NEW YORK (JTA) – A New York State Supreme Court justice ruled in favor of an Orthodox Jewish mom who said her son was denied an adequate secular education at his Brooklyn yeshiva.
Join our WhatsApp groupSubscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
This week’s ruling directs the state’s Education Department and the city’s Department of Education to complete a long-stalled investigation into the school, Yeshiva Mesivta Arugath Habosem in Williamsburg.
Proponents for improving secular education at yeshivas hailed the ruling. They said it provides momentum in their efforts to get the New York State Education Department to implement proposed regulations meant to ensure that all students receive the education to which they are entitled under the law.
The yeshivas and their advocates say their right to establish their own curricula is a religious liberty issue.
The case heard by the Supreme Court was brought in 2019 by Beatrice Weber, a member of Brooklyn’s Hasidic community, who claimed her youngest son, then 9 years old, wasn’t receiving a “substantially equivalent” — that is, equivalent to public schools — education under the law. A lower court directed her back to a family court. Justice Adam W. Silverman’s ruling on June 7 upheld her appeal.
Silverman ruled that the city’s investigation into Weber’s son’s yeshiva, which has been ongoing since 2015, must come to a conclusion within the next four months. This is the first time a judge has formally ordered the city agency to conclude its investigation, according to David Shapiro, Weber’s lawyer.
Critics and defenders of the yeshivas have been weighing in on a new set of proposed guidelines released in March that would direct private schools to show that they meet secular curriculum standards; the public comment period ended May 31. Agudath Israel of America, which represents haredi Orthodox Jews, urged its members to fight the proposed oversight. “We cannot allow the government to come in and unreasonably control how and what we should be teaching our children,” Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwiebel, Agudah’s executive vice president, said in a statement.
Weber acknowledged that ruling may have come too late to ensure that here son gets a “substantially equivalent” secular education at his yeshiva, where, she said, only one hour a day is allotted towards secular subjects.
When my father taught in satmar in the 60s the English education was tough. They didn’t let monkey business and it was serious. This new mishigas is not in the derech of the holy reba zya.
For the record:
I am against taking this to court but we have only ourselves to blame for this fanaticism.
It’s also a shame that Weber had to go OTD and become more secular. She could have just become chafetz Chaim and still maintain both frumkiet plus a secular education.
Lastly there is indeed an issue with the secular circiculim that forces anti Torah pro lgbt literature. They need to figure out a way to grant us our rights and enable us to take nys regents while maintaining our beliefs
I don’t get why they can’t improve their English education. Would it hurt so much if the kids learned some American or world history? Something more than first grade math? how to read and write well?
if the books aren’t kosher, make kosher books. But to have kids grow up and barely able to speak and read English is just off.
would it hurt their principles so much to be educated? Many many very frum schools have a very good Secular education without compromising their faith.
She is a FORMER Orthodox Women! She now describes herself as an “Interfaith Minister”! Just look up her bio.
So why did she send her son there? Why not switch to another yeshivah?
Sad that our worst enemies are one of our own.
Didn’t the boy’s parents choose the school that they sent their son to? There are numerous yeshivas in NYC .
We brought this on ourselves.
No one ever bothered the ‘litvish’ yeshivas that taught four subjects of limudai chol for forty minutes each four days a week, plus lashon kodesh as a foreign language for two years of high school.
Most of the American roshai yeshiva started that way and no one came thru Philly without earning a high-school diploma.
Her lawyers were funded by yaffed, where she works.
The real question is, why are we standing by when the federations etc fund yaffed to the tune of $1m a year to destroy our community?
Why are our askonim rubbing shoulders with the federation people who are funding all this?
Why are we not cutting off all connections to the people funding yaffed? Its time to fight fire with fire and call them out.
one hour a day of secular education will give these youngsters a much better secular education than one they would be getting in the neighborhood public school. This could easily be proven by testing these kids against their peers’ public school tests.
These people have a free choice, and can send their son/daughter to any school they want, there is no shortage of orthodox Yeshivas sor Bsis Yaakov’s in Brooklyn. This woman like that scoundrel Mister and his ilk, have opened a Pandora’s box where the state will now come in and demand that our schools teach all kinds of shameful things that are antithetical to our faith.
