4.1.2. Dealing with Identity Dissonance

Zvika expanded on the difficulty of dealing with the complexity of maneuvering between the different identities—the private world versus the workplace.

*It's not that you have to do something in practice, it's just learning to live with that complexity. You need broad shoulders to learn to live with the conflict in this part, on this issue, of friends and identification. You have to learn to deal with the conflict, and may be harder for some and then they will have to make a change, maybe with the values or something.*

Zvika's way of coping reflects another coping strategy that stood out in the results of the study—positive framing, i.e., the reading of the situation in positive terms. A positive interpretation helps manage the feelings of stress and not necessarily deal with the stress itself.

Most focus group participants demonstrated a positive worldview and described their workplace as positive, both at the interpersonal level of employers and employees and at the level of conditions and wages. They expressed high satisfaction with these variables, and the positive framing of the work was very prominent in their strategy of coping with the "outside."

#### 4.1.3. Ways to Deal with the "Home vs Outside" Conflict

One of the challenges of a person who integrates into a workplace outside of his community is being in a space with a different value scale. This is especially the case for the ultra-Orthodox, a cultural minority group in Israeli society, since encountering different values of behavioral norms can create difficulty and even contradiction between the two worlds. Participants in the focus groups were asked, among other things, how they cope with a work space that has a different value scale from their own, in view of the fact that they come from a closed society that has advocated religious segregation and conservatism. The findings of the study indicate that the planning strategy is widely used, the most prominent of the strategies used by ultra-Orthodox academics. One of the difficulties that accompanies the ultra-Orthodox is the conflict between home and work. In this context, questions such as, Do I, and to what extent, share information with household members about my work? Will my integration in a non- ultra-Orthodox workplace negatively impact my personal status in the community? etc. Rafi describes his way of dealing with these aspects:

*I made a total separation between the two worlds. At work, even though I fit in there, I never associated with the employees, I never invited them to any event of mine, even if it might have been possible in some way. I made a total separation. Definitely, if you're already raising the matter of matchmaking for example, they ask what the father does [...] I've never given exact details "teaches computers, deals with computers" ... it is referred to as "dealing with". And even when I'm at work and all, I don't try to bridge the two worlds, nor bring my world into work. On the contrary, maybe it is right or maybe wrong to do it. I try just to be ... And that's it. Not trying to connect the two worlds and even trying to separate the two worlds.*

The new situation in Rafi's life puts him in a work–home conflict in terms of values. His remarks reflect on his dilemma of how to combine the conservative values of home, with new values of his non-ultra-Orthodox workplace. Rafi takes the planning strategy, which means creating an action strategy idea that will take precedence over the action that should solve the problem. Rafi sees the difficulty in bridging the two worlds in which he operates and therefore "makes a total separation" between them. This strategy of action helps him move between the two poles and deal with the cultural and practical gaps between home and work. Rafi thus describes a kind of separation between the

"part of the Torah," namely his personal and family values, and that of dealing with the obligations of the workplace. The coping strategy is present in all focus groups as a common and unique coping strategy that creates a separation between the "outside" and the "inside." The distinction between the private world and the surrounding world is thus a way of coping employed by many of the research participants in their encounter with the "outside" values.

The other strategy that has been very prominent among the participants is the active coping strategy, the one that takes practical steps. This strategy removes or bypasses the pressure factor and instead improves its results. Such direct actions characterize the focused approach to solving the problem. In each conflict raised for discussion, participants said they strive to work around the barrier or improve the situation.

#### *4.2. Coping Methods of Employees outside the Enclave vs. Workers Inside the Enclave*

#### 4.2.1. Employment outside the Community

The research materials show that there are real differences between those employed within the ultra-Orthodox community and those employed outside. The essential difference between the two groups of workers is the environment they need to deal with. While intra-community workers are not required to deal with heterogeneous and different societies, those who have been involved in work outside the community often face conflicts—both value conflicts and practical conflicts.

The voice of the participants in the focus groups reveals the professional challenge that exists in any workplace, but the struggle of coping with the value conflict in non-ultra-Orthodox workplaces is not felt at all by those employed in intra-community workplaces. The findings show that employees who choose to work in an ultra-Orthodox workplace do so deliberately because the key criteria for choosing this workplace rather than another are more important to them than the terms of wages, as Rachel demonstrates:

Over the years I have been looking for work. I see that it's hard for me to be in a place that's not ultra-Orthodox. It might be a kind of conflict. Even when I am offered a double salary or things like that, once it's in a mixed environment, I stay where I am, I forget about it.

The thought of integrating in a place outside the community causes pressure among the integrators. There are those who have chosen to cope and integrate in a mixed place. However, there are those who plan ahead to integrate only in an intra-community work place. Planning brings up ideas for action and thinking about the steps to be taken to best address the problem. This activity inherently belongs to focused problem-solving strategies, but its distinctive feature is that it precedes the action of problem solving and actually belongs to the pre-action phase of the second assessment of the situation.

#### 4.2.2. Spiritual Coping

One of the main challenges the integrators face is in the spiritual aspect, meaning religious feelings and connection to the workplace. Those who integrate into community-based employment do not report significant spiritual difficulties, in contrast to those who have joined non-ultra-Orthodox places of employment. This inner conflict is expressed in a single word repeated in all focus groups—"toughening," or as Shira expresses:

*I became tougher and more exposed. Obviously you don't stay the same as in the seminar. I attended some group and one of my seminar teachers that was there had a student that "declined" spiritually while doing o*ffi*ce work. She was righteous and yet "fell", and then that teacher started a group on how to deal with o*ffi*ce jobs, she prepared us and it helped. It's a constant struggle. I make a strong separation [* ... *] there is a spiritual e*ff*ect and that is a fact! Unless you come, do a quiet job and go without talking to anyone, it makes an impact and I'm not really a loner, but there is counterweight—on Shabbat I read books of morals and spiritual things that will strengthen me.*

The "toughness" is actually a coping strategy. Its use indicates that ultra-Orthodox people develop a defense mechanism, a kind of spiritual armor, when leaving for work outside. Taking this strategy helps them protect themselves from external influences.
