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| Chasidic store (Cross Currents) |
In that op-ed op-ed he defends those Chasidic schools that offer little to no secular studies. Adding yet another attack in a long line of attacks against those that have petitioned NYSED (the New York State Education Department) to enforce their public school equivalency requirements. Something most Orthodox religious schools have been doing – and continue to do - since their inception decades ago.
One can debate whether this has caused more harm than good to Orthodox Jewish education. But there is no doubt that whatever harm may result - the fault lies with those schools that did not comply with those requirements and never intended to. Not so much with the messengers who complained about it – regardless of what their motives might be.
Let me first state that I think R’ Avi overstates the degree of any sort of improvement in secular studies that has come about internally. I think that he also overstates the level of parental satisfaction with how their children are educated. and he overstates their satisfaction of their financial status.
That said, however, I agree that most of them are basically satisfied with their lives and have conceded as much in the past. Some of them do very well in business without that education. In some cases becoming multi millionaires if not billionaires. My guess is, however, that it is an extremely small group.
I also agree that many of them are gainfully employed in the kinds of jobs R’ Avi describes: salespersons, plumbers and electricians, car repairmen, electronics sellers and suppliers of religious needs. These jobs entail on the job training. No need to have had a formal secular education to be a plumber. And as R’ Avi notes there are programs like COPE – Agudah’s adult business education program - to help them out.
They do indeed support their families. The vast majority of them do not live anywhere near in the lap of luxury. Nor do they require it to live happy lives.
And finally there is their argument defending the fundamental right of parents to educate their children as they see fit as a First Amendment right.
So what’s my problem? There are several. It might be true that they are able to support their families. But in the vast majority of cases they rely on government financial aid as part of their income. According one report I saw - once married, it is part of their standard education to know how to apply for and maximize that aid.
I realize of course that their need is based largely on the size of their families. A typical family might consist of 10 or more children. An income that might be enough for a family of 4 children would be nowhere near enough for a family with 10 children. I have no problem applying for financial aid when it is warranted. But by limiting themselves to the trades, they limit their options to support their families without government aid.
Once you get involved with taking money from the government, the temptation to cheat becomes pretty strong, easy to do, and seemingly foolproof. For example hiding income is not uncommon. Especially in cash based businesses. I’m not saying they all cheat. I’m not even saying the majority of them do. All I am saying is that the temptation to cheat the government is there and seemingly easy to execute without getting caught.
But there are other reasons which I think are also important. For one thing most of these Chasidim never learn how to speak English properly. Even for those that are born here, English is a second language – Yiddish being the first. Their inability to communicate like an educated person surely limits their ability to get decent paying jobs. Accompanying this is the lack of even a basic level of English grammar most educated Americans get in 3rd grade. Not to mention the 3rd grade level spelling errors I have seen in some of their published articles.
But even without this affecting their earning potential, it affects how the world sees the most religious looking Jews among us. Which is as ignorant! Is this how we should present ourselves to the world?!
Surely this has a negative impact when interacting with the larger society. An education consisting almost entirely of religious studies based on Chasidus without exposure to the outside world means that many of them have no clue how to view the non Jew as anything other than the evil way they are described by their, rabbis, teachers, and parents. Who were themselves educated the that way growing up. They live in an intentional bubble of isolation as children for fear of the negative outside influences. They are indoctrinated to see all non Jews in an evil light. At best they are taught to act civilly with them on the outside but to hate them and their way of life in their hearts. (I actually heard a lecture like that from one minor Chasidic Rebbe!)
By emphasizing how evil the outside word is, it doesn’t take much to see cheating the government as practically a Mitzvah in service of supporting their families.
Of course cheating the government is not limited to these Chasidim. There are unfortunately many non Chasidic Jews - both religious and non religious - that have been guilty of that. Some of them on a very large scale. And it isn’t limited to Jews. There are a lot of white collar criminals in prison and I would hazard a guess that most of them are not Jewish.
So the bottom line for me is this. The education they are being deprived of not only short changes them financially, it short changes them as civilized members of the greater society in which they live. Which in some cases recently has seen some really ugly demonstrations during the COVID pandemic. Their contempt for the government already exists – waiting to be released at just such a moment.
Does this mean that we should allow the government to demand a complete overhaul of our schools to the point of destroying their very essence? Of course not. What it does mean, I think, is that we must do whatever it takes to assure their schools provide their children the same kind of education the vast majority of other Orthodox schools provide for their children. To me that is just plain common sense.