This article does not mention that she was divorced from the father , who wanted to keep the kid on that yeshiva . She was in a battle with him .
How can she sue the school if she knowingly chose that kind of education. I’m sure she was well aware what her son was learning and not learning, and if she wasn’t she could have easily asked her son or his teacher or the school and moved to a different school that was more her liking. This is not about equivalency this is about revenge. Maybe she went OTD, maybe she got divorced, maybe her child was molested, god only knows.
Silly mom. She can surely send to public school! No worries about a sub-par education then
There is another pointer not discussed here.
Please do tell me, what are these young High school or 8th graders doing instead of secular education? Are HS bochrim really learning torah all day? Do they really have the zitsfliesh? Most drie in the mikva till 10 then daven then learn a little, valger a little more etc. I have heard from rosh mesiiftas that with no english its a real struggle to ensure their kids are not full liedigers. Some secular education offers a change of subject and pace, usually lighter and less intense than in depth gemara. For the 90% who can’t learn all day in 9th grade it provides a structure with useful timing.
Now I know the next line of attack is, look how many made it with no secular education. Its so flawed for so many reasons not withstanding the old shamas in the pickle factory story. Even those who made it, i see many of those prdocuts as liedgers who are undsicplined. It also wouldn’t hurt if they understood some basic math, computers, and yes finance (Including that life is more than just leveraging for your real estate and make it rich in two minutes)
This woman is a marshaas and a moser. I don’t think her lawsuit was sincere, it was only to make trouble. She could have sent her son to another school. I am very makpid on a decent secular education for my children, But a chasidishe school that teaches Torah well, and produces decent productive citizens is fine if that is what you want. I don’t understand why the lawsuit wasn’t immediately thrown out. Can you walk into a butcher shop and demand he sell you a car? You buy a car in a different kind of store. If you want secular education go to a different kind of school.
nick, does rabbi jill know about beatrice?
Why on earth is the public school education system, the status bar of which we should attempt to emulate?? Public school education (especially in Democrat run bastions) is trash. How’s about “the public school education system” learn from private schools a few things about morals, more morals, ethics, civility, being nice to one another, character refinement, some prayers to G-D and trust in G-D sometimes (something that was eradicated from the daily “public school system” by the left, etc etc. These corrupt and immoral souls forcing us to have THEIR programming, is NOT going to happen.
After reading 58 comments I realize that, as the saying goes “we have found the enemy and it is us”. When I read comments such as, They can’t speak English or why can’t they just teach subject X, Y and Z then we are the problem. We have a 100 year track record of successful people coming out of ALL of our yeshivos. The gemara and chumash give us the thinking skills to be successful. If a parent is upset that their yeshiva is not teaching science or history send to one that does. The chasidishe yeshivos feel teaching English reading, phonics and math is enough. Second, speaking English or not speaking English has ZERO to do with the yeshiva. If you’re going to talk Yiddish almost 24/7, have a culture that discourages speaking English, you won’t be able to speak English. This is a cultural problem not a school problem. In addition, from after bar mitzva until they get a job there is no English spoken. The bottom line is ALL our yeshivos give a better education then the public schools. The yeshivos, Aguda, Torah Umesorah have to keep saying loud and clear “Each yeshiva’s parent body has a right to choose what secular subjects to teach, how to teach, when to teach them.”
In related news, just saw on Fox News “NYC public schools shells out eye popping $200,000 taxpayer dollars to bring crossdressers to city schools to entertain the children”. And this is who we’re supposed to take advice from on how and what to teach. The wonderful public school model. UNBELIEVABLE!!!
A yeshiva education is not secular. It is to learn Torah and mitzvos . The government denies religion in secular schools. It should stop pushing secularism in yeshivas.
If they only improved on the basic English and math lessons themselves it wouldn’t have come to this.
It is quite obvious that many of those commenting here have either not read the article, or lack the ability to comprehend what they are reading.
