Step 1: Defining Culture, Ethnicity and Religion

Have students discuss in small groups this question and summarize their discussion to report back to the class:

● Why do people seek to change or reform their religious or cultural traditions?

Introduce the terms culture, ethnicity, and religion and define them as a class. Discuss what is shared and what is distinct about each term. Fill in the definitions if students need further support.

Culture: the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group; also: the characteristic features of everyday existence (such as diversions or a way of life) shared by people in a place or time.

Ethnicity: of or relating to large groups of people classed according to common racial, national, tribal, religious, linguistic, or cultural origin or background.

Religion: a personal set or institutionalized system of attitudes, beliefs, and practices relating to or manifesting faithful devotion to an acknowledged ultimate reality or deity.[1]

Step 2: Meeting Ruchie and Borough Park, Brooklyn

Before playing Clip 1 ask students to share if they know any of the traditions and practices of the Hasidic Jewish Community. You may also elect to have students create a K/W/L table to keep track of “What they know, What they want to know, and what theylearned?

Play Clip 1. Have students to respond in writing to these prompts after watching the film clip

● What term(s) would you use to describe the community in Borough Park? A culture, an ethnicity, or a religion and why?

● What do the three concepts share? Can you think of examples of how culture, ethnicity or religion have been modified, both in the film and in history?

● Are there any similarities between the Ezras Nashim organizers’ struggle for recognition and respect and challenges you’ve encountered or observed in your culture?

Step 3: Why Change a Tradition?

Play Clip 2 and Clip 3 in sequence. Organize students into pairs and discuss in their reactions and responses to these prompts:

● What are Ruchie and her fellow organizers’ primary reasons for creating an all-women volunteer EMT corps serving women in the Hasidic community?

● In your own words, describe the different viewpoints of the supporters and opponents of Ezras Nashim.

● Ruchie presents Ezras Nashim as a preservation of the spirit of Jewish law, if not the literal customs as they’ve been practiced. Can you think of any examples of a change in which the spirit of a principle or belief system has been preserved while the practice itself has been modified? Consider interpretations of the United States Constitution and modifications to your own family’s customs.

Step 4: Making Connections

Final Film Clip: (Vimeo 1:00:31 - 1:06:40; 6:06)

Explain to class that in this final clip, students will see the culmination of the women’s hard work and perseverance. End class by asking students to brainstorm parallels between the skills Ruchie and the women of Ezras Nashim used to create change in their community and other moments of progress within the history of the women’s movement.

EXTENSIONS/ADAPTATIONS

1. Essay Writing: Have students write an expository essay identifying the strategies used by the women to found Ezras Nashim, identifying parallels with other women who have worked to change the status quo in their community or industry. Students can write research an aspect of their own present-day culture, their ancestors’ culture, or another community (being careful to do thorough background research).
2. Judge Ruchie Freier Today: At the end of 93 Queen we see that Ruchie Freier wins her election to preside as a judge in civil court. Have students read this article from the New York Times to learn more about Judge Freier’s work and her perspective.

[1] Each definition is summarized from https://www.merriam-webster.com/.