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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