Wednesday, May 31, 2023
Belzer Rebbe founds organization for those who leave Torah path
The Belzer Rebbe has ordered the founding of an organization which will support those who leave his community, without any intention of bringing them back into the religious community.
The organization, which is called, "Ahavat Kodmim," was founded after a 23-year-old former Belzer hasid committed suicide due to severe emotional distress.
According to sources close to the Belzer Rebbe, the young man's suicide sent shockwaves throughout the community and brought about the understanding that the disconnect between those who leave the community and their families is destructive and unacceptable.
"They studied in our schools throughout their lives; even though they decided not to keep Torah and its commandments, we must take care of them throughout and embrace them, without any conditions," one of the organization's founders was quoted as saying on Galatz.
Recently, a group of about 30 former Belzer hasidim traveled to the city of Belz and other places in Europe, as part of a trip organized by the hasidic sect.
Though many former Belzer hasidim remain in contact with their families, the fact that the hasidic sect encourages this, and even founded an organization to encourage it at the urging of the hasidic sect's leader, is unprecedented.
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Tuesday, May 30, 2023
Hasidic pop singer Lipa Schmeltzer reveals he was sexually abused
Hasidic pop singer Lipa Schmeltzer, one of the prominent singers in the haredi sector, went public last week with a pair of YouTube videos revealing that he suffered sexual abuse as a child.
The videos, released in Hebrew and English, touched on Schmeltzer's difficult childhood, and the therapy he has since undergone.
"I have gone through many difficult things in my life," he shared in the Hebrew video, posted on his YouTube channel just before the Shavuot holiday.
"At that time, they would take this child to live elsewhere, without going to court, without calling it rape. I don't want to make a story out of it. I'm not looking to go back and judge people; I want to move forward."
"I am sharing this after much thought, in order to be whole with myself, with all the families who hear my music, so that they truly know who Lipa Schmeltzer is from within." He added that he prays his video "changes someone's life."
In the English video, Schmeltzer elaborated about the therapy he underwent for years, following various childhood traumas.
"I've been through a lot of trauma. I've been through every type of abuse – physically, mental, verbal, and I'm not here to point fingers."
Regarding the handling of such abuse within the tightly-knit Skver Hasidic community he grew up in in New Square, New York, Schmeltzer linked the inability of his parents and teachers to support him as a child to the legacy of the Holocaust."
"I will tell you not to judge. The teachers who were teaching me… were taught by Holocaust survivors."
"The Hasidic community, the 'black-and-white' community, the haredi community, was founded by people who came out of the concentration camps. We carry this in our DNA, we carry the trauma, we carry the pain."
"These people, including my father and mother, never went for therapy. My father never saw the funeral of his father, because his father is in a mass grave. And he carried that."
"Why am I sharing all this? All my fans know me, they are connected to me. They know my music, but I get all these judgments sometimes – 'why do you do this or that'."
"I feel like talking about my real me will help me move forward."
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Thursday, May 25, 2023
Jewish pupils eating just a bagel for lunch amid kosher crisis, Parliament told
Some Jewish children are surviving on just a bagel for lunch due to school meal funding problems, the Government's antisemitism adviser told Parliament.
News emerged this week that a second kosher caterer has withdrawn its services from 18 Jewish schools in London due to spiralling costs.
As hundreds of pupils from deprived areas go without hot meals, bakeries stepped in to provide them with lunchtime bagels.
Independent peer Lord Mann told peers in Westminster: "There's currently some Jewish children having to survive, due to the funding formula, on a bagel every dinner time.
"Is that acceptable? And if not, which minister is going to sort it out?"
Lord Mann, former Labour MP and chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group Against Antisemitism for 15 years, took up the role as a Government adviser in 2019.
Health minister Lord Markham responded: "I think and hope that every child would have something more nutritious and more healthy than just a bagel.
"It is something that I will happily discuss. I'm not familiar with that particular case but it is something that I will happily take up."
London Kosher Caterers (LKC) stepped in to cook lunch for the 18 schools earlier this year after the previous supplier, Signature Dining, went bust.
However, they found the costs of delivering kosher meals far outstripped the funding the schools had from Government.
Miriam Kaye, headteacher at Mathilda-Marks Kennedy Primary school, told Jewish News that LKC was unable to provide a hot meal for less than £5.50 per child – more than £2 more than the school receives from the Government per pupil.
