Thursday, September 29, 2022
Man who said he was beaten by Hasidic safety patrol in Brooklyn awarded $4.5 million
A man who alleged he was partially blinded in an attack by members of a Hasidic safety patrol in Brooklyn was awarded $4.5 million earlier this month by a state Civil Court judge, the Daily News reported.
Taj Patterson, who is gay, reportedly told authorities he was walking home at around 4:30 a.m. on Flushing Avenue on Dec. 1, 2013, when several Hasidic men with the patrol, known as Shomrim, began assaulting him, yelling, "Stay down, f-----!"
The incident was investigated as a possible hate crime, according to the Daily News.
Five individuals were arrested; charges were dropped against two of them, while two others pleaded guilty to misdemeanor unlawful imprisonment in 2016, the News reported.
The fifth man, Mayer Herskovic, was convicted of gang assault in 2017, but his conviction was overturned in 2018 by an appeals court due to what the court cited as a lack of evidence.
The problem now will be collecting the money, according to the Daily News.
Despite a lack of insurance by the safety patrol, the city has continued to give them money, according to the outlet.
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Wednesday, September 28, 2022
War didn't stop Hasidic pilgrims from gathering in Ukraine for the Jewish new year
And this year, despite warnings from their home governments and Ukraine that the country is under invasion and could be dangerous, the festival went on. The crowd was about half the size as other years but still was around 23,000, according to organizers.
Ukrainian street signs are covered up so they can be displayed in Hebrew. Men flood the streets in white robes or long black coats. An array of different head coverings float above the crowds, from modern knit yarmulkes to traditional fur shtreimel hats. The few women who attend the pilgrimage stay separate from the men and declined to be interviewed.
The centerpiece is the tomb of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, a Jewish mystic who preached his vision of a joy-filled life across Ukrainian lands in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Followers of the Breslov tradition say that the pilgrimage has gone on since 1811, despite several wars and regime changes.
Pilgrims this year arrived in Ukraine overland because the country's airports have been closed since February.
"I met somebody on the plane to Krakow, so we all shared a car and came together," says Moishe Tisch, who's made the pilgrimage from New York to Uman 10 times. "You don't know if there's going to be food or if you're going to have a place to sleep."
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Friday, September 23, 2022
Long Beach police step up patrols for Jewish holidays amid rise in antisemitic crimes
The Long Beach Police Department announced it is providing extra patrols at synagogues for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
Long Beach police on Friday announced enhanced security for the upcoming Jewish High Holy Days.
The stepped-up patrols are in response to antisemitic flyers distributed in the community over the summer and a synagogue in Long Beach that was vandalized last year.
"We have a situational awareness, as well as all the intelligence necessary. In addition, we spoke to every synagogue to make sure the department is fully aware of their worship schedule. We will visit every synagogue as a way of delivering additional security and support," says Ronald J. Walsh Jr., Long Beach police commissioner.
Suffolk and Nassau police also say they will be stepping up patrols around religious synagogues for the upcoming Jewish holidays.
All say there is no specific threat to the community right now.
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Thursday, September 22, 2022
Iran Jews warned not to visit synagogues amid likely regime persecution
In an extraordinary security move, the Tehran Jewish community took to its Telegram page to announce that the city's tiny Jewish community should not visit synagogues because of the protests unfolding against the clerical regime.
The Iran expert Ben Sabti told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday that the Jewish community in Tehran issued an "unusual letter" reading: "Do not visit synagogues in Tehran due to the dangerous situation."
"There was never such a letter from the community, especially not before the Jewish holidays," said Sabti.
There has been widespread social unrest against the Iranian regime across the vast nation since the morality police of the Islamic Republic reportedly killed the 22-year-old woman Mahsa Amini for failing to comply with the hijab law.
Sabti, who was born in Tehran and made Aliyah in 1987, is an Iran researcher for The Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS).
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Monday, September 19, 2022
New York Times Ups Attack on Hasidic Jews, Publishing Editorial Riddled With Contradictions and Contempt
Another Sunday, another New York Times assault on Hasidic Jews.
