New horizons for religious moms in high-tech
Abigail Klein Leichman
On International Women’s Day, ISRAEL21c takes a look at ultra-Orthodox women taking their place in the startup nation.
The reception area at Jerusalem Hub, a co-working space for religious women run by Temech. Photo by Abigail Klein Leichman
Sari Roth, an ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) mother of seven from Bnei Brak, was invited to represent Haredi women in high-tech at an International Women’s Day gathering this week hosted by Israeli First Lady Nechama Rivlin.
oth cofounded Bontact with Tzvi Cohen in 2015 as a smart multi-channel platform for customer-to-business communication, and today boasts an international clientele.
She is married to a full-time Talmudic scholar and has no formal business training.
Sari Roth, left, was invited to a represent Haredi women in high-tech at an International Women’s Day gathering this week hosted by Israeli First Lady Nechama Rivlin. Photo: courtesy
“My husband learns and this is why I’m doing what I’m doing. It’s not for the sake of being a career woman,” Roth tells ISRAEL21c in self-taught English. “I learned programming in seminary for one year and got married in the middle and didn’t continue. When we got married, I saw he had the talent to be a great learner and I said I’d do my best to support the family.”
In many Israeli Haredi families, the wife is the breadwinner as her husband devotes his days to religious study. Over the past decade, all-female programming shops have sprung up to provide an alternative to traditional childcare and teaching professions.
These “near shore” shops offer outsourcing services at near off-shore rates. The women earn software engineering certificates in post-high-school religious seminaries and accept lower wages in return for a work environment that suits their lifestyle and large families. But they have few opportunities for skills development and advancement.
Women like Sari Roth, Tikva Schmidt and Shaindy Babad are trailblazing a new direction.
The TIDE turns
“The first revolution was pushing women into software development and the second revolution is making it into a satisfying profession,” Schmidt tells ISRAEL21c at TIDE’s Jerusalem office, where photos aren’t permitted out of respect for the employees’ strict code of modesty.
Schmidt, now 43, founded TIDE (Technology. Innovation. Delivery. Excellence.) five years ago to offer Haredi women “the opportunity to work at a high professional level in a stable, supporting environment while constantly learning and being empowered.”
She believes this environment also leads to better results for clients, which include startups and established businesses in Israel and the United States.
Born to American immigrants, Schmidt earned a computer science degree from Hebrew University and worked for 20 years as a developer, software system architect and R&D manager. She credits her husband with encouraging and facilitating her career as they raised their 10 children.
“In my previous job in Ramat Gan, for seven years I was the only woman in R&D, the only religious person in the company and the only one with more than three kids,” Schmidt relates.
“I realized I could do something for religious women that no one else could do. I had an inner drive to create high-quality jobs in high-tech so that women – not only Haredi — could combine top-level development with being mothers, and enjoy both. Regular high-tech is not structured correctly for mothers; it’s geared to coming in late, having long lunches and working overtime.”
Co-working hub
Schmidt has resisted offers of investment and acquisition so as to….
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