The Role and Identity of the Divorced Mother in the Orthodox Jewish Community

Research on divorce show that to adjust positively to their new status, individuals need to create a narrative that makes sense of their experience by using the symbolic tools society puts at their disposal. However, the new roles that divorce creates, such as single-parent, non-custodial parent, step-parent or step-child, haven`t been adequately defined by societal norms, thus leaving individuals witihout a script.

Family is at the center of Jewish life and individuals derive a central part of their identity from it. As in the wider American society, divorced families are still seen in the Jewish community as broken or dysfunctional homes. To date, there is no serious research on divorced mothers in the orthodox Jewish community and how they navigate through this challenging life event and subsequent issues.

In a community where the women are known as the akeret habayit, the pillars of the home, divorce hits hard the identity and role of divorced mothers who have to reconcile their reality to their community standards. Taking a constructivist perspective, this paper investigates how orthodox Jewish mothers view their identity andand role in the aftermath of divorce.