This week's installment comes in the form of an editorial that suffers from a stunning logical contradiction. The editorial accuses the Hasidim of failing to teach their children the skills needed to participate in democracy. And the editorial simultaneously accuses the Hasidim of being so politically effective that they've managed successfully to influence New York politicians and thereby to ward off additional regulation.
Got that? The Times editorial claims that the students in the Hasidic schools "are being denied education in a common language and the other essential skills that enable Americans to meet their responsibilities as citizens." The Times contends that "there is hardly any instruction in English and math, and even less in science and civics."
Yet the Times also reports that "elected officials have been deeply reluctant to take decisive action to protect these children. The reality is that if they did they could face political reprisals from leaders of the Hasidic communities, who traditionally vote as a bloc, maximizing their sway in New York elections." If the Hasidim, supposedly lacking in "essential skills" and with less than "hardly any" instruction in civics, have already figured out how to maximize their sway in New York elections, what would be achieved by changing their schooling? And if their schooling is as inadequate as the Times claims, how have they managed to be so politically effective?
It's almost as if the Times editorialists themselves are suffering the effects of less-than-exactly-stellar educations. How else to explain the preposterous Times claim that "Massachusetts offers a model" for better private school regulation than New York? Consider the slew of recent scandals that have afflicted Massachusetts private schools. Teacher-student sexual contact at Deerfield Academy. Sex abuse claims by former students at Fessenden Academy. A doctor at Phillips Academy Andover sentenced on child pornography charges. A student at the Groton School sexually assaulted by other students. Boston College High School settled claims by 15 men who said that they were sexually molested by former school priests. One of the priests also served as a teacher and soccer and hockey coach.
Of the members of the Times editorial board, at least three, Farah Stockman, Alex Kingsbury, and Kathleen Kingsbury, are veterans of the Boston Globe, which won a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of sex abuse scandals in the Catholic Church. A fourth, Binyamin Appelbaum, is a product of Maimonides School, which is in Brookline, Massachusetts. You might think they'd know something about the limits of private school regulation in Massachusetts. Unless the Times thinks abuse by Hasidic Jewish teachers in Brooklyn is unacceptable but abuse by teachers at fancy New England prep schools or Boston Catholic schools is fine, it's hard to imagine why the Times editorial writers would cite Massachusetts, with its tragic track record, as a model of private school regulation. Massachusetts requires no standardized academic testing at private schools.
If the Times did have a double standard for Jews when it comes to acceptable behavior, alleged abusive behavior by teachers wouldn't be the only example of such a double standard. The Times criticizes Yeshivas for failing to teach English, complaining that students "are being denied education in a common language." The term "common language" is pretty comical, offering an explanation of why the Times might single out for proposed persecution by New York government authorities schools where the language of instruction is Yiddish, but not, say, Chinese, or Arabic, or Spanish.
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How New York Times-style advocacy journalism can fuel anti-Semitism
On September 12, 2022, the Twitter account of the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) accused religious Jews of diverting resources from New York public schools to lavishly fund Hasidic yeshivas. The accusation, which is evocative of familiar anti-Semitic tropes, referred to an article by The New York Times that campaigned against Hasidic schools in New York State.
The NYCLU took the article's accusations and turned them into a race-based attack on whites (in this case, meaning Jews) who allegedly benefit from the exploitation of students of color, saying, "For years, district leaders in East Ramapo have extracted resources from public schools, which are almost entirely attended by students of color, in order to lavishly fund yeshivas attended by white students."
The Times article that provided the fodder for the anti-Semitic tweet was published in anticipation of a scheduled vote by the New York Board of Regents on enforcement of stricter regulations and greater oversight over education provided by private and parochial schools.
Authored by Eliza Shapiro, Brian Rosenthal and Jonah Markowitz, the headline was "In Hasidic Enclaves, Failing Private Schools Flush With Public Money" (online) and "Failing Schools, Public Funds" (print). It consisted of a 6,000-word description of the authors' investigation into Hasidic schools. The article appeared as the front page, above-the-fold feature of the Sept. 11 print edition of the newspaper and was the centerpiece of what appeared to be a preplanned campaign of similar allegations. In addition, an online appeal, complete with a form to submit, invited readers to share "stories" about their experiences in Hasidic schools.