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Wednesday, May 24, 2023
First Shabbat Observant Student Body President Elected at University of California Santa Barbara
As college students across California prepared to close the book on another academic year, a deluge of antisemitic incidents swept across the state's campuses in May, with students celebrating the birthday of Adolf Hitler at UC Santa Cruz and graffitiing swastikas on the walls of a bathroom at UC San Diego. But amid the darkness, students at UC Santa Barbara made the historic choice to elect the school's first ever Shabbat observant student body president.
Tessa Veksler, a third year political science major, was elected on April 27 as president of UCSB Associated Students (AS) with 51 percent of the vote. She will begin her tenure on Wednesday and over the next year will act as a liaison between UC Santa Barbara Chancellor Henry T. Land and the school's 23,000 undergraduates.
"I hope that students realize that they can advocate for themselves and that the more there are observant Jews in the workplace, the more changes there will be to accommodate people like us," Veksler told The Algemeiner on Tuesday.
Veksler, 21, explained that becoming president had always been a "far-distant" goal of hers. But Russia's invasion of Ukraine, from which her family emigrated in the 1990s, compelled her to run.
"When the conflict started, I was one of the only Ukrainian students within student government, and so many students turned to me for advice," she said. "In working to help international students in Ukraine I realized how very few resources were available and that the ones that were available were not well known."
Balancing school and religious obligations is a challenge for Jewish members of the academic community, and on multiple occasions, events organized by campus groups have been held on Shabbat to prevent their participation in important meetings. Jewish students have also been expelled from campus groups for supporting Israel, as happened at State University of New York-New Paltz in 2022, when Cassandra Blotner was forced out of a sexual assault awareness group she co-founded.
Veksler said she has prepared for any possible hiccups in advance, notifying her staff that her Shabbat observance is non-negotiable and that, starting sundown on Fridays, her powers and responsibilities will be delegated to other AS officers. She remains assured, however, that her commitment to the practice is supported by her peers.
"I think that people have, if anything, expressed admiration for my being able to observe on a college campus," she said. "You know, it's a college campus, everyone wants to be partying on a Friday night and using their phones to relax after a hard week. Both Jews and non-Jews have expressed very positive comments about this."
Rabbi Evan Goodman of Santa Barbara Hillel, a nonprofit that provides resources and counsels to Jewish college students in the area, is also optimistic about Veksler's upcoming administration, telling The Algemeiner that the student body widely supported her candidacy.
"That Tessa is who she is and is able to be proudly and unapologetically Jewish thrills me," Goodman said. "UCSB is a great campus for Jewish students, and her election continues a recent history of Jewish students taking their place as leaders and getting elected as leaders. I'm looking forward to her next year in office and seeing her bring all of her talents, and skills and passions to university leadership."
"Having a student body president who is in the position to be able to explain, for example, the need for Yom Kippur accommodations is immensely positive," said Alyza Lewin, president of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law. "When there's an Orthodox Jewish Sabbath observer as a student body president, they are able to make sure that Jewish students do not miss out on club fairs or other student programming. They're also able to explain to make sure that faculty are made aware of the need to accommodate students' needs, and even to make sure that students are aware that they can request religious accommodations — for Yom Kippur, as well as Ramadan."
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Tuesday, May 23, 2023
In Morocco, conference brings together rabbis from three continents
Dozens of rabbinic families affiliated with the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement gathered in Casablanca, Morocco, last week for a conference aimed at Chabad leaders serving small Jewish communities across Africa, the Middle East and Europe.
They came from 40 different countries, some making the short hop from mainland Spain or its Canary Islands, others coming from as far as Zambia.
"A criteria to come to participate in this conference was to come from a community where you've had to schlep kosher food in a suitcase," Rabbi Mendy Chitrik, a Chabad rabbi based in Istanbul and the director of the Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States, joked to Religion News Service.
In truth, the gathering had no such entry bar, but it is a reality that strictly Orthodox Jews like Chitrik and his colleagues face when based far outside of large traditional Jewish communities.
That's Chabad's modus operandi.
The Hasidic sect has made a name for itself traveling to wherever Jews may be to provide outlets for Jewish life there.
