When Rivka Neriya-Ben Shahar, an Orthodox Jew who lives in Jerusalem, first arrived in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in 2011 to research Amish communities, she had only visited the U.S. once and could barely speak English.
But after years of researching women in Israel’s Haredi, or ultra-Orthodox, community, one of her academic advisers, Yehiel Limor, “basically forced me to read about the Amish,” she told RNS. “I tried to negotiate and say, ‘look, I don’t have time, and everything is in English.’” When she relented, “I just fell in love with this community,” she said.