In a subsequent article, "N.Y. State Vote Could Raise Pressure on Officials Over Hasidic Schools" (online Sept. 11, print Sept. 12) the authors reiterated their charges, tying their report to the pressure being put on public officials to exercise greater oversight of such schools. A third article published by the authors, "New York Lawmakers Call for More Oversight of Hasidic Schools" (online Sept. 12, print Sept. 13), again repeated the charges, implying their investigation had prompted the critical views being voiced by some state officials.
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Friday, September 16, 2022
Modesty gone mad? ‘Toe-sheitel’ advert aimed at strictly-Orthodox women
Appealing to strictly-Orthodox women who want to look great but conform to their communities' standards for conservative dress, the ad peddles "high quality" and "durable" silicone toes that buyers can slip on over their own, allowing them to wear sandals without having their own feet be seen.
"Do you want to be fashionable but also tzniuysdyig?" the ad says, using a Yiddish form of the word for modest. "Do you want to look stylish but would never c'v [God forbid] wear open toes [sic] shoes?"
The ad resembled many real ones that circulate in the Charedi Orthodox marketplace, where orders often must be placed by phone or in person because internet use is frowned upon and small-batch innovations that facilitate religious observance hit shelves frequently. But it also smacked of satire at a time when some Jewish women are trying to push back against norms that dictate their attire, police their accessories and keep their faces out of some Orthodox publications.
Speculation about whether the mysterious ad is real or a prank — and what each might mean for Orthodox communities — has occupied a segment of the Orthodox world this week. Many are calling the product "toe sheitels" for the similar role they play to sheitels, or the wigs some married Orthodox women wear to cover their own hair in keeping with Jewish tradition.
"Some think it is real. Some think it is a joke," Sharon Weiss-Greenberg, a longtime activist in Orthodox feminism, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about the toe sheitels. "I think it is a joke. But I think the fact that so many think that it isn't is a problem — the fact that it is plausible."
The ad listed a phone number with an area code in New York's Hudson Valley area for placing orders. Multiple calls this week by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency starting on Monday went straight to voicemail — perhaps one indicator of the business' seriousness.
At least one person appears to have gotten through. In a widely circulated video taken Monday morning, a man holds back laughter during a seven-minute call with the person who answered the phone, who identifies herself as Chana. The caller probes the company's offerings, learning that the toe coverings can be customised in different skin tones for Ashkenazi and Sephardi clients. They can also come with nail polish in shades named after Orthodox schools.
Buyers who want bunions or moles to make their fake toes more realistic have that option as long as they're willing to pay for it, the caller is told.
"You know sometimes when a woman gets a sheitel and they sprinkle fake dandruff in the sheitel?" Gvuras Chana says. "So it's like that."
The conversation hits on several contemporary controversies in Orthodox communities. Orders can take some time because the fake-toe supply chain from China was interrupted by "the fake disease COVID," the sales rep says, alluding to medical misinformation that has been rife in the Orthodox world during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The colour named after Yeshiva University could change, she says, if the Supreme Court allows it to reject what she calls "the gay club," referring to the LGBTQ student group that has been battling the Modern Orthodox flagship university for the right to operate. (On Wednesday, the court said the school would have to allow the club while pursuing a legal effort to bar it.)
And after telling the caller that people who pay for expensive vacations over Passover can likely afford the new product, Chana offers an explicit critique of the competitive displays of wealth that are characteristic of some Orthodox communities.
"It's not supposed to be another measurement of how much money you have and how fancy you can be," she says. "Although, we're afraid that it might get to that."
The call was authentic, the caller's wife posted on Facebook, adding that the couple was not connected to the company or the prank, whichever it was. Others who could fit the profile of a toe-sheitel fabulist also said they were not involved, both publicly and to JTA, which contacted half a dozen women suggested as likely suspects because of their feminist activism or history of Orthodox parody videos.
The tradition of covering one's hair after marriage is rooted firmly in Jewish law, known as halacha, and Orthodox women who are pushing for greater women's leadership generally do not oppose it. Toes are not subject to specific laws, but there is a general commandment to dress modestly, as well as countless examples of rabbinic decrees and community norms expanding the bounds of what is considered modest.