For some rabbis that means spending much of their time catering to Israeli tourists or business travelers in far-flung locales. For others, it means settling in a Jewish community that may once have been historically vibrant, but today is aging and in decline after a century of upheaval for the global Jewish community.
Such rabbis are called "shluchim," or emissaries, and their wives, who serve an essential role in the movement, are called "rebetzins." Both gathered together in Casablanca to discuss the issues they face.
"When a Chabad rabbi moves to a country, it's a permanent station," Rabbi Levi Duchman, who came to the conference from the United Arab Emirates, told RNS.
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Monday, May 22, 2023
Sizable Explosive Device Thrown At Jewish Residents In Lakewood
Two pickup trucks in Lakewood Township, New Jersey approached a group of Jewish residents walking down the street, sped off and seconds later, an explosion was seen nearby.
Police in Lakewood said today that nobody was injured in the incident, and the individuals were about 50 to 100 feet away from an incendiary device that was tossed from the window of one of the vehicles.
The frightening incident occurred on Saturday as residents were observing the Sabbath in this predominantly Orthodox Jewish enclave in the vicinity of Squankum Road and Shafto Road
Residents called police and reported an explosion and the presence of smoke. Officer Daniel Spagnuolo was promptly dispatched to the scene to assess the situation.
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Thursday, May 18, 2023
London firefighters scold British synagogue for lighting holiday bonfire indoors
London's fire and rescue service gave a statement reminding Jewish congregations to keep holiday bonfires outdoors after the city's Jewish News outlet shared video of a synagogue celebrating Lag B'Omer with an indoor fire last week.
The video showed a fire raging inside Beis Medrash Beis Shmuel, a haredi Orthodox synagogue in Golders Green, a heavily Jewish neighborhood of London.
The congregation purportedly started the fire indoors because of rainy local conditions on the holiday.
Under traditional Jewish law, Lag B'Omer is the one day in the mourning period between Passover (often in April) and Shavuot (often in late May or early June) on which observant Jews can do certain things such as get a haircut or hold weddings. Bonfires are often used to mark the celebratory day.
"Though we are keen to see communities enjoying the festival of Lag b'Omer, we don't want to see anyone harmed as a result. You should never build a bonfire indoors," the London Fire Brigade told the Jewish News. "It's easy for fires to quickly spread out of control, putting properties and people's lives at risk."
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Wednesday, May 17, 2023
Joe Biden’s empty words about antisemitism
For those who think what Jews need is more official recognition of their heritage, it was a great afternoon. The White House celebration of Jewish American Heritage Month was a star-studded affair with the president, the first lady and second gentleman Doug Emhoff speaking, and also featured a performance with the stars of the Broadway play "Parade," a musical about the Leo Frank case.
The point of the show was not just to flatter Jews with an event celebrating their month, thus giving them a slice of the minority entitlement pie. Biden used it to highlight his stand against antisemitism and as a preview of an administration plan scheduled to be released later this month that will reveal a new "national strategy" to deal with the problem.
But the title of the interagency group that is working on the issue says all anyone needs to know about how serious—meaning, not at all—the administration is about fighting antisemitism. Far from coming up with a solution to a rising tide of Jew-hatred in the United States, it's likely that this administration, more than any of its predecessors, is actually making things worse.
Biden boasted about the White House task force on "antisemitism and Islamophobia" in his remarks at the Jewish Heritage Month, saying it represented a fulfillment of his own commitment to dealing with the problem. The president claims that it was the "Unite the Right" neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville, Va., in the summer of 2017 that convinced him to run for president. But while his opposition to neo-Nazis is unexceptionable, his decision to link antisemitism with Islamophobia as being two problems of equal weight is telling.
Hatred of Muslims is as repugnant as the hatred of Jews. But the decision to link the two concerns is a function of Democratic Party politics.
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Tuesday, May 16, 2023
Chanie Apfelbaum, 42, kosher food writer
Chanie Apfelbaum, 42, is a food writer and photographer who shares her love of kosher cooking through her popular blog, Busy in Brooklyn, social media and cooking demonstrations worldwide. She's also the author of two kosher cookbooks: "Millennial Kosher" and the brand new "Totally Kosher." The new book, published by mainstream house Clarkson Potter, features photographs of Apfelbaum with her children — a daring move at a time when many Orthodox publishers are hesitant publish photos of women. "I am so passionate about making kosher food accessible and approachable for everyone," Apfelbaum, who lives in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, tells us. "Bringing families around the table to celebrate our rich Jewish traditions and heritage is so meaningful for me."
