New York Yeshivos Take Their Battle to Washington  

A group of New York yeshivos hope to open a new front in their battle with the State Education Department — in Washington, D.C. The yeshivos are asking the federal government to address what they claim is a discriminatory campaign by New York authorities to alter and secularize their institutions. The timing would seem to be opportune, with a new and possibly more sympathetic administration taking office.

In the complaint, filed with the US Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, the yeshivos of Bobov, Satmar, Lubavitch’s Ohelei Torah, and Tzelem’s Arugas Habosem allege they are being denied the cultural flexibility that New York state has gone out of its way to foster in its own public schools. Likewise, the yeshivos argue that officials of the State Education Department (NYSED) are holding them to standards beyond what is required by law, betraying a motive other than ensuring compliance with educational requirements.

“New York’s actions seem calculated to make it too difficult for the yeshivos to fulfill their educational missions and to sustain their heritage,” reads the complaint authored by attorney Avi Schick, longtime leader of the yeshivos’ legal battle. “But New York is badly mistaken if it thinks complainants will cave to the pressure and standardize and secularize their schools.”

Mind the “Gap”

Traditional Jewish schooling in New York has been in an unwanted spotlight since around a decade ago, when a small coalition of anti-Orthodox activists and progressive journalists commandeered attention from the New York Times and other mainstream media to argue that yeshivos were failing to prepare their students for the contemporary workplace and public sphere. These activists accused New York of neglecting its legal obligations to ensure these schools were providing education “substantially equivalent” to that provided by their public counterparts.