But in parts of the Orthodox world, there are disputes about the use of human-hair wigs, which can cost up to $3,000 and require salon care, with some arguing that an expensive and realistic wig defeats the purpose of wearing a hair covering for modesty purposes. Some Orthodox women will instead choose to cover their hair with a scarf or hat. The existence of designer wigs can also put financial pressure on women who feel compelled to blend in with the other women in their community.
The toe sheitels can be understood as a commentary of some of those dynamics. But the images in the ad offer little illumination about whether the service is real. Prosthetic toes like the ones in the ad are used by people with foot injuries or congenital conditions and people who have had toes amputated due to complications from diabetes; they can be found easily with a quick Google search. The fake toes in the ad also resemble those used by nail technicians to practice nail art.
Other replicas of body parts have been produced for observant Jews in the past, though for different reasons. In 2015, an Israeli barber came out with a kippah made of synthetic hair so men could meet the requirement to cover their heads without immediately outing them as religious Jews.
Chochmat Nashim, an organisation whose name means "the wisdom of women" and aims to include women in Orthodox decision-making, said online that it had not created the ad. The group has been focused this week on a new cookbook released by ArtScroll, an Orthodox publisher, in which women are represented by photographs of ingredients, not themselves. Many Orthodox publications do not show women, citing modesty reasons, a practice that Chochmat Nashim and others argue erases women from their own communities.
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Thursday, September 15, 2022
Suspect arrested in hate crime assault against Jewish man in Queens
A 34-year-old man faces hate crime assault charges for attacking a Jewish man while spewing hate speech in Queens on Tuesday, according to the Queens District Attorney's Office.
James Purcell started yelling anti-Semitic remarks at a 58-year-old Jewish man around 11:40 a.m. near the intersection of Beach 25th Street and Beach Channel Drive in Far Rockaway, prosecutors alleged.
He then started punching the victim in the face while continuing to berate him for his religion, officials said.
Police accused Purcell of fleeing when they tried to detain him and flailing his arms and body in an attempt to resist arrest.
"This defendant is accused of assaulting an individual of the Jewish faith while making anti-Semitic statements," said Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz. "We will not tolerate assault motivated by hate in the most diverse county in the world. These acts are offenses against our shared values and our shared right to safety and peace in our neighborhoods."
Purcell was arraigned by a Queens Criminal Court Thursday on a six-count criminal complaint for hate crime assault, resisting arrest and related crimes.
If convicted, he faces up to four years in prison.
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Wednesday, September 14, 2022
What The New York Times’ story on Hasidic schools misses
The flyers in the synagogues in my Staten Island neighborhood read: "Chaverim Jr. — We're happy to announce we are accepting new members. Please call… Thank you."
"Chaverim" — "friends" in Hebrew — is the name for many volunteer groups in Orthodox Jewish communities that assist their neighbors — Jewish or not — free of charge, with roadside assistance and other help. In my community, a cadre of boys 12-16 years old do things like repair bicycles and scooters and move furniture.
The members of "Chaverim Jr." are all Haredim — what the media likes to call "ultra-Orthodox" — Jewish boys. Many, if not most, are Hasidim, a subset of the Haredi world. They all attend religious schools, called yeshivas, whose curricula are expected to be more closely regulated by the New York State Education Department. Others are under ferocious attack by, among others, The New York Times.
On Sunday (Sept. 11), the Times dedicated four full pages, beginning on its front page, to a story that cherry-picked data and haphazardly generalized about standards and practices in some of the state's yeshivas. It also accused Hasidic educational institutions of employing unqualified and violent teachers, censoring textbooks, forcing boys to memorize meaningless material, manipulating elections and hoarding public funds.
The education at yeshivas, it went on, deprived students of the means to make a living, leaving the Hasidic community impoverished.
The Times focused on the few dollars per child that yeshiva students receive for things like school safety and nutritious meals for qualifying students. This number represents a tiny fraction of the more than $28,000 spent on each New York City public school student: The story never let on that private schools in New York save the city's taxpayers more than $1 billion each year.