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Friday, May 12, 2023
A Chat With Rough Diamonds Creators On Hasidic Representation
When Rough Diamonds hit Netflix, it brought up some mixed feelings. While wonderful to see Orthodox Jewish representation on screen done with nuance and three dimensionality, some of the plot lines dabbled in tropes of Jewish deception and greed. Negative minority representation increases hatred of those minorities, according to research. With attacks on all Jews, Hasidim especially, increasing, is this show good news for the Jews?
Allison Josephs and Cindy Kaplan, JITC Hollywood Bureau consultant, sat down with the show's creators, writer Yuval Yafet and director Rotem Shamir (who also co-created Line in the Sand, and worked together on Fauda) in this co-production between Keshet International and De Mensen for Netflix and VRT in an open and honest conversation about their decision to make the show and include all the drama, and not-so-pretty depictions of the fictional Hasidic family.
If you haven't watched it yet, the show is currently the 3rd most-watched non-English show on Netflix, and last week it peaked as 5th in Netflix's Top 10 TV Shows in the world. It revolves around a Hasidic family in Antwerp, Belgium with a long history of working in the diamond industry. It's something the Jews in Antwerp have been involved in for hundreds of years — we're not just talking about a few decades. It's more than a business to them; it's their economic foundation, tradition, family life and more. It's what they pass down to each new generation. When it comes to Jews and money though, things get dicey and can often fall quickly into antisemitic tropes about Jews being obsessed with getting rich or controlling the entire business world. When crime is involved — the show starts off with a scandal that puts the entire business at risk — it gets worse. It's easy to go from that to relating all Jews as being responsible for economic distress. The creators of the show, though, explain the nuances in what they made. "The crime element of the show is more of a plot moving tool than anything else," Shamir shares.
He stresses that none of the characters are motivated by greed. "It's not about getting rich," he explains. "It's about preserving their family life; about tradition and legacy."
"We always say that the crime is the fire under the pot," Yefet remarks. "The pot is everything else you see in the show — like the family life. That part is so interesting, but you need the fire underneath to make everything work. If there was no crime element, there would be no confrontation."
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Tuesday, May 09, 2023
Hassidic rabbi releases ‘kosher’ AI chatbot alternative to ChatGPT
Just a few days after more than a dozen rabbis from the Skver Hasidic movement prohibited the use of artificial intelligence, specifically citing the technology firm OpenAI, a new chatbot was created, geared towards ultra-Orthodox Jews.
Rabbi Moishy Goldstein, a hassidic Jew living in Crown Heights has decided to create Kosher.Chat, an AI chatbot that works just like a ChatGPT-type platform, but the answers will be appropriate for Orthodox Jews or at times be based on Halacha (Jewish Law).
"A friend messaged me last Motzoei Shabbos [Saturday night] the ban on AI issued by the Skver Rabbinic Court suggesting to me to release a Kosher version that would mitigate their concerns," Goldstein, a music producer and educator, told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.
The friend reached out to Goldstein since he has already created a popular AI-powered chatbot ChatGPZ.com.
"After reading the reasoning of the Skver statement, I agreed that it made sense to have a Kosher version," he continued. "They pointed out how the AI chatbots are tantamount to unfiltered internet and may answer questions 'as a matter of fact' in direct opposition to Torah's views and values. Ranging from secular views on geology, biology and religion, to gender identity and abortion," he said.
Rabbi Moishy Goldstein (credit: Moishy Goldstein)
Goldstein emphasized that "the purpose of the bot is not to answer Torah questions, Halachic inquiries or serve as spokesperson for Torah's opinion, rather it is meant to be viewed as a mundane chatbot, used to answer mundane questions, but with a Jewish filter to prevent the answers from opposing Torah values."
He added that one may still choose to ask Torah questions "and might even get pretty good answers," but that the answers "can by no means be relied upon for practical halachic rulings nor replace a human rabbi." Goldstein stressed that "users are urged to provide feedback for any answers that do not align with Torah. With every bit of feedback people share with me, I am able to improve the model further."
