Ethnography of Exclusion: Initiating a Dialogue with Fundamentalist Men

In this article I present the results of my fieldwork with ultra-Orthodox men, who are forbidden to interact with women. Specifically, I focused upon the world of young Torah scholars in the Jewish ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) community in Israel. This essay demonstrates the strategies I developed in order to enter this group and interview members: using a yeshiva student as a key informant, studying ancient texts with yeshiva students and simulating yeshiva practices. These methods enabled me to gain trust and privileges in a world forbidden to females. I thereby achieved a better understanding of how yeshiva students interpret their experiences in terms of the sacred and the profane, and how they evaluate and critique these experiences.