Many of the metrics in the Times article have been challenged by, among others, New York Assemblyman Simcha Eichenstein, who in the New York Sun noted exam results from New York yeshivas that don't match the Times' reporting. Tablet's Liel Leibovitz exposed other flaws in the Times' accusations, noting that while the yeshiva education is different, it is not necessarily worse.
More importantly, the Times let a disgruntled minority speak for an entire system. Its reporters relied on interviews with ex-Hasidim, some of whom remained anonymous. Why did the article's writers not speak with any of the vast majority of Hasidic parents or former students who cherish the education offered by their yeshivas?
The writers say members of the Hasidic community wouldn't speak with them. That's unsurprising, considering the Times' record of negativity toward Haredim. But a reporter's job is still to work to find the necessary interviewees to present all sides of an issue.
As to the hopelessness of Hasidic students' economic prospects, that dire conclusion is belied by a look at any Hasidic community, where you will find men and women who choose to become teachers or to engage in religion-centric professions. Others choose higher secular education, entering fields such as medicine or law.
Many more run small and large businesses of every sort. And there are plumbers and electricians, car repairmen, computer programmers and IT specialists. I could introduce you to accountants, speech and physical therapists, bus drivers, social workers, Amazon sellers, butchers and bakers — yes, even candlestick makers.
Among my neighbors who are Hasidic, I count therapists, successful businessmen and at least one jewelry designer. Another, when I met him on a Sabbath walk and asked him what he does for a living, responded nonchalantly, "I'm a personal trainer."
Any lack of parity between some yeshivas and public schools doesn't seem to have adversely affected the prospects of the yeshiva graduates. Somehow (apologies, Paul Simon), their lives of Jewish education haven't hurt them none.
That's likely because, on the whole, yeshivas' rigorous, text-based religious studies hone students' critical thinking and imbue them with a keen sense of personal responsibility, not to mention inspire their donation of time and energy to help others through efforts like Chaverim and its junior varsity.
"The critical thinking, textual analysis, reading comprehension, argumentation skills; the historical knowledge, the foreign language acquisition, the legal concepts; indeed, the Jewish culture, tradition, and ethical behavior … embedded in these schools' religious study are genuinely remarkable," said Moshe Krakowski, who directs Yeshiva University's Azrieli Graduate School of Jewish Education and Administration.
Aaron Twerski, a Hasid who served as dean at Hofstra Law School, authored more than 60 law journal articles and is considered an authority on tort law, wrote an impassioned letter decrying New York state's new rules for yeshivas as interference with Jewish education.
Instead of noting any of that, the Times castigates yeshivas for editing textbooks in ways that, while they might seem strange to strangers, accord with their particular worldview. The article notes the Hasidim's encouragement to their people to vote, which the paper never seems to judge a problem when it comes to "the Black vote" or "the Hispanic vote."
The Times said that many of its interviews contain descriptions of corporal punishment, though it cites only one corroborated case, in 2019; the school in question cooperated in the government's investigation, which found the allegation unfounded. If such punishment exists in any school, of course, it is inexcusable. But contrary to the Times' insinuation, it is not the norm in Hasidic schools.
The Times cites test scores but remains all but blind to real-life outcomes. Rather than look for actual or imagined faults in Hasidic yeshivas, they would do better to try to understand why Haredim, including Hasidim, are in fact successful in so many careers, and why they report high levels of satisfaction in their lives.
There are larger issues here: parental autonomy over children's education, as well as First Amendment guarantees of free exercise of religion. Haredim consider intensive Jewish education to be nothing less than a religious requirement.
Some in the Haredi community see the recent Times piece as antisemitism. That's unreasonable. The writers, by their surnames, are likely Jews. The paper's publisher has Jewish roots. None of them can be accused of antipathy toward Jews.
And yet the subtle and false message of the article, especially its print headline, "Failing Schools, Public Funds," is that some Jews are irresponsible and misappropriaters of funds, does echo age-old canards about Jews.