Goldstein runs the Moishy Goldstein of Music Studio NYC but also teaches religious studies to middle school students in a local yeshiva.
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Monday, May 08, 2023
Ahead of Pulitzers, New York Times mum on alleged unethical yeshiva reporting
The New York Times has refused to address alleged ethical lapses in a major investigatory series on the state's yeshiva school system, after claims the newspaper misrepresented data, obfuscated sources' biases and omitted context to present a slanted view of the schools to readers.
The Times is believed to be angling to win a Pulitzer Prize for the reporting. The winners of the prestigious awards will be announced on Monday.
The high-profile series of 18 articles, starting in September, was harshly critical of yeshivas, saying the schools deprive children of secular education in violation of state law, exploit public funding, contribute to poverty, and mistreat students, among other allegations.
Many Hasidic Jews, including community leaders, decried the Times' reporting as defamatory, and accused the newspaper of placing undue scrutiny on the Hasidic community out of bigotry or political considerations. Proponents also argue that government meddling is an infringement on religious protections.
Critics of the yeshiva system have defended the coverage as putting a long-overdue focus on the schools, which they say neglect secular education to the detriment of the students and their professional future.
The reporting methods have also come under fire. An article in the conservative US outlet, The Daily Signal, last week said that The Times had misrepresented data, inappropriately granted sources anonymity, and failed to disclose sources' conflicts of interest. Community representatives have in the past week also alerted the Times and the Pulitzer Prizes committee of alleged ethical lapses, but have not received a response.
A December article that said the yeshivas exploit public funding for special education has come under particular scrutiny.
The article said parents who were used as sources had been granted anonymity because criticizing community leaders could lead to those who had expressed criticism being ostracized. The Times quoted an anonymous mother who said a school had pressured her to say her daughter had autism, although the child is not autistic. The mother, Beatrice Weber, had already been a prominent critic of the yeshivas, as the director of Yaffed, a non-profit that has led the effort to reform the yeshiva system. She had already been featured by name in previous Times coverage and written an op-ed for the newspaper that was critical of her child's yeshiva.
The newspaper's policy guidelines say anonymity should only be granted if The Times "could not otherwise print information it considers newsworthy and reliable," that readers should be told as much as possible about the source's motivation, and that the newspaper does not "dissemble," including by quoting someone anonymously who has already been cited by name.
The same article quotes Elana Sigall, a "former top city special education official" who now visits yeshivas as a consultant, as a neutral expert on the Hasidic school system. The article does not mention that Sigall has campaigned against the yeshivas and is producing a documentary that is critical of the school system. The Times says "the general rule is to tell readers as much as we can about the placement and known motivation of the source."
One of the schools used as an example had demanded that a mother push for a public aide to accompany her child at school at all times, although the mother did not think it was necessary. The school later said the child had been violent in the past, and administrators wanted the public aide to ensure safety. The mother has left the Hasidic community and is in a custody battle related to the yeshiva, representing a conflict of interest that was not disclosed in the article, according to a letter community representatives sent to The Times.
Top editors are required to sign off on anonymous sourcing.
Critics also said the article omitted necessary context. The coverage presented one of the schools, the Chabad Girls Academy, as a typical yeshiva, without disclosing that it has only 13 students and specifically caters to special-needs pupils.
The article used a school called Luria Academy as an example, although it is not a yeshiva. The academy is a Jewish school that has some Orthodox students, the article said, without specifying that it is not Hasidic or connected to the yeshiva system. The school had considered seeking special education funds, but decided against it.
The reporting was also accused of misrepresenting data. One school said that 19 percent of its students were classified as special needs, in line with the New York City average, while the Times said 50% of the students qualified. The reason for the discrepancy was unclear and the data sources are not public.
Another school said 18% of its students were disabled, but The Times put the figure at 59%. The reporters contacted the school for comment shortly before Christmas, and published the day after the holiday. The Department of Education was closed at the time, so the school was unable to contact the office to determine where the conflicting figures had come from and issue a response to the reporters. The Times said the school disputed the data.
The three sources and the data form a central plank in the story's premise.
Critics also said the report conflated two types of public funding for special needs students — one that supports those students if they need to attend private schools, and another that funds services for the students in non-specialized public and private schools.
