This is an interlude in my series of essays and exposés answering the recent attacks on the Yeshiva system by the New York Times and the New York State Senate. Read the first part here, and the second part there.
Looking at what has been happening in the world at large, the Haredi community is very disappointed with how the rest of the non-Haredi world has been behaving. Both Jewish and non-Jewish, really. Violence, crime, theft, depression, riots, nihilism, and lack of raison d'etre; we are careering at full speed toward societal collapse. Things have to change.
When dealing with such a titanic task as course-correcting an entire society on its deathbed, immediate change is impossible. We can stop some of the bleeding, but broken bones must be set right before they heal properly, and there's a long road to recovery. Only by entirely remodeling the education system will we truly achieve the changes we need to put society back on the right track.
As a leader of the Jewish Organisation for a Keener Education, I'm announcing that our efforts have bore fruit. Thanks to our artful lobbying, we expect global changes to come into effect by the '23-'24 school year. Thanks, Gov. Zeldin! Both Jewish and non-Jewish schools will be impacted, but only for the best.
We would be lying if we denied that our backers do not live in your communities or said that we have any ground support for our efforts to reshape your children's education. Thankfully, it doesn't matter: such matters are too important to let people who are blind to their own good have a say about the education of their own flesh and blood.
The early years are so important. Waste them learning about rock strata and dissecting frogs?! Jewish children that age need to be learning Misnhayos & Midrashim! Filling the head of non-Jewish children with Shakespeare? Gotta be kidding. Education should be made of sterner stuff! Malik, Carlos, and Madison will learn the Seven Laws of Noah and their ramifications rather than English lit from now on. How can you expect them to develop a solid moral backbone otherwise? Algebra? Please. Much better for Jewish children to break their heads on a Tosfos instead. Geography and history? The non-Jewish world will gain far more from essays inspired by Pirke Avot and those sections of Jewish ethics that are relevant to them.
Since the public won't initially accept what's obviously the right thing for them to do, we have found many Baalei Teshuvah and non-Jewish converts who left the secular world who will explain to the media how inadequate & useless the current education system is. We will also use non-Jewish politicians who appreciate our generous donations to strong-arm the populace into accepting our curriculum, whether they like it or not.
By government fiat, all Jewish children will now be learning a full-time yeshiva curriculum, and the non-Jewish curriculum will consist primarily of ethics and laws relevant to them. However, we will gracefully allow them to keep an hour or two a day for subjects their communities deem essential. We have to throw them a bone, after all!
Now how does that sound?
One of the frustrating things as a Haredi Jew is to see how we are, on the one hand, vilified and, on the other hand, infantilized. We do not need "saviors" to come to our community and show us their enlightened way. We are not barely literate peasants. We are not yours to fix.
We don't need outsiders to save us from ourselves. We are not uncaring parents who are dooming our children to miserable lives. We are fully aware of the world outside our community; we are perfectly content not being a part of it any more than we currently are.
Our views on education are different from yours. We do not believe in the 19th-century Protestant ethos that the goal of those precious schooling years is to best mold a child into a productive 9-5 worker. This is not how Jews have traditionally seen education. This is different from how we see it today, too.
We believe that education means giving our children the moral backbone and tools to live their lives as Jews like our ancestors have lived theirs before us, and theirs before them, in our long chain of tradition back to Sinai.
Members of the Haredi community are not all the same. We might dress similarly in your eyes, but our yeshivot differ significantly, as do our views on many subjects. You might not be able to tell the difference between a sirtuk and a bekishe, a shtreimel and a spodik, or a Borsalino and a hoiche, but we do.
You have some communities where quite a lot of time is devoted to secular studies. Some where there is none. Others where they teach them until they reach Bar Mitzvah age. Others start after Bar Mitzvah.
Look at our yeshivot & the public school system. Almost none of the problems that exist in yours exist in our system. Not that we're perfect, far from it, but we don't have to deal with kids engaging in pre-marital relations, boys harassing or even attacking girls in schools, substance abuse, and the myriad of other problems plaguing the public school system in America.
Some of you might think, "Hey, having relations, smoking pot & getting drunk with friends was great; I really enjoyed middle/high school." You might have enjoyed yourself, but these are not our values or what we want for our children. Call us as old-fashioned as you like, but we truly believe those things to be wrong, and it's our right to educate our children to stay away from those things and to provide a safe environment where it's not encouraged.
Some of you might complain, "How are these children gonna get jobs?" This is not a recent development. Many of us came off the boats not speaking English, managed to start businesses, buy homes, and now send our children to receive the same education we received. Others were born to such parents, grew up following their way, and are now educating children in what has become our way. Somehow, we've always found jobs and ways to support our families. If we survived the poverty of Russia and Eastern Europe or North Africa for hundred years ago, we'll manage in America.
I have former students who are now in university. Many more in trade schools. Plenty of others started businesses of their own. When you're a good person & hard-working, you're gonna find your way to get a decent job in America. Or Canada. Or Belgium. Or wherever else we are.
Ultimately, we have different values than most people and don't try to force them on others. We want to live with decency & not have others trying to force their values on us.
We are not yokels or too stupid for our own good; this is how we want to live our lives.
How many Haredi Jews are in gangs? Sell drugs? Are in prison? Commit property or petty crimes? Murder people? Assault strangers in the subway? How often do you have to run away from roving gangs of Hasidim?
What societal problems are we fueling exactly?
There are over 19.85 million inhabitants in New York State. There are 300,000 of us. We represent a mere 1.5% of the population. We have some of the lowest crime, substance abuse or delinquency rates not just in the State, but in all of America! If anything, we are a model community.
At the end of the day, we work hard, pay our taxes, and all we want is to be left alone and allowed to live our lives according to our conscience and belief in G-d without infringing on our neighbor's rights. You do you do, and we’ll do us.
I can't think of anything more quintessentially American than that.