Tuesday, September 13, 2022

New York Times: Devastating Expose of Hasidic Schools. Lacking Education; Misuse of Public Funds

 


The New York Times has published a devastating expose of Hasidic schools in NYC. The Times alleges that other than being drilled in religion, and taught in Yiddish, the schools offer no education. The goal is to isolate the students from life outside of Hasidic enclaves. In spite of not meeting public education goals, the schools make use of a great deal of taxpayer dollars. 

From the article:

The Hasidic Jewish community has long operated one of New York’s largest private schools on its own terms, resisting any outside scrutiny of how its students are faring.

But in 2019, the school, the Central United Talmudical Academy, agreed to give state standardized tests in reading and math to more than 1,000 students.

Every one of them failed.

Students at nearly a dozen other schools run by the Hasidic community recorded similarly dismal outcomes that year, a pattern that under ordinary circumstances would signal an education system in crisis. But where other schools might be struggling because of underfunding or mismanagement, these schools are different. They are failing by design.

The leaders of New York’s Hasidic community have built scores of private schools to educate children in Jewish law, prayer and tradition — and to wall them off from the secular world. Offering little English and math, and virtually no science or history, they drill students relentlessly, sometimes brutally, during hours of religious lessons conducted in Yiddish.

The result, a New York Times investigation has found, is that generations of children have been systematically denied a basic education, trapping many of them in a cycle of joblessness and dependency.

Segregated by gender, the Hasidic system fails most starkly in its more than 100 schools for boys. Spread across Brooklyn and the lower Hudson Valley, the schools turn out thousands of students each year who are unprepared to navigate the outside world, helping to push poverty rates in Hasidic neighborhoods to some of the highest in New York.

The schools appear to be operating in violation of state laws that guarantee children an adequate education. Even so, The Times found, the Hasidic boys’ schools have found ways of tapping into enormous sums of government money, collecting more than $1 billion in the past four years alone.

You can read the full expose here

Tablet suggests that the Times piece is anti-Semitic here

9 comments:

  1. The leftmedia is again casting aspersions on what does not fit its worldview. They also run down traditional Christian schools. Par for the course.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I am reading a crime novel by Faye Kellerman about NY Hasidic community, having problems with law, eg. misfinancing of schools. The book is about 20 years old. I assume Faye is Jewish.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. She is!

      She's a practising Orthodox Jew [from Wikipedia].

      The Kellerman family have lots of good writers in them - Jonathan and Jesse among the members.

      Adelaide Dupont

      Delete
    2. The book I have meant "Stone Kiss"

      Delete
    3. Thank you Jerzy for the pointer to Faye Kellerman's STONE KISS.

      Next time I am in a consignment store I might look for it.

      Surprisingly hard to keep an author - title - subject in one place - particularly in a place of commerce and exchange - unless one keeps a list.

      Adelaide Dupont

      Delete
  3. https://twitter.com/AvivaKlompas/status/1567926801183162371?cxt=HHwWhoCypcrHssIrAAAA Welcome to University of Wisconsin...unless you are Jewish and/or believe Israel has a right to exist. (But still probably the Poles are guilty)

    ReplyDelete
  4. “The report published earlier this month makes no mention of crimes against Jews by Polish civilians and Polish authorities, despite there being ample historical evidence of such actions.” No 'Polish authorities' participated in German Nazi crimes. https://twitter.com/Ojdadana/status/1569723856595877888?cxt=HHwWgIDUvfzh48grAAAA A list of crimes committed by civilians during WW2 would be very long. The governments were responsible, not individual criminals.

    ReplyDelete
  5. The report documenting German Nazi destruction of Poland contains thousands of pages. On one page Jedwabne is listed. I do not know the reason of listing Jedwabne. Jan Grabowski has ignored the other pages and tragedies and accused Poland to demand money for Jedwabne. Poland allegedly wanted to coopeerate with Israel, but Yair Lapid visited Berlin and Israeli press attacked Poland quoting Grabowski. At least two US rabbis attack Poles, some Poles answer, one of them posts Nazi anti-Semitic image, which is disgusting and illegal in several countries.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Summary of the report in French https://www.lopinion.fr/international/les-comptes-des-crimes-allemands-en-pologne-nont-toujours-pas-ete-soldes-la-tribune-de-zdzis%C5%82aw-krasnodebski

      Delete

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