In an early morning filing, Bobov, Chabad and Satmar submitted a thorough federal civil rights complaint detailing the discriminatory practices of the New York City and State Education Departments targeting their yeshivas. They complain that “the discriminatory conduct pervades every aspect of yeshiva education,” and explain that if the City and State got their way “they would no longer be Jewish schools.”
If these allegations are true, then I agree with the lawsuit. Governments in a free society have no right to impose their own cultural values upon a community whose religious values differ from theirs. If that is what they mean by saying that if the City and State got their way “they would no longer be Jewish schools.” Then they have every right to sue and maintain their culture.
My only problem is with another lawsuit being brought against the state requiring that a core secular curriculum be taught in those schools. For reasons beyond the scope of this post, I am on the side of the government on that one.
But I’m not sure exactly what the government is asking of them here; and why they are objecting so much. The fact that this lawsuit is being brought solely by only 3 (albeit major) Chasidic communities makes me wonder why non Chasidic communities haven’t joined them. I suspect that’s because their schools have not experienced this kind of discrimination.
Which makes me suspect about their assertion that if the City and State got their way “they would no longer be Jewish schools.” If other Orthodox parochial schools are being left alone, it must be that they are somehow in compliance with these government requests. And yet I don’t see any of them complaining that they are in danger of no longer being Jewish schools.
There is another facet of this that is troubling as well. Which goes beyond just maintaining their own values. It veers into crossing the line into actual curriculum requirements. As Rabbi Aaron Twerski notes:
Their refusal to recognize Jewish studies as part of a satisfactory curriculum is abhorrent. Their actions would lead to the destruction of Torah education in our school...
Among the charges is that New York has targeted Jewish Studies (limudei kodesh) classes for discriminatory treatment; prohibits yeshivas but not public schools from teaching required classes in a foreign language…
“[I]f you do go to a school where they say we have great history instruction and it’s actually happening in the morning in our Talmudic class, and you go to see it and it is in Aramaic, that would not qualify” as credited instruction.”
With all due respect to Rabbi Twerski, I don’t understand. First, I don’t know why a religious curriculum should be recognized as part of a secular studies curriculum . Secondly - a history lesson in Aramaic? Is there any Yeshiva that teaches the history of any people or culture in Aramaic? Learning Gemarah (which is in Aramaic) where occasionally one comes across certain historical events hardly qualifies as teaching history. If the state requires history to be taught, it ought not be in the form of an occasional passage in the Talmud.
On the other hand there is this:
(New York) seeks to force yeshivas to use texts that they and their parent body find objectionable…
Robin Singer (a New York City Department of Education employee) has explicitly directed yeshivas to assign texts that are unacceptable to them. She explained that the purpose was to make sure that yeshiva students were “exposed to a range of materials that their parents and schools wouldn’t otherwise permit them to read.”
Here, I would agree with the complainants. If the texts and materials being required are designed
to expose these Chasidic Jewish children to values that are objectionable to
them religiously, then this is an infringement of the rights of parents to
teach their children their own values and not expose them to values that
violate their religious teachings.
But once again, I have to ask if this is the case, why haven’t all the other non
Chasidic schools joined them in this
lawsuit? I suspect the answer might be
that they have not been forced to use those textbooks or materials. Which makes me wonder
why only the Chasidic schools are being forced to do so?
What may be happening here is that since these schools do not offer a mandatory core secular curriculum, the government is going to force them and provide the texts and materials for it. And they have self righteously chosen culturally progressive books and materials to do so. Had these schools already had a secular curriculum, with books and materials that are not objectionable, they would have been left alone. As were those non Chasidic schools. That doesn't make the state right. But it makes it understandable.
It troubles me that it is being framed in such dire terms – as though
the state and city of New York have declared war on Jewish education. I don’t
think they have.
As much as I support the right of parents to educate their children with their own values that differ from those of the general culture, I do not support dodging a core secular education. Because (among other reasons) it denied their young a myriad of opportunities they might otherwise enjoy had it been made available to them. The same opportunities that non Chasidic schools that offer a core curriculum do -without affecting their Torah leaning at all.
