NEW YORK (Yaakov M / VINnews) — Prominent Jews have taken to Twitter to blast the New York Times over its latest in a series of vicious hit pieces against Chassidim.
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Citing only anecdotes while quoting no relevant data, the antisemitic paper published a story this week entitled: “Why Some Hasidic Children Can’t Leave Failing Schools”
The disingenuous article attempts to falsely characterize the Chassidic community as an evil cult-like society where men force wives to relinquish parenting rights and yeshiva-choice, in return for a Get. However, in reality, the story focuses on several tragic custody battles (assuming the details are remotely accurate), in which one spouse abandoned their religion or at least their sect, which led to challenging circumstances. (Read excerpts below).
Even more disgraceful, the story’s main highlight is the woman in charge of YAFFED, a bitter and resentful person on a crusade to destroy yeshivas and incite hatred of Jews and orthodoxy.
Former Trump advisor Jason Greenblatt tweeted: “NYTimes again attacks Hasidic community-seeks to tear down religious communities. Cherry picked journalism-no shred of community’s many/highly positive aspects. Description of community derisive/offensive. Stop painting Hasidic/other religious communities as backwards/valueless”
.@NYTimes again attacks Hasidic community-seeks to tear down religious communities. Cherry picked journalism-no shred of community’s many/highly positive aspects. Description of community derisive/offensive. Stop painting Hasidic/other religious communities as backwards/valueless https://t.co/0RkZYtxy5D
— Jason D. Greenblatt (@GreenblattJD) December 13, 2022
Rabbi S Litvin of Chabad in Kentucky observed how the newspaper bogusly altered its photos of Chassidic boys playing. He tweeted: “This is how the @nytimes depicts Chassidic children. Drained of color, vibrancy, life, and Joy. Shot to exclude playgrounds & highlight the fences, present at every school in the country, but far more necessary at these schools. (thanks to NYT in part)”
This is how the @nytimes depicts Chassidic children. Drained of color, vibrancy, life, and Joy. Shot to exclude playgrounds & highlight the fences, present at every school in the country, but far more necessary at these schools. (thanks to NYT in part)#TheIronLadyHasAnIronCross pic.twitter.com/TLIXVdw6MY
— Rabbi S Litvin (@BluegrassRabbi) December 12, 2022
Agudas Yisrael released a scathing rebuke of the newspaper on Monday.
Below are excerpts from the article:
“Beatrice Weber wakes up most mornings afraid that her son’s Hasidic Jewish school is setting him up to fail. Her 10-year-old [son] brims with curiosity, and has told his mother that he wants to work for NASA. But his school, like other Hasidic boys’ schools in New York, teaches only cursory English and math and little science or social studies.
It focuses instead on imparting the values of the fervently religious Hasidic community, which speaks Yiddish rather than English and places the study of Jewish law and prayer above all else. Recently, Ms. Weber said, Aaron’s teacher told him that the planets revolve around the Earth.
But when Ms. Weber, a divorced mother of 10, tried to withdraw Aaron from his religious school, called a yeshiva, and enroll him in another one with stronger secular studies, she found that she could not do it. She had signed away that right in a divorce agreement drawn up by Hasidic leaders.
Across New York’s Hasidic community, parents like Ms. Weber often end up trapped in an impossible position, anxious to get their children out of some of the worst-performing schools in the state but hindered by social pressure and religious institutions.”
“…They {Batei Din] often ensure through binding divorce settlement agreements that children must remain in intensely religious schools, even if they provide little secular education, according to interviews with four dozen parents and attorneys and a review of hundreds of pages of court filings and other documents.
The agreements are typically upheld by New York State judges seeking to follow precedent by maintaining stability for children amid divorce. But in doing so, the judges can sometimes find themselves in an unusual position, ordering children to remain in Hasidic yeshivas that appear to be violating a state law requiring private schools to offer a basic secular education…”
“…many Hasidic parents embrace them despite their lack of secular instruction, saying they would not send their children anywhere else.
