studies, and described the supportive community the organization provides.

The second speaker, who answered the crowd's questions, was Mrs Ruth Cassuto, academic adviser in the Technion. She answered important questions the participants had regarding requirements and extracurricular activities relevant to academic studies in the Technion, as well as other academic institutions.

Lastly, we closed the conference with a presentation about our iGEM project. We described it simply, so that all the attendees would be able to fundamentally understand our idea.

During the evening, the girls cooperated with the speakers, asked questions, expressed interest in the sciences and were generally fascinated.
We targeted our audience in different ways: We reached out to orthodox girls from the “Ulpanat Meiron” high-school, where students from the Bnei Menashe community also study, and we arranged transportation for these girls (who couldn’t come otherwise). We contacted students in Haifa (near the Technion), and published a large ad in a religious newspaper, attracting high-school students from across the country.

Conclusion

The most satisfying part of the evening was the enthusiastic responses we received from the girls. They said that the conference was very interesting, that they learned many new things and that many of their preconceived notions were altered. In the end, they thanked us for the unique opportunity to hear about academic studies in STEM fields and inquired about how they might pursue acceptance into the Technion. We gave out our personal cell phone numbers, and told them to feel free to contact us with any further questions.