For years, critics have claimed that the state’s Hasidic schools fail to comply with the state law that requires them to offer a basic secular education in addition to an Orthodox Jewish religious education. Investigations have gone nowhere because of the political power of the Hasidic community, which tends to vote as a bloc. Politicians seek their endorsement, as NYC Eric Adams did. (On election night, the new Mayor had representatives of the Hasidic community by his side.) in the Legislature, a representative of the Hasidic community had a decisive vote when the State Senate was equally divided between Democrats and Republicans.
Dr. Betty Rosa, State Commissioner of Education, broke the stalemate. Hasidic groups undoubtedly will sue to block her order. They will say that the law interferes with their freedom of religion. They will say that they should not be required to teach their children in English or science or mathematics or social studies.
Bravo for Commissioner Rosa!
Question: Will the Supreme Court rule with the Hasids? Does the state have the right to tell religious schools what to do? Should these schools collect hundreds of millions a year a year from the state while defying state law?
In a profound challenge to New York’s private Hasidic Jewish schools, state education authorities have determined that a large boys’ school in Brooklyn is violating state law by failing to provide a basic education.
The ruling marks the first time that the state has taken action against a Hasidic boys’ school, one of scores of private academies that provide robust religious instruction in Yiddish but little instruction in English and math, and virtually none in science, history or social studies. It also served as a stern rebuke of the administration of Mayor Eric Adams, whose education department had recommended that the school be found in compliance with a law requiring private schools to offer an education comparable with what is offered in public schools.
The decision, which was issued last week by commissioner Betty Rosa and has not been previously reported, stemmed from a lawsuit brought by a parent against the school alleging a lack of secular education. The ruling requires city education officials to work with the school, Yeshiva Mesivta Arugath Habosem, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to come up with an improvement plan, something that many Hasidic schools have long fought to avoid. State officials will have final say over that improvement plan, putting additional pressure on city officials who have previously avoided intervening in the schools….
“The state did right,” said Beatrice Weber, a mother of 10 who brought the suit against her youngest child’s school and has since left the Hasidic community. “Hopefully now things will actually change.” Ms. Weber was recently named as the leader of Young Advocates for Fair Education, a group that has pushed for more secular education in Hasidic schools.
The decision will also provide the first test of a new set of state rules aimed at regulating private schools, including Jewish schools, known as yeshivas, which, like other religious schools, have largely been allowed to operate without government oversight for decades. Those regulations, which went into effect just two weeks ago, hold that schools that do not follow state law could lose their public funding.
Hasidic leaders waged fierce opposition to the new rules before they were approved by the State Board of Regents last month, casting them as an existential threat to the community. Earlier this week, a group of yeshivas and their supporters sued the state over the rules. Many of the plaintiffs were non-Hasidic schools that provide secular education and would likely not be affected by the regulations. The lawsuit has not been previously reported….
“Yeshivas are the central and irreplaceable pillar of the Orthodox Jewish life in New York,” reads the lawsuit, which seeks to have the regulations overturned.
On Wednesday, a spokesman for one of the groups that filed the lawsuit, the Parents for Educational and Religious Liberty in Schools, defended Yeshiva Mesivta Arugath Habosem.
“Educators from the city’s Department of Education visited the school several times and determined that it met the substantial equivalence standard,” said the spokesman, Richard Bamberger, referring to the state law. “It is disappointing that political appointees at the state education department won’t accept the city’s findings.”
Last month, The New York Times reported that more than 100 Hasidic boys’ schools in Brooklyn and the lower Hudson Valley have collected at least $1 billion in taxpayer dollars in the past four years, but many have denied their students a basic secular education.
Is there any other religious group that has received tax money down through the years? How has this been administered? Do Amish groups get state money? How about Islamic schools?
I am not asking about schools in Florida where this has become common in recent years. I am not thinking of the various voucher and tax credit programs of a recent nature. My questions refer to long/standing arrangements
To the best of my knowledge, the Amish do not get any public school benefits. I don’t know about other states, but in Pennsylvania the Amish have their own schools that end at eighth grade. Since most of them are farmers, the Commonwealth does not require them to attend high school. However, if a young person wants more education, he or she can transfer to a public high school. My mother’s family was Mennonite, (a more secular branch of the Anabaptists), and she lived in Lancaster, PA, for a time.