Overall, the article argued that Hasidic schools disproportionately receive special education funding, saying that in "25 of the city's approximately 160 Hasidic yeshivas, more than half of the students are classified as needing special education," as opposed to around 20% of all public students. The article does not state how many Hasidic students overall qualify for the funding, why only 25 schools were sampled, and whether any of those schools specifically catered to special needs students.
Reporter Brian Rosenthal and The New York Times have not commented on the allegations. The Times did not respond to requests for comment from The Times of Israel.
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Friday, May 05, 2023
Dishonest New York Times Series Does Not Deserve a Pulitzer
Following an 18-part investigative series in The New York Times alleging various forms of maleducation and malfeasance in New York City yeshivas, the New York Board of Regents began implementing regulations targeting these Hasidic Jewish day schools.
These included requiring certain classes (currently not taught at yeshivas) to be taught for a specified length, allowing the New York City Public School System to declare yeshivas "non-compliant" and send parents to jail for truancy for sending children there, and allowing New York to investigate any private school after a complaint from any individual (not just from parents, teachers, or students of yeshivas).
Last month, a New York district court struck down these regulations, but the state has filed a notice that it is appealing the decision.
Hasidic community leaders have complained that the Times reporters, who are now under consideration for a Pulitzer Prize, presented a profoundly biased and inaccurate portrait of their schools.
An extensive review of one recent entry in the Times series suggests that the rabbis are right. To make its case against the yeshivas, the Times plays fast and loose with the facts, relies on innuendo, and repeatedly violates its own professed journalistic standards, such as failing to disclose its sources' conflicts of interests and inappropriately anonymizing sources that it had previously named publicly.
In late December 2022, the Times published an article titled "How Hasidic Schools Reaped a Windfall of Special Education Funding." Reporter Brian Rosenthal explains that the Orthodox community, through its lobbying arm, Agudah, lobbied for reforms to streamline the special education hearing process and, in 2014, according to one Agudah leader, "got everything we wanted." Since then, requests for aid have more than tripled, with half of such requests now coming "from areas with large Hasidic and Orthodox populations."
Rosenthal alleges that "dozens of schools in the Orthodox community have pushed parents to get children diagnosed with disabilities," which would make the students eligible for additional state financial support. This money does not go directly to the schools, but rather to Orthodox-owned-and-staffed special education companies. As more and more money flows from the state to the Hasidic community, the system is breaking under administrative strain, and, according to one hearing officer, "It's affected the access to justice of all, and swamped the cases of children who attend public schools."
It's a plausible and powerful story, but almost every detail of it withers under scrutiny.
For starters, the overarching story that Rosenthal tells is based on a policy sleight-of-hand. The 2014 special education reform implemented by Mayor Bill de Blasio exclusively concerned cases dealing with "Carter" reimbursements, i.e., cases when parents of students with severe disabilities who can't be served in public schools petition for funding to send their children to specialized private schools. These reimbursements cannot be used at traditional yeshiva schools, nor does the Times piece relate the story of such reimbursements. Rather, the piece concerns appeals for additional aid made by parents who send their children to traditional yeshivas.
Rosenthal partly acknowledges this, writing, "While Mr. de Blasio's policy changes were initially intended to ease path of parents seeking tuition funding, The Times found that the most common request now by far is for an ill-defined assistance that is only offered in New York City: 'special education teacher support services,' which providers liken to tutoring."
The reader is to infer that the rise of support service requests was an unintended consequence of de Blasio's change, when no policy connection actually exists. Indeed, other states that qualify these services in departments of education or public instruction—such as Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Missouri, Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska, Texas, and Wisconsin—don't list them as "special education services" at all.
Still, have "dozens" of Hasidic schools systematically pressed parents to appeal for services in order to staff up with outside aides or tutors, as the Times report alleges? We can only judge from the five examples given, each of which has a journalistic, ethical, or empirical flaw.
First, there is the Chabad Girls Academy, which an anonymous mother said sent her an email in 2020 saying that her daughter qualified for autism treatment and providing her with information to give to a doctor, even though according to the mother, the child was not autistic. The Times granted the mother anonymity on the grounds that "openly criticizing Hasidic leaders can lead to being shunned by family and friends."