The disparagement here, though, is aimed by some Jews against some other Jews. My decades as media liaison for a national Orthodox Jewish organization have long led me to conclude that Haredi Jews have become, in effect, "the Jews' Jews."
The Times piece, sadly, confirms that fact.
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Tuesday, September 13, 2022
What Rights Do Hasidic Schools Have?
The recently published New York Times report on the educational practices of some of New York's Hasidic elementary and secondary schools, many of them run by Satmar Jewish groups, is prompting state and local officials to crack down on their alleged deficiencies. The response has sparked a furious reaction from many Jewish leaders.
Understanding this controversy forces us back to first principles.
No right is absolute, not even the free exercise of religion, because the government has fundamental interests that can override individual claims in some circumstances. Some of these interests concern the time, place and manner in which rights are exercised. For example, local governments have the authority to preserve public order by banning groups from conducting late-night religious revivals in residential areas.
In extreme cases, the government may prohibit forms of religious exercise outright. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints gave up polygamy in the 19th century under pressure from Washington, and obviously human sacrifice would never be tolerated.
In education, the courts have balanced the legitimate interests of the faithful and the broader society. U.S. courts have long held that state governments can require all children to attend school up to a certain age and prescribe the core subjects that all children—whether in public, private or parochial schools—are expected to study. These basic requirements may include a substantial amount of instruction in the English language. Schools may choose to add instruction above this baseline, but they must not fall below it. If they do, government may intervene to enforce compliance. By acting in this matter, government exercises its legitimate authority to educate its young to become good citizens and contributing members of society.
But religious freedom limits that authority. That was the issue posed in Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972). The state of Wisconsin required students to continue their education until age 16, contravening the Amish practice of ending education at 14 and having young people assume adult responsibilities in the community.
The Amish argued that their faith was more than inward belief; it is exercised through discharging the responsibilities of communal life. The state didn't challenge this claim but asserted that its responsibility to educate the young took priority.
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Monday, September 12, 2022
New York finalizes rules requiring private schools, including yeshivas, to prove they meet standards
New York's proposed new regulations for private schools elicited hundreds of thousands of public comments, years of debate and intense activism on every side. But on Monday morning, a key education policy committee signed off on the regulations quickly and unanimously.
The regulations are proposed amendments to New York State's "substantial equivalency" regulations meant to clarify how the state determines that private schools offer instruction that is similar to that offered in public schools. New York's Board of Regents, which sets education policy for the state, has been weighing them since 2018, spurred largely by criticism of the state's Hasidic Jewish yeshivas.
The 2018 regulations were thrown out by a state judge in 2019 on procedural grounds, after religious groups, including several representing the yeshivas, challenged them in court. The newest version, introduced this past spring, allows private schools to pick from among multiple options — including being reviewed by local public school authorities, taking state-approved assessments or being approved by an accreditation organization — and also clarifies that schools that offer state exams will not have to allow education officials to inspect them.
Monday's vote only solidified rules on the methods the state will use to determine equivalency, not the actual curriculum schools need to follow. Still, for major stakeholders, including leaders in Hasidic yeshivas, the vote signifies that the state will start paying more attention to an area that they have been lax on enforcing in recent years.
The Regents' signoff, which is expected to be complete Tuesday after a vote by the full board, comes one day after the New York Times published a major investigation concluding that in the Hasidic yeshivas, "generations of children have been systematically denied a basic education, trapping many of them in a cycle of joblessness and dependency."
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Friday, September 09, 2022
New York Hasidic community denounces upcoming New York Times report on yeshivas
The New York Times plans to soon publish a monthslong investigation of Hasidic yeshivas documenting widespread failures in secular subjects; poor training of English teachers and few hours devoted to nonreligious subjects; and the "use of severe corporal punishment, which creates an environment of fear that makes learning difficult," according to a summary of its findings obtained by the Forward.
Though the investigation has not yet been released, Hasidic leaders have already begun to denounce it based on the summary, which the Times' reporters sent to the institutions that were the subject of its study, seeking comment. The article comes as New York's Board of Regents prepares to vote later this month on an initiative that would allow the state to reject a yeshiva's secular curriculum, after heated, yearslong debate over how much government oversight should be allowed in private schools.