But others described feeling anguished as their children fall behind. One said she could barely stand to see her son leave for his Hasidic yeshiva in the morning but has left him enrolled for fear of losing custody. Another said his son’s English was so poor that the boy could barely read the side of a cereal box. A third said she became so fed up with her son’s yeshiva education that she secretly enrolled him in a secular after-school program, saying she feared that one day he would ask her why she had not done more for his education.”
May the NY Times burn down to the ground and completely disappear off the face of the earth.
what we should do is to write / publish a point by point rebuttal, lets go in order take up every point they make, this is what the NYT wrote, here’s why that’s not true….
just yelling Anti-Semites every time someone criticizes us won’t do us any good
We are minimizing their education so that they shouldn’t grow up controlling all the banks and all of world economy.
Every thing that you quoted is true, so whats the fuss. Yes, we dont like to put out our dirty laundry in public.
To remove a person choice using an agreement as leverage in a divorce is not derekh hatorah. Especially when what they would like to do is also acceptable to mainstream frum society. There in definitely something abit controling and narcissistic when a fringe opinion is being imposed.
I just want to comment on this line and since it’s a dvar halacha I will use my real name.
Recently, Ms. Weber said, Aaron’s teacher told him that the planets revolve around the Earth.
I personally asked Harav Yisroel Belsky zatz”al on two occasions about 10 years apart if I can teach that the earth goes around the sun like it says in science books. Both times he went out of his way to find a Rambam. He showed me what the Rambam writes in Perek 17 siman 24 of hilchos kiddush Hachodesh. The Rambam writes that in these topics such as astronomy we can rely on what the astronomers say…
Let The NY Times try writing about Muslims and their strict laws or Black on Black crime or domestic violence in Hispanic homes. They won’t do it because they are afraid to touch those groups. But the Hasidic Jews, they’re ok.
The article was written Chanuka time to give everyone a good picture of what the Yevonim and Misyavnim were saying. Which was pretty much the same thing as The New York Times and people they quote and some of comments supporting them online. B’H for the time being the laws do not allow them to go as far the Yevonim and the Misyavnim did but it’s the same bunch of reshyim expressing the same sentiments . Only in a different set of circumstances.
While articles like this publicize the ridiculous and scandalous bias of the anti-Jewish schmatte known as the NYT, little is accomplished. I do not detest the NYT a smidgen more than I always did. And readers either believe it or they don’t. I think we need to approach this scandal froma different angle.
We need to identify the big advertisers in the NYT, and boycott them. Regardless of our tiny percentage of the population, we do have purchasing power. Andf our boycott will make a little difference. If we can deny NYT the revenue they generate in their hate filled, inciteful schmatte, maybe they might tome it down a bit.
The article is not about the failure of yeshivas in not teaching modern science. Its about the failure of yeshivas graduating bucherim without basic NY State competencies across the board. And the straitjacket role of yeshivas in kollel life.
Such a rashanta. Her Gehenim portion is not one which can be imagined. She sounds like she would be happier if her kids would grow up not even Jewish, than to have them in a religious school. It’s all part of her bitter life that she leads.
She would do far better for her neshoma to simply go away and leave her kids alone. Stop fighting your battle with your ex-husband.
The failing nyt is now a trash paper like the post. We really need to change the dumb law so that Papers can be sued for defamation. Let me see them write this kind of grabage about Muslims
If my husband was abusive and refused to call for help on shabbos when I was having a bad miscarriage then I would probably also get divorced and be bitter and resentful against the community and want to take my kids out of the community school.
Hopefully, this is a wakeup call to community leaders to take abuse more seriously.
Theres only so long that women will agree to be trampled on before they will leave the community.
Some abusers only stop when the truth is exposed. That is the objective in the NYT article, even though they might not succeed.
unfortunately Aguda is part of the problem
Aguda supports democrats EXCLUSIVELY who read the reform jew owned times