An Orthodox Jewish researcher from Jerusalem has spent more than a decade living among the Amish of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, producing the first comparative study of ultra-Orthodox Jewish women and Amish women ever conducted. Rivka Neriya-Ben Shahar, a tenured senior lecturer at Sapir Academic College in Sderot, published her findings in the 2024 book “Strictly Observant” and made her most recent research visit in September, according to The Times of Israel.
Her journey began in 2011, when she arrived in the United States speaking barely any English, armed with a Fulbright Grant and a conviction that the Torah world of Jerusalem had something meaningful to say to the horse-and-buggy world of rural Pennsylvania. Fourteen years later, the families who started as research subjects have become what she calls her extended family.
A Daughter of Rebecca Meets the Amish
The story opens like a verse from Genesis. When Neriya-Ben Shahar and her husband first drove into Lancaster County, home to the largest Amish population in the world, friends had warned them the community was closed to outsiders. They followed a buggy until a young Amish woman emerged from a farmhouse.
“I said the first sentence I had in my mind: ‘Hi, my name is Rebecca (Rivka, in Hebrew), like Rebecca from the Bible. I come from Jerusalem, from the Holy Land, can I speak with you?’” she recounted to Religion News Service, in an account reported by Religion News.
The young woman, given the pseudonym Suzi in accordance with research standards, saw Neriya-Ben Shahar's modest hair covering and long dress and invited her inside. The researcher's own appearance, shaped by the same principles of tzniut that Jewish women have carried from Rebecca's tent through millennia of exile, opened a door that academic credentials alone never could.
Two Faithful Peoples in a Restless World
The parallels between the two communities run deeper than dress. Both the Amish and Haredi Jews strictly observe their traditions and deliberately wall off parts of modern life. Amish families refuse cars, electricity, televisions and home phones. Haredi Jews in Israel increasingly use smartphones and computers fitted with filters that keep content kosher, and they drive cars, but they do not switch electricity on or off on Shabbat.
Both groups, Neriya-Ben Shahar found, name the same enemy. “Both call the internet and smartphones Satan's tool, something that will destroy our community,” she said, in remarks carried by AP News.
Both communities also place the weight of transmission on their women. As mothers of large families, Amish and Haredi women alike see themselves as the guardians of their people's values in societies they view as threatened by modernity. It is the same quiet heroism the matriarchs of Israel embodied: the future of a covenant people carried in the hands of women who choose faith over fashion.
Where the Paths Diverge
The differences are just as instructive. Haredi society separates rigorously by gender, while the Amish “try to live together and stay very modest at the same time,” she explained. Courtship diverges sharply: many Haredi parents engage matchmakers, while “the Amish fall in love in their youth groups,” something she admitted was hard for her to believe.
Education marks another dividing line. Ultra-Orthodox girls in Israel generally receive 12 years of formal schooling followed by seminary or professional training, and most Haredi women work outside the home. Amish schooling ends after eighth grade, and most married Amish women become homemakers. Haredi Israelis make free use of Israel's universal health care system, while the Amish turn to American medicine only as a last resort.
Kosher Dishes in an Amish Attic
The bonds formed across that divide are the heart of the story. Over more than 100 visits, Neriya-Ben Shahar has spent months living with Amish families, including three weeks on the farm of Suzi's mother, Anna, whose home became her base in America. Anna's family stores her kosher dishes and clothes in their attic, with labels reading “Rebecca from the Holy Land, don't touch.”
Her hosts gave her the top shelf of their propane refrigerator so unkosher food could never fall onto hers. On Shabbat, they brought her a lit flashlight to guide her through the dark. She reciprocated in kind: she drives them on errands, since the Amish themselves do not drive, and one Sunday she harvested their strawberries and peas, which would have spoiled because the Amish do no manual labor on their sabbath.
“We just care about each other and try to help whenever we can,” she said.
Water From the Jordan
One moment stands above the rest. When Neriya-Ben Shahar brought Anna water from the Jordan River, the Amish woman wept: “Oh, Jesus walked on this water!” The researcher called it one of the most religious moments of her life. When she drove Anna and her daughter to see the ocean for the first time, they were thrilled simply by the movement of the waves.
What she learned from the Amish, she said, changed her. “They know that there is electricity and internet and smartphones and that they could drive, but they choose not to,” she said. “When you talk with them, they look at you, they listen to you, they wait before they respond.” In an age of noise, a people who choose restraint carry an ancient lesson that the children of Israel, who chose Torah at Sinai, know well.
Nimrod Bar-Am, dean of research at Sapir College, credited her with deepening anthropological understanding of “closed, zealous communities that manage to sustain themselves at the very heart of open liberal societies,” as reported by the Washington Times.
What Comes Next
Neriya-Ben Shahar is now researching a second book devoted entirely to Amish women's lives, covering child-rearing, marriage, prayer, mutual aid and housework. In parallel, she is studying Haredi communities and health and welfare services in Israel.
She prays for her Amish friends every morning. In a letter written for her 50th birthday, Anna replied in kind: “Only God knows how many. Your prayers have made a difference.”
FAQ
Who is Rivka Neriya-Ben Shahar?
She is an Orthodox Jewish researcher and tenured senior lecturer at Sapir Academic College in Sderot who studies women in traditional religious communities.
What is her book “Strictly Observant” about?
Published in 2024, it is the first comparative study of ultra-Orthodox Jewish women in Israel and old-order Amish women in the United States.
How did she gain the trust of the Amish community?
She introduced herself as Rebecca from the Bible and from Jerusalem, and her modest dress signaled shared values. She also lived with families for extended periods, helping with daily chores.