Many Hasidic leaders see the proposed change as an attack on religious freedom, and some have already denounced The Times' investigation. State Rep. Simcha Eichenstein, who represents the Orthodox Brooklyn enclave of Borough Park, penned a scathing OpEd in The New York Sun on Wednesday saying the report is based on "cherry-picked numbers."
The Times "concedes that the majority of those to whom they spoke are not members of — or have left — the Hasidic community. Wonder why?" Eichenstein wrote. "Look in the mirror, Gray Lady. When you have a track record of demonizing Orthodox Jews, why would any sensible Hasidic or Orthodox Jew want to speak to you?"
A spokesperson for The Times did not respond to requests for comment before publication.
In the email summary obtained by the Forward, the reporters, Brian Rosenthal and Eliza Shapiro, say they interviewed 275 people, including 175 current or former students and parents and 50 current or former school employees, "dozens" of whom are "still in the Hasidic community." They said their reporting also included budget documents and state test scores, and focused on a network of 150 boys' schools in Brooklyn and the lower Hudson Valley that serve about 50,000 students.
Among their key findings, according to the email summary:
Most boys' schools teach English and math four days a week, "often for 90 minutes at a time after hours of grueling religious lessons," and only for students ages 8 to 12.
Instructors for these subjects are "often woefully unqualified," hired off Craigslist or ads placed on lampposts and paid $15 an hour. Some are not fluent in English themselves, and some schools ban students from speaking English at home and censor textbooks.
99% of the students in grades 3 to 8 in boys' schools who took state standardized tests in the most recent year available failed; the Hasidic yeshivas had the worst results of any schools in the state. About 80% of the girls in Hasidic schools failed these tests.
While private, the schools have received about $1 billion in public funds over the past five years, including $100 million specifically for secular education.
The article will also talk about the Hasidic community's political power, which was studied via voting records, and how the schools play a central role — including by sending home sample ballots and awarding students who brought "I Voted" stickers to school with a trip to Coney Island, while children who did not bring the stickers had to stay back at school.
The reporters said in their memo they will attribute poverty rates in the Hasidic community at least partly to this lack in secular education. As for corporal punishment, the reporters say in the summary that they have "heard dozens of stories of teachers in the last 10 years hitting kids with belts, sticks and rulers," and that some Hasidic schools have asked teachers in the last few years "to be less violent, but corporal punishment has remained common."
"Sometimes," they added, "it is so severe that boys call 911."
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Thursday, September 08, 2022
Former Chief Rabbi of Moscow Urges Jews to Leave Russia
Russia's Jews should take the opportunity now to leave the country because of the rise of antisemitism and the possibility that they'll be trapped inside the country if the Iron Curtain should close again, Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, the former chief rabbi of Moscow, says in a new interview.
"I'm concerned about the future of the Jewish community in Russia, and I'm not the only one concerned," Goldschmidt told the German outlet DW News. "Tens of thousands of Jews have left the country since the beginning of the [Ukraine] invasion."
Goldschmidt, who had been the chief rabbi for more than 30 years, left Russia in March, just two weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine, reports the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. His daughter-in-law, journalist Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt has said that Moscow was pressuring him to support the war publicly, but he refused.
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Wednesday, September 07, 2022
‘Fringe’ Oakland mayoral candidate goes after Jews in widely distributed email
Oakland mayoral candidate Peter Y. Liu sent an email calling Jews "evil," "hateful" and "corrupt" to dozens of Bay Area journalists, news organizations, Jewish community contacts and fellow candidates on Sunday.
Liu, who ran for mayor unsuccessfully in 2014 and 2018 and has made outlandish statements in the past, wrote that he and other candidates have been excluded from an upcoming mayoral candidate forum that will focus on Jewish issues. It is co-hosted by the S.F.-based Jewish Community Relations Council and Temple Sinai in Oakland.
Billed as a forum for the "leading candidates" in the race, the Sept. 15 event will include the three people who have raised the most in campaign funds, according to Tye Gregory, JCRC's CEO.
