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Shalom.
My name is Dodi Tobin and I am currently the Director of
Admissions at Nishmat and an ATID fellow. I am also a psychologist by
training. The research area I am pursuing for my ATID fellowships is the
effect of a year of study in an Israel yeshiva program (e.g. BMT,
Shaalvim, MMY etc.) on the relationship between Diaspora students and
their parents. My aim is to determine whether and what issues exist and
ultimately to suggest interventions that may be used by the programs,
parents, students and counselors to help alleviate potential conflict. To
that end, I would like to pose some initial questions for response,
especially from yeshiva counselors in Diaspora high schools, and teachers
and administrators in the Yeshiva programs themselves.
1) Have your found that student-parent conflicts arise
related to the year in Israel?
2) What are those conflicts and how do they manifest themselves?
I look forward to your responses.
Dodi Tobin
[I will take this opportunity to mention my doctoral dissertation,
recently synopsized in Ten Da=92at as "The impact of One-year Israel study
on American Day School graduates". Although I don't touch on family
interaction post-Israel in the dissertation, there is an examination of
parental religious behaviors in comparison to those of the students pre-
Israel. Shalom]</HTML>