If this case ends up in the lap of The Supreme Christian Court, New York State will likely lose as it will be construed as a “religious liberty” case. All religions deserve protection under the law, but taxpayers should not be forced to pay for religious schools. New York has turned a blind eye to the way in which this community has broken the numerous state and local laws for decades.
Religious schools have been increasing their demands for public funds in NYS since the 1980s. It started with busing for religious schools. Then, these schools demanded Title 1 services from public school districts. Then, they demanded special education and so much more.
The Hasidic community wants access to public services without complying with the public rules. Not providing a comparable secular education is the least of it. This community routinely ignores local zoning and fire safety laws. It also allows the marriage of girls as young as thirteen to marry fifty year old men. One of the reason this community requires so many special education services is because intermarriage of close relatives is a common practice. New York has ignored these problems for decades. It seems now that New York Democrats can no longer count on the Hasidic block vote, they are willing to make this community abide by the rules.
The Hasidic community was very pro-Trump because he promised vouchers.
That the Hasidic community would support Trump after he called those who threatened the synagogue in Charlottesville “good people” is breathtaking.
Roy Turrentine
Shimon Peres tells the story of the alliance between the Religious Right and the Right Wing Likud Party governing Israel.
In not so many words he said : “they want us in Israel for the end times” . Of course what happens to Jews who don’t accept Christ in the rapture ?
So to some the ends justify the means .
What is amazing is with this community voting as far right as
they do, Democratic Politicians are afraid to challenge their actions. Including the de funding of Public Schools in several School districts they have political power in.
It is almost refreshing to watch right wing politicians double down on their garbage even if it offends 50 , 60 , 70 % of Americans .
Borough Park is at least 25% minority so it is not 100% Hasidic cult members. Now without exit polls, what we do know is that Adams only received 39% of the vote . Is it too much of an assumption to say that he received more support from those other demographic groups.
Democrats ” What have you got to lose? “
Roy & all: welcome to the upside-down, inside-out Untied States of America.
I’m sure I don’t have to tell readers of this blog: Get Out & VOTE as if your life depends on it, & get all your like-minded friends, relatives, neighbors & colleagues to vote, too. Be an election judge, be a poll watcher…needed more now than ever.
I posted the decision here: It shows the DOE changed its position about whether this Yeshiva provided an equivalent secular education after the Adams and his Chancellor came into office, claiming that it did in a reversal from the previous administration, but failed to provide any convincing evidence that it did. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aRklYfYd68upytJ6-RiDeGu_DGKkHjmf/view?usp=sharing
“Yeshivas are the central and irreplaceable pillar of the Orthodox Jewish life in New York,” reads the lawsuit, which seeks to have the regulations overturned.”
But they aren’t a pillar (or even a minor support) of secular education, so Orthodox jews should fund their own schools.
I suspect that even the non-orthodox Jewish community does not wish to fund them, which is why they turn to the government for a handout.
I’m Jewish and I don’t want to fund them. Not as an individual and not with my taxes.
I also don’t want my taxes to pay for any other religious schools. Not Catholic schools. Not Protestant schools. Not Islamic schools. Not Buddhist schools. Not any private or religious schools.
Everything was far better when there was a clear delineation between secular and religious. The commingling simply means we plunder the public schools to serve private and religious interests.
Well don’t move to Arizona then. With our wonderful ESA (Empowerment Scholarship Account) all of us will be funding private schools. I’m sure many of them are faith based. Our illustrious governor calls us the “Gold standard of educational freedom”. We are at the bottom, or near, of school funding, but he is proud of what he and the legislature have pushed through. This is in spite of it being voted down by the citizens. Makes me want to throw up.
Arizona is a disgrace. Most of the kids who get vouchers already attend private school. AZ vouchers subsidize the wealthy.
Thus the “we know what’s best for you”
apparatchicks, pitch compulsory submission,
to the status quo conceptualizations of a
basic secular education, where test
scores are used as a measuring tool.
Abide by the rules of who gets what
and who picks up the tab. After all,
not only do we know what’s best for
you, we know how to transform the
disempowered to the empowered.
The proof is in the pudding…
There will be a big brouhaha, and then once the spotlight is off, not a darn thing will change, and it will continue as before.
This is a big story every few years, and the above sentence is how it always turns out.
I hope that I’m proven wrong on this, but I wouldn’t bet on it.