"These same hateful Jews posted security guards with instructions to not let me into their s**tty forum in 2014," Liu wrote, alluding to an event that featured seven candidates, including incumbent Jean Quan and council members Rebecca Kaplan and Libby Schaaf, who ended up winning.
"These s**tty Jews are once against [sic] trying to disrespect the voters of Oakland in rigging the election process by promoting a few candidates they've handpicked to be in front of Jews controlled media," he wrote. "I am sick of these corrupt Jews and their media allies deceiving the public."
The upcoming forum, which will be held in person at Temple Sinai and also livestreamed, will bring together candidates Treva Reid, Loren Taylor and Sheng Thao (all current Oakland council members) to speak about their positions on "the critical issues facing our community and the city of Oakland, such as rising hate against Jews and other minorities, advancing racial and economic justice [and] ensuring community security," according to the JCRC event webpage.
Both Reid and Taylor are African American, and in 2018 Thao became the first Hmong American elected to the Oakland City Council. The same trio was featured in a mayoral forum on Aug. 15 co-hosted by Visit Oakland and the Jack London Improvement District.
Liu — who also ran for governor in a 2018 primary, finishing in 10th place out of 28 candidates with 0.4% of the 6.9 million ballots cast — has garnered media attention for inflammatory claims in the past.
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Tuesday, September 06, 2022
Russia’s rabbis call for peace in Ukraine
An array of Russian rabbis are calling for an end to the fighting in Ukraine and expressing concern about the conflict creating tension for Jews in Russia.
The gathering of rabbis was organized by the Federation of Jewish Communities in Russia, one of the country's two largest Jewish organizations.
"Relations between Russia and the rest of the world have rapidly deteriorated since the invasion began in February, resulting in economic uncertainty and, of significant concern to the Jewish community in particular, a sense of fear and isolation not felt in decades," says a statement from the federation.
The conference issues a resolution calling "for peace and the cessation of the bloodshed," the statement says.
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Friday, September 02, 2022
A pro-Palestinian YouTuber tried trolling Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn. Here’s what happened
A video of a self-described comedian approaching Hasidic Jews on the streets of Brooklyn and asking them their thoughts on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has gone viral on Orthodox Jewish twitter.
That's not because observant Jews are happy about the video, which has been reshared thousands of times and has had more than 250,000 views on YouTube since it was posted by Abdullah Almasmari, also known as Dulla Mulla, on Aug. 26.
Rather, it's because many have deemed the video — in which Almasmari asks Orthodox passersby to, among other things, "justify Israel's actions toward Palestine" — deeply offensive.
"It's antisemitic to just go up to random US Jews and hold them accountable for Israel's actions," wrote Elad Nehorai, a writer who calls himself ex-Hasidic, after sharing a clip that was first put up on a Twitter profile called Hasidic. "Gross." He shared a clip on Twitter, which led others in the Orthodox online world to take notice.
In the video, Almasmari approaches traditionally garbed men on the streets of Crown Heights and Borough Park on a Friday afternoon, as Shabbat approaches. One patron gives him a rabbinical and thoughtful response to a question about what he thinks about "the conflict," but most outright ignore him or politely tell him to "have a good day."
Rabbi David Bashevkin, a Jewish educator with a notable online presence, told the New York Jewish Week that Amasmari is "doing something very wrong."
"It's right on the foul line of almost overt antisemitism," said Bashevkin, who is director of education for NCSY, the Orthodox youth movement. "Because I have a beard and payos I have to weigh in on Israel and Palestine for your Youtube content? I don't think that's fair."
Attitudes toward Israel in the haredi Orthodox community are more diverse than some outside of the community might suspect. While Modern Orthodox Jews tend to consider themselves Zionists and have strong personal and political ties with the Jewish state, some haredi and Hasidic movements are indifferent to the country's secular government on spiritual grounds or are even actively anti-Zionist.
This is not Almasmari's first targeted prank videos aimed at the Jewish community. In March 2021, Almasmari, who appears to live in Detroit, went to a kosher shop in Michigan and recorded reactions from Jewish people after showing them a Palestinian flag with the words, "Free Palestine." In another video, he goes into a grocery store and douses visibly Orthodox Jews with water from a spray bottle.
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