But the mother, Beatrice Weber, has left the community and openly criticized it in the pages of the Times, both with an opinion essay and as the lead example in a story published three weeks earlier. (The piece begins: "Beatrice Weber wakes up most mornings afraid that her son's Hasidic Jewish school is setting him up to fail.")
The Times violated its own ethical guidelines to not anonymize a previously named source, which obscured the fact that its anonymous mother was the director of YAFFED, a nonprofit that has been highly critical of yeshivas and pushed for additional state regulation. The Times also omits the fact that the Chabad Girls Academy currently serves only 13 students, all of whom have experienced behavioral or academic difficulties in traditional Jewish schools, with a staff of 12.
Second, there is the Tomchei Tmimim school, which reportedly told a woman that her son could not attend unless she persuaded the city to pay for a full-time aide. The mother did not think this was necessary. School administrators told The Daily Signal that the student was routinely violent and that they did not believe they could guarantee the safety of his peers without full-time personal supervision. The mother, who has also left the community, is currently engaged in a custody battle over her child.
The Times' confidentiality policy tells its reporters to grant anonymity to people only when it is absolutely necessary, "especially if they form a disputed account, or are potentially damaging to one side in a court case." It also urges its reporters to take special care to ensure that anonymous sources "are genuinely independent of one another, not connected behind the scenes in any kind of 'echo chamber.'"
In this case, the mother has hired Elana Sigall in the custody dispute, who is quoted by name criticizing the yeshivas and is described as "a former top city special education official, who now visits yeshivas as a consultant." The Times did not mention that Sigall has been a high-profile critic of yeshivas and is producer of a forthcoming documentary criticizing them.
Third, there is Luria Academy, where administrators considered asking parents to appeal to the city for additional special education funding and then decided not to. The Times describes Luria as "a school that serves some Orthodox Jews." So do public schools. Luria is a self-described "progressive" school, not a Hasidic or Orthodox one; and, therefore, it has no evidentiary value when it comes to the conduct of yeshivas.
Fourth, according to the Times, "nearly half" of the 1,500 students at the Chabad-affiliated Oholei Torah school are "are classified as children with disabilities, records show." This was news to Oholei administrators, whose records, supplied to The Daily Signal, show that of their 1095 pre-K through eighth grade students, only 225 receive special education services. Twenty percent is approximately in line with the city average of 19%.
Their best guess as to how the Times got their "nearly half" figure was that it counted all students who had at some point been evaluated for special-needs services, including students who were no longer receiving services or who had never received them, rather than students currently receiving services. The Times did not inform readers that it was comparing the city's apple to a yeshiva's bag of oranges.
Similarly, the Times reported that students with disabilities increased from 12% to 59% at Yeshiva Beth Hillel of Krasna after de Blasio's (irrelevant) reform. Krasna administrators say that only 18% of their students receive special education services, and that they shared documentation of this with the Times. They also noted that the Times sent their "59 percent" figure to the school on the afternoon of the Thursday before Christmas, asking for comment by 9 a.m. on Monday, Dec. 26. This made it impossible for the school to contact the Department of Education, which was closed, to try to understand how a third party could review their data and arrive at that statistic. The Times wrote only that the school disputed its figure.
These examples cast doubt on the validity of the newspaper's key finding, that "at 25 of the city's approximately 160 Hasidic yeshivas, more than half the students are classified as needed special education," whereas in public schools, "one in five students is classified as having a disability."
The most relevant number to the question of whether Hasidic students are overrepresented in special education is the percentage of Hasidic students who are classified as having a disability. The Times did not print that number. Specifically, community leaders from several schools claim the number of active users of special education/accommodations for people with disabilities sits close to 20%, while both the Times and Rosenthal directly refused to provide any comment regarding any number.
So, are Orthodox Jews gaming the special education system to enrich businesses in their community? The case rests on two personal anecdotes presented by sources who were anonymized in violation of the Times' code of ethics, a school that isn't Orthodox, and two schools that credibly dispute the figures provided by the Times.
Beyond that, the case rests on the newspaper's analysis of the rise in special education hearings, "more than half" of which "came from districts that include the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Williamsburg, Borough Park and Crown Heights—all heavily populated by Hasidic Jews—and Flatbush and Midwood, which are home to many Orthodox Jews."
