Brooklyn, NY – Nearly two years after a wave of protests over New York City’s first public school dedicated to the Arabic language and culture, state education officials are expected to consider greenlighting a Hebrew language charter school in Brooklyn this week.
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The school would open in the fall if it is approved, first by a committee of the State Board of Regents tomorrow and then by the full board on Tuesday. It would begin with 150 kindergartners and first graders and be in District 22, which includes the Sheepshead Bay, Midwood and Mill Basin neighborhoods. The district is 45 percent black, 13 percent Hispanic and 15 percent Asian. It also has a substantial population of Jewish immigrants from Russia and Israel.
The State Department of Education staff has recommended that the Regents approve the school, and such recommendations are generally heeded. But at least one regent said he planned to raise questions about the proposal.
Charter schools are publicly funded but independently operated. The proposed school is backed by philanthropists including the former hedge fund manager Michael H. Steinhardt, who has given tens of millions of dollars in recent years to programs dedicated to boosting Jewish identity among young people.
Sara Berman, Mr. Steinhardt’s daughter and a former parenting columnist for The New York Sun, is the charter school’s lead applicant.
Organizers are taking pains to assure state officials that the school, called the Hebrew Language Academy Charter School, would not cross the church-state divide. They have hired Dan Gerstein, a communications consultant, to smooth the way politically and to handle public relations. They are also in negotiations with a candidate for principal who is not Jewish but who has experience in dual-language education.
The application states that students will receive daily, hourlong Hebrew lessons, and that Hebrew will be woven into some art, music and gym classes – with children learning the Israeli folk dance Mayim in gym, for example. In addition, the social studies curriculum will include lessons on “Hebrew culture and history in the context of both American and world history,” according to the application.
“The H.L.A. planning team understands fully that no instructor or staff member can in any way encourage or discourage religious devotion in any way on school premises,” the application states. “We also understand that the full study and exploration of any language necessarily includes references to the rich cultural heritage inextricably tied to that language, including elements touching on religion.”
Though Ms. Berman said last year, when the application was first submitted, “I hope that we’re very clear that this is not a Jewish school,” adding, “There will be in no way any religious devotion at this school.”
If approved, the academy would join a growing collection of charter schools nationwide whose curriculums center on an ethnic or cultural group, even though by law they must be open to all students. A recent review by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, a Washington advocacy group, found that of more than 4,600 charters nationwide, 113 have mission statements speaking to a particular cultural theme. Those include the country’s first Hebrew language charter school, Ben Gamla, which opened in Hollywood, Fla., in 2007 amid heated public discussion, and the Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy in Minnesota, which has generated debate over whether it encourages the practice of Islam.
Throughout the city, there are 81 schools run by the Education Department that offer dual-language programs in Chinese, Russian, Korean and Haitian Creole, for example.
In New York, the only charter school that has generated an outcry is the Arabic language Khalil Gibran International Academy, whose founding principal was forced to resign after a controversial newspaper interview.
The Hebrew school, which the city approved in October, has not generated much debate, but some fear it could.
“It has the potential to attract a lot of negative attention,” said Christopher Spinelli, the president of District 22’s Community Education Council.
Adem Carroll, the executive director of the Muslim Consultative Network, a community group, said that he would “be watching to see that due diligence be done, that the school is inclusive of New York City kids from all backgrounds and that it doesn’t pander to any national interest.”
Saul B. Cohen, a member of the Board of Regents, said that he would raise questions at the committee meeting tomorrow about the need for such a school in a relatively high-performing district, and how it would steer clear of church-state issues.
“There are youngsters who study Chinese who are not Chinese in origin, but they want to study it for linguistic purposes, business purposes,” he said. But he questioned whether Hebrew was similarly useful. In Israel, he added, English was “completely widespread.”
Some critics of the Khalil Gibran school said last week that they also objected to the Hebrew school.
“I don’t think it’s the business of a public board of education to be creating these segregated, hermetically sealed schools with specific cultural adaptations,” said Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, a trustee of the City University of New York. “You want a special school for that; you can go to an archdiocese school, you can go to a school under the aegis of the Greek Orthodox Church, you can go to a yeshiva.”
Mr. Wiesenfeld said that he would not actively protest the Hebrew school as he had the Khalil Gibran school because he did not think it posed the same “potential threat to the society.”
Michael Meyers, the executive director of the New York Civil Rights Coalition, described the proposed school as “inconsistent with the purposes of public schooling.”
“They will not say they’re exclusionary; they will not say the school is not open to everybody, blah, blah, blah,” he said. “They found the formula now for getting around and skirting the civil rights laws.”
Mr. Steinhardt and the founder of Ben Gamla, the school in Florida, have spoken of the possibility of creating a network of Hebrew language charter schools across the country, a concept that is attracting attention from sociologists, educators and community leaders focused on strengthening Jewish identify and culture.
“It seems to me that if it’s successful, it’s the type of thing that could grow,” said Steven M. Cohen, a sociologist at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. “With enough charitable funds to kick it off and government funds to support it in Jewishly dense areas, I think there’s a population that would want to use the product.”
Still, he said, navigating the church-state divide could prove tricky. “They’re going to have to walk a very fine line,” he added.
Dr. Cohen noted that in Israel, nonreligious Jews “can learn Talmud, Bible, Jewish religious customs and regard it as a secular activity.” He said, “Is that possible in the United States of America?”
According to the application, the history of Jewish communities around the world will account for, at most, 20 minutes of class time a week, while the study of modern Hebrew will provide “both motivation and link to the culture and physical land of Israel as well as to the very special archaeological treasures and historical legacy that land represents.”