This in itself is the very reason why our children need to have some form of secular education. For heavens sake you live on planet Earth, learn to communicate with others.
It’s hard to say this, but technically the judge is right. If the Yeshiva claims it is offering adequate secular education by normal educational standards, it may raise the eyebrows of many if the claim also admits that it is doing this in one hour a day (not that I feel that way at all — it is probably in reality a more than adequate amount of time — but many may feel otherwise). Thus, an investigation of the Yeshiva is, as far as the judge is concerned, warranted.
The first judge was probably more familiar with the situation between the parents vis-a-vis the child’s education, and properly referred them to family court, but this Supreme Court judge is likely not familiar or experienced with such situations as they represent in a Jewish setting, and did what seems to him to be appropriate (unless he is also a self-hating Jew).
This all, of course, does not justify this tzudreidte lady’s campaign against her “former” religion, but that’s something that is now in G-d’s hands. Rachmana litzlon…
I’m not worried about the LGBT curriculum.
The teaching resources cannot be reproduced.
While many people from Yafed were troubled teens, this woman was a solid and stable person that was married to a very smart man that appeared to be a “big Talmud chochim”. He was an animal at home and very narcissistic. and there was no one there for this lady when she reached out for help. She went bezirk
maybe more Satmar and friends will move to Eretz Yisroel were they can have a non secular education.
The day their government handouts cease, their Food Stamps, Section 8 Housing, Medicaid . . . . that’s the day these schools will start teaching the boys to read and write English, to speak English the way an educated person speaks using correct grammar, to learn math problem solving, American and World History, geography, science, health education. They need to be prepared to support and raise their families by working, having a profession, not living off the government, the peoples’ taxes. The day they are told they are on their own they will start learning English. They are not prepared to work in a modern economy. Most live off the government and the government enables them to do this because they vote in a bloc vote for candidates don’t require them to teach secular subjects in their schools.
The rabbis are afraid that if their bochrim receive a real education they might realize what narishkeit they live in. Better off to keep them dumb, the rabbis say.
I think the mother should be put away. She clearly isn’t qualified !
If you think your kid, if you really really really think your kid is not getting a good education in the school they’re in, for goodness sakes, send them to another private school!
The real reason they didn’t go to another school is because it wasn’t an issue to them. She’s lying! There’s more to the story that she’s not telling. Probably has more to do with a fight with the ex spouse than anything else.
I don’t understand one thing: Nobody is holding a gun to your head. If you don’t like the school and its policies, go to a different school.
There are plenty of Jewish schools with secular studies. Why does she think the school has to change for her?
Another otd that works for us.
I am sure we are all in favor of schools meeting the legal requirements.
did anyone see the picture of beaurtice and moster the moocher celebrating their “victory”?
the caption should have been “beatrice and butt-head”
according to nick’s twitter, Yaffed plans on doiling out some of the $ he pilferd from starving kids for some scholarship fund, check it out all to see how we can apply, why should all nicks pilfered $ go to interfaith clergy leaders
When secular schools have reached the high pinnacle of success in the morality of Orthodox religious schools maybe then we can talk about secular education.
wah wah wah! wah! my chasidic yeshiva robbed me of an education when i was 12 and now i am 36 and never worked a day in my life, wah wah wah! my menahel was mean to me i think i will hold up a sign about it for the next 22 hours wha wah wah
beatrice has a gofund me page where she is shnorring $ to pay her legal fees. Why cant yaffed shnoreres give her some of the millions that they shnorer?
When
Rav Mordecai Gifter spent 12 years in the Baltimore City Public School system and look what he became. For all those bashing public schools, perhaps all boys should attend public school. We need a few thousand more Gedolim like Rav Gifter.
the woman is mumar which is a status worse than an apikores. however it is known that Satmar nowadays treat “English” as a total joke unlike in the past and that is why ALL OF US are now getting burnt by the state because of Satmar.
And we supposed to love the OTD children and take them in to our homes to ruin our other kids. Thanks Avi Fishov and all the רבנים who go along with this you will burn in hell forever I hope it happens to their children.