READ: Orthodox Leaders Warn NYT About Severe Consequences in Response to Hit Piece Against Chassidic Yeshivas

NEW YORK (Yaakov M / VINnews) — The Tzedek Association enlisted J. Erik Connolly of the Benesch law firm, which specializes in defamation suits, to write a letter to the NY Times, regarding its hit piece against the Chassidic community and its yeshivas.

Below are excerpts from the letter, as well as a copy of the original. (Keep in mind, the letter was sent prior to the story’s publication, based on emails that were sent by the authors to yeshivas. Many of the points in the letter are still highly relevant, now that the article has been published.)

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“Based on the emails you have sent to leaders of the Hasidic school communities, there
appears to be a high likelihood that your story will contain defamatory statements and implications about the Hasidic schools, including implications that the Hasidic schools are a uniform network that act as a collective body, statements that single out and stereotype the Hasidic community without providing proper contextual data, and implications that the Hasidic schools are engaged in illegal activities.

In addition, we understand from emails you have sent to individual schools, that the article will also include statements of fact that are simply not true. The publication of such an article would not only be defamatory, it would also cause irreparable harm to the Hasidic community and further stigmatize its members.

First, the article you describe in your September 1, 2022 emails appear to imply that the
Hasidic boys school system is a uniform network, thereby allowing you to make blanket statements about the community as a whole based upon the policies, curricula, or issues that are unique to individual schools. The truth is that, as you yourself admit, there are 150 Hasidic schools in New York, and they are all independently owned and operated. Accordingly, what is true for one school might not be true of the others or representative of the majority. Based on your email, it appears that you intend to publish the following “facts” about Hasidic schools as a whole, which are simply untrue:

Allegation: “[Hasidic boys] schools provide almost no instruction in basic secular subjects such as history or science.” Fact: Hasidic schools teach a variety of secular subjects including history, English, math, geography, and science. Each school has a different curriculum and amount of time that these subjects are studied per day.

Allegation: Hasidic boys schools only teach English, reading, and math, to students aged 8 to 12. Fact: In the majority of the Hasidic schools, such instruction begins as early as pre-kindergarten or kindergarten. Again, each school develops its own curriculum and instructs students accordingly.

Allegation: The rules for some schools discourage further study at home. Fact: The
overwhelming majority of the Hasidic schools require homework.

Allegation: Secular instructors at the Hasidic schools are “woefully” unqualified, and some are hired off of Craigslist or ads on lamp posts. Fact: All teachers are qualified, background checked, and vetted. The teachers’ qualifications are approved by the Office of Children & Family Services, amongst others, and checked during routine school inspections by other agencies such as the Department of Health. It is not a common practice to find teachers on Craigslist or to hang flyers seeking teachers on lamp posts.

Allegation: The Hasidic schools follow the guidelines of the United Talmudical Academy. Fact: Not all Hasidic schools follow the guidelines of the United Talmudical Academy. In fact, the majority follow their own education programs and curricula, which they build from the ground up.

Allegation: Religion teachers use severe corporal punishment, which creates an environment of fear that makes learning difficult. Fact: Corporal punishment is not a standard practice or policy across Hasidic schools. Rather, there is an unequivocal policy in these schools that corporal punishment will not be tolerated and any teachers who use corporal punishment will be fired. Indeed, the Torah mandates a way of life that does not include violence. Moreover, the schools are inspected by agencies such as the Office of Children & Family Services and the Department of Health, and any allegations of corporal punishment would be raised and documented by these inspections.

Second, the article described in your September 1, 2022 emails would unfairly and
inappropriately single out and stigmatize the Hasidic community in at least three ways, without providing proper context or background.

One, the article as described will spend a great deal of time discussing the public funding provided to the Hasidic schools on behalf of their students. To be fair and balanced, any such discussion of funding should also include statistics on the amount of similar funds provided to New York public schools. We understand that the average public school student receives $25k in funding a year, and in contrast, Hasidic students receive $1k in government funding a year.

Discussing funding received by Hasidic schools without the proper context will imply that Hasidic schools are taking a disproportionate amount of public funds, fanning stereotypes of the Jewish community.

Two, the article as described will include an in-depth discussion of standardized test scores, implying that the Hasidic curriculum is failing students and not providing a rigorous education. To be fair and balanced, the article should also include statistics on the Regents Examinations, on which the Hasidic school students score quite well. It should also be tempered by the well-researched and known biases of standardized testing, which lead to differing results amongst persons with different language backgrounds, socioeconomic status, and culture.

Three, the article as described will focus on those struggling in the Hasidic community with drug and alcohol use, poverty, and self-harm, which again paints a stereotypical, and defamatory, picture of the schools and Hasidic community. To provide fair balance and proper context, the article should both discuss the schools’ many success stories and the overall positive attributes of the Hasidic community, and properly put the figures into the context of the overall state population by comparing the rates of drug and alcohol use, poverty, and self harm in the Hasidic community to that of the public school community as a whole.

Third, the article described in your September 1, 2022 emails comes dangerously close to
implying that the Hasidic school system is engaged in criminal activity. The tone of your email suggests that the article will imply, without any support, that the schools are committing fraud by receiving public funding for students by mislabeling or falsely characterizing their programs and curricula. Similarly, it suggests that the article will imply that the schools are engaged in some type of fraud by “coaching” parents on applying for vouchers or other government programs.

While it is true that Hasidic schools can and do help parents acquire public aid, this is not illegal. In fact, the state of New York has requested that the schools do this as they are the best conduit for providing such information to parents. As you know, false implications of criminal activity are defamation per se…

…in addition to the facts provided above, if you proceed with publication of your story, we request that you also include the following statement: “Entities that are trying to manipulate and remove from parents the right to educate their children is an outright violation of our constitutionally protected religious liberty,” said Rabbi Moshe Margaretten, President of Tzedek Association, a humanitarian organization. “We are united as a community and we will stand strong together in combatting the misleading, inaccurate, and untrue allegations that have been published, which will only fan the flames of antisemitic hate, especially with the current rise in hate crime against the Orthodox Jewish community.”