The problem is that these hearings are not a useful proxy for the use of special education services, given that acquiring special education status and services does not require such a hearing.
Why did Rosenthal choose to omit the actual number of students using special education services in New York City's Hasidic yeshivas? Why did Rosenthal craft a dishonest narrative that pretends these yeshivas are using special education services at rates drastically higher than New York City's public schools? Why cherry-pick anecdotes from those who hold disdain for the yeshivas and give ridiculously short windows for yeshiva staffs to defend against such incredible allegations?
At a time when violence against New York City's Orthodox Jews has reached record highs, publishing such inflammatory yet poorly sourced accusations against a vulnerable minority group with such reckless abandon should be grounds for immediate expulsion from the Times, not consideration for a Pulitzer.
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Wednesday, May 03, 2023
Skver Hasidic movement bans use of artificial intelligence as window to ‘heresy’
In a declaration issued Thursday and stressing the danger of "the open internet without any filter," more than a dozen rabbis from the Skver Hasidic movement prohibited the use of artificial intelligence, specifically citing the technology firm OpenAI.
The blanket ban on artificial intelligence is the latest instance of Haredi, or ultra-Orthodox, authorities forbidding or restricting their followers from using cutting-edge digital technology. For years, Haredi rabbis have warned their communities of the moral dangers associated with internet usage, and some have instructed their followers to place filters on their phones and other devices that prevent users from accessing a wide swath of the internet.
Now, the Skver community's rabbis are taking a similar approach to OpenAI's ChatGPT and other tools in the rapidly growing universe of AI chatbots and image generators. It is an especially sharp manifestation of the broader concern over the range of risks posed by the increasing capabilities of artificial intelligence and its potential to reshape society.
The signatories of the Hebrew-language letter wrote that AI is "open to all abominations, heresy, and infidelity without limits." It cited Biblical texts and rulings from previous rabbis as supports for the prohibition.
"It is possible that at this point, not everyone knows the magnitude and scope of the danger, but it has become clear to us in our souls that this thing will be a trap for all of us, young and old," the letter said. "Therefore, the use of 'AI' is strictly prohibited in any shape and form, even by phone."
The Skver community is based in the village of New Square, New York, and is considered particularly traditionalist. Other Orthodox groups, particularly the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement, have embraced technology.
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Monday, May 01, 2023
In an unusual alliance, Jewish media and striking journalists are uniting to cover the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting trial
How many times should an alleged synagogue shooter's name be mentioned in a news story about his trial, now beginning after more than four years?
For the Pittsburgh Union Press last month, the answer was seven. For the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle, it was an uneasy five, in a departure from its usual answer of zero — a number chosen out of deference to a community devastated by the shooting.
The slight difference was the only discrepancy between one set of stories published by the two news organizations covering the trial of Robert Bowers, accused of murdering 11 Jews in their synagogue here in 2018.
The anomaly offers a window into an unusual partnership between the two publications — the city's Jewish paper and the news site established by striking staffers for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette — born in February when it became clear that the trial would last months.
Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle editor Toby Tabachnick was dreading the trial coverage, with a staff of just three on the editorial side: herself and two reporters, David Rullo and Adam Reinherz.
"I started getting really nervous. Like, how are we going to do this?" Tabachnick said on the eve of the trial, speaking at the federal courthouse where jury selection would soon begin. "Our regular reporters could have been here. But it would have been extremely taxing, difficult and emotional for us, because we're so ingrained in the community too."
Plus, she added, "In addition to this trial, which is going to be every day for three months, we're covering the synagogues, events and the holidays, the lectures, we still have a regular community newspaper to put out."
Tabachnick knew Andrew "Goldy" Goldstein, one of the Post-Gazette's team that picked up a Pulitzer for their coverage of the massacre, from his time as a Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle intern. She also knew he was on strike and wondered whether he could use the extra freelance opportunity.
Instead, Goldstein immediately offered up a better idea: Join with the Pittsburgh Union Progress, the strike paper, in a joint reporting project, organized in part through the Pittsburgh Media Partnership, an incubator for local journalism. (The Jewish Telegraphic Agency is raising funds for the coverage.)
Working together just made sense, Goldstein said. The Chronicle was deeply resourced and credible in the Jewish community, and the Progress had on board Torsten Ove, a local legend.
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