No Child Left Behind

THREEFOLD “The three elements you need in dealing with indifference are patience a vision and hard work. You need to be patient and realize that changing attitudes takes time… And you have to of course engage in the hard work needed to make it happen; you can’t just wish it into reality. This is a recipe for success in anything we do personally professionally and communally” (Photos: Amir Levy)

L ast week in a nondescript office in Teaneck New Jersey I came face-to-face with the Jewish lobby. And I can happily report that contrary to popular belief it’s not a shadowy cabal of conspirators but a heimish fellow with a trimmed brown beard and black yarmulke and his name is Maury Litwack.

As national director of the Teach Advocacy Network a project of the Orthodox Union (OU) the quietly passionate Litwack is at the forefront of a legislative revolution-in-the-making on behalf of America’s 260 000 yeshiva students. Since his advocacy network went live in 2012 — and he adds “with great thanks to our many coalition partners and the politicians who have come through on this” — he estimates it has helped bring over 500 million dollars to yeshivos nationwide. This money has gone toward things like school security textbooks and technology tuition scholarships and — in a historic first in New York — direct government funding for secular studies teachers.

Last week news broke that Maury has been asked to join the transition team of Phil Murphy the incoming democratic governor of the deep-blue state of New Jersey. It’s the first time that an advocate for the yeshivah community will be part of a committee advising a governor on everything from education policy to specific personnel appointments and it reflects a recognition in the political world generally and New Jersey specifically of the growing prominence and power of the Orthodox community.