I get off the phone with Rabbi Stastky (a pseudonym), and just can’t seem to get back to work. The story he tells me, leaves my mind (and heart) pacing. As part of a study on science communication and religion, I was interviewing Rabbi Statsky, a medical askan (self-ascribed community expert) who serves as an inner-communal mediator for Haredi (strictly Orthodox) men and women during their encounters with Israel’s “secular” medical system. Whereas Haredi Jews are constantly critiqued for their low levels of individual secular and science literacy, these askanim often claim that the knowledge and networks they provide to Haredi individuals surpass that of the average “secular” Israeli. To illustrate this paradox, he shared the following story:
"On an individual level—especially young couples—they have a very low level of knowledge, I would even say too little, really no knowledge. I met a woman who came out of a surgery of a womb amputation but thought it was just a vaginal resection. But on a general level—whoever has a medical problem—because of the abundance of medical organizations, the askanim of our society help people understand. They make the relevant medical information accessible."
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| Photo by Maayan Nemanov on Unsplash |
In our recent publication in Public Understanding of Science, we analyze this phenomenon through the lens of community-level science literacy, which, as defined by Snow and Dibner (2016): “does not require each individual to attain a particular threshold of knowledge, skills, and abilities; rather, it is a matter of a community having sufficient shared resources that are distributed and organized in such a way that the varying abilities of community members work in concert to contribute to the community’s overall well-being”.
While we highly appreciate the efforts of medical askanim like Rabbi Statsky to make medicine more accessible to Haredi Jews in Israel, it is impossible not to wonder: what counts as sufficient community-level science literacy? Is it “sufficient” that a woman has the necessary surgery, yet, has no idea what was actually happening to her own body? In a community with strict verbal taboos around sexuality (see more on this here), is it sufficient that someone in her social network is familiar with the different parts of the reproductive system - or is this something that every individual must know?
Our work is part of a growing interest in community-level science literacy. While most focus on communities of interest who come together through particular science, environmental or health-related goals, we examine a pre-existing community—ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel— a minority group with a particular history and politics vis-à-vis science, technology, and medicine. Examining Haredi Jews in Israel serves as a unique case study to analyze the particular ways groups construct community-level group literacy based on their pre-existing shared identities and goals. We ask: How do Haredi Jews form intra-communal networks of science literacy? How are webs of community-based experts created and sustained? What types of scientific knowledge do they distribute? And, what can these networks of community-based literacy tell us about how scientific authority is formed (and critiqued) in particular group settings?
Following these studies, our findings showcase the importance of studying community-level science literacy, in a variety of contexts. It argues that we desperately need to develop a better understanding of what “community” and “sufficient literacy” actually mean. For us, COVID-19 really drove this point home. Not only were there clear community-based decisions to follow or flout public health guidelines, the disproportionate effect of COVID-19 on ethnic and minority groups, painfully showcased who paid the price for this disparity.
So, who needs community-level science literacy?
Everyone does, but some people seem to be paying the price for its insufficiency more than others.
Lea Taragin-Zeller (@leataragin) is
assistant professor of Cultural Studies and Public Policy at the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem. She is also an affiliated researcher at the
Reproductive Sociology Research Group (ReproSoc), University of Cambridge. Her
research explores the intersections between religion, reproduction, politics, and
science and has been published in leading international journals, such
as American Anthropologist, Medical Anthropology, and Science Communication. Her first book “The State of
Desire: Religion and Reproductive Politics in the Promised Land” is forthcoming
with NYU Press.
Yael Rozenblum (@yael_rozenblum)
is a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Education in Science and Technology at the
Technion—Israel Institute of Technology. Her PhD research focuses on the
development of scientific literacy among the Israeli public and media during
the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ayelet Baram-Tsabari (@ayelet_bt) is a professor at the Faculty of Education in Science and Technology at the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology. She was an elected member of the Israel Young Academy and of the scientific committee of the PCST Network and is a PI of the research center on “Taking Citizen Science to School.” Her research focuses on bridging science education and science communication scholarship, and she has published extensively in both disciplines.