A public school is open to all who want to learn in a secular environment. That means secular, as in nothing whatsoever to do with religion. That may be ok with a school learning Greek or Chinese, but Judaism is not a “culture”. It is a way of life. Just like you don’t decide to eat pork one day and keep Shabbos the next. There are reasons and rules and parameters to Judaism. Hebrew as a language is all part of the bigger picture, It is lashon ha-kodesh that the chumash was written. It is the language in the siddur. This charter school is not a school for secular Israelis. It has no place here, and certainly not at the cost of the exorbitant amount of funding that it will need. You want your child to learn hebrew, go to a synagogue. Keep the “culture” our of the public school system and start doing some of it at home.
Parents should pay for Judaic studies…secular stuff should be funded by the state, like they do in UK. And I’m waiting for PROOF, solid & irrefutable, that this Arabic school sticks to language & “culture.” Sure it does, as long as promoting killing Jewish children is “cultural.”
Oh this is a wonderful lawsuitt waiting to happen.
Well, some parents may want a safe environment for their children and this new school will be well run and supervised. It seems yeshivas may not be suitable for parents who don’t want their children subjected to sexual abuse. Given a choice between a safe secular school providing a good education versus an unsafe yeshiva that barely teaches the basics, which sane parent can choose a yeshiva?
There are thousands of Jewish kids in the public school system. If this news item inspires you to sponsor one of them in a yeshiva or bais yaakov school… great. Otherwise, don’t criticize the initiative some are making… to address the fact that some kids are currently being forced into the public school system, and are being harassed and persecuted for being Jewish.
This will open the government to funding yeshivas. It is a great thing because the liberal Jews have been fighting us against aid to yeshivas. They scream seperation of church and state. Thanks to the arab public school now frum Jews will be able to get jobs and prgrams and we will be able to infiltrate the minds of so many millions of lost Jews in America and save them. Just as the black crime caused thousands of secular Jewish kids to leave public schools and attend private schools,it saved their souls.
They have this is Florida, and I heard it works. For modern people, this is away to get something in return for your tax dollars. All of us who own property pay for the public schools whether we have kids or not, and whether we send them there or not. If you want additional enrichment and Judaic instruction, you can have that later on your your own time and dime.
If Michael Steinhardt is behind this, it will probably happen. He is one of the people who helped bankroll Birthright Israel, which has programs for almost all types of Jews. Steinhardt himself is close to an atheist, but he loves Jewish education, culture and is a huge supporter of Jewish causes for all Jews. He puts his money where his mouth is.
Why are you attacking this? Perhaps the non-Jews should attack us more for the Spinka money laundering or a lot of the money sent in grants and subsidies to our yeshivot. I know many in the frum community won’t benefit or even consider this type of school. But many Jews who are not frum or borderline frum will appreciate a school like this. It may be more exposure to our culture than what they would get at home.
I’m waiting to hear all the phony speartion of church and state comments. Just rememebr the Constitution was referrign to the Church of England, which you had to be a part of in order to be in government. The author of separation of church and state misquoted Thomas Jefferson, who was in France during the writing of the Bill of Rights. The Supreme Court Justice who wrote the opinion (and mentioned the misquote) was Judge Hugo Black – a former KKK big shot and open anti-Semite and Catholic hater. If I’m not mistaken, FDR appointed him to the bench. Yet Jews and most liberals love to wrap themselves in this decision.
For those of you who think this is a great way to get “stealth Yiddishkeit” into the publik screwels, please read what it says in the article: “I hope that we’re very clear that this is not a Jewish school,” adding, “There will be in no way any religious devotion at this school.”
Next, “Arbeter Ring” schools that teach in Yiddish.
i know of a russian baal teshuvah kid who just left yeshiva to go to public school bec it was too rigid for him perhaps such a school can keep him from mingling with goyim and abreast of his hebrew studies somewhat so if he is ever convinced to return he will not be totally lost! aside from the fact that his parents who couldnt argue that money was not an object, can say look this is also free!
There is a fine line between Jewish culture and religion. It will teach Jewish unaffiliated children were they came from and to where they belong. Great idea.
Heimish is heimish…….but its not always right. There is a big world out there and we must be part of it.
I live in Florida. I am a frum mother of B”AH ten children and cannot begin to afford yeshiva. The best tuition I can get was $5500 per child for my 8 school aged children and this may as well be 44 million dollars.
When I pleaded for more aid, I was told that I should have thought of this before I had so many children and that I should go to my relatives for help. My relatives are worse off than we. So much for “every Jewish child is a precious neshama and a bracha”.
So for us, Ben Gamla, the Jewish charter school is the only possibility other than homeschooling or public school. My sister and brother are in the same boat.
Ben Gamla is full of Shomrei Shabbos kids whose parents cannot begin to afford tuition in any of the local yeshivas. There are electives for religious studies and the parents meet outside of the school for Shabbos and social activities.
Of course we would all prefer our children would be in a yeshiva, but since this is not possible, at least they are learning Hebrew with other Jewish kids at Ben Gamla.
Until everyone who opposes this program goes outside of Boro Park, Midwood, Monsey, Lakewood etc. and meets Jews who are not only not frum, but totally assimilated, they should keep their mouths shut. Obviously, there are thousands of Jewish children who are not benefiting from a Jewish education. Not that learning Hebrew can assure that they will stay Jewish, but at least it gives them a connection. We all no that a large number of Israelis are not observant. But kiruv is easier to do when the person already knows the language, as most kiruv professionals will attest to. Give this program a chance, or otherwise, subsidize yeshiva tuitions for the masses.