Thursday, December 23, 2021
For these Orthodox women, balancing demanding careers with family life is worth the challenges
Orthodox Brooklyn native Chana Wircberg always knew she wanted to be a physician.
Shortly after marrying and becoming a young mother, Wircberg made her dream come true, graduating in May from Touro's New York Medical College. Now 27, Wircberg is in the first year of a residency in internal medicine at the Cleveland Clinic. Her goal is to specialize in oncology.
Wircberg, who is a member of the Chabad Lubavitch Hasidic movement, sees no conflict between her religious outlook and her profession. On the contrary, she sees it as part of her "shlichus" — the Jewish outreach work that Chabad Hasidim consider part of their religious calling.
But growing up in a Hasidic community, Wircberg had no female medical practitioners to look up to as role models.
"I am doing my outreach through my profession and by being a good human being," Wircberg said. "But it certainly would have been very comforting to have seen someone like me when I was growing up."
Miriam Abraham, a religious woman who worked for 13 years at Price Waterhouse before recently switching to in-house accountant at the investment firm Tiger Global Management, says it's critical for Orthodox women to be seen working in professional fields — not just to serve as role models internally, but to represent the community to the world.
"Orthodox women particularly are misrepresented in the media," Abraham said. "It is important to dispel myths and for people to see what a mainstream Orthodox woman is like — which is much like everyone else."
Religiously observant women face some particular challenges taking on ambitious careers because they tend to marry and have children at much younger ages than their nonobservant or non-Jewish counterparts. At a time when many of their peers are focused solely on school or work, Orthodox women also may be juggling wedding planning, pregnancies or child-rearing.
Miriam Ivry, 25, says support is essential for working Orthodox women who are also moms. Ivry, who earned her dentistry degree in May, married a fellow student in the first year of the program and gave birth to a baby in the third. She is now a dental resident at New York Presbyterian Queens Dental Clinic.
Comments:
Post a Comment
