As we posted about last month, New York State Sen. Simcha Felder — a “Democrat” who caucuses with the Republicans, giving them a one-vote majority — essentially held the state’s budget hostage until it agreed not to interfere with the curriculum at yeshivas, the schools for ultra-Orthodox Jews. That meant there could be no oversight in these schools which do a pathetic job of educating students about anything other than their holy book.
It’s especially awful for boys, who are expected to become rabbis and get hit with even more religious indoctrination. Girls receive a slightly more well-rounded education.
Considering most of these boys will not become rabbis, they will ultimately “graduate” without knowing a damn thing. That makes them virtually unemployable and unable to make sense of the real world.
The New York Post‘s Doree Lewak has more on how these yeshivas are setting young men up for failure:
“[They] are being denied an education,” said Naftuli Moster, executive director of YAFFED, an organization that advocates to improve secular education in ultra-Orthodox yeshivas. “The main reason has to do with [yeshiva administrators] saying there’s no time to learn stuff [students] won’t use in life — especially boys, who are [expected] to be rabbis.”
Moster added that there are other issues at hand as well: “There are certain things in science and history that contradict portions of the Torah — fossils, dinosaurs.”
…
Hasidic boys are groomed to be rabbis, but roughly 5 percent of them succeed. “The other 95 percent are doomed to a life of struggle and poverty,” said Moster.
The article includes comments from three men who have struggled due to their lack of real education and who are determined to make sure their children fare better. As one says, while some education content may be problematic for a very religious community — sex education, science that contradicts fundamentalist interpretations of the Torah, etc. — basic math and chemistry shouldn’t be controversial: “… There’s nothing controversial about the Pythagorean theorem or putting together an English sentence.”
Unfortunately, because of Felder, those schools will continue brainwashing children by teaching them next to nothing, and there’s nothing the state can do about it. In fact, just this past week, Felder secured even more taxpayer money for the lobbying group that worked to keep the state out of the yeshivas’ business.
As long as he’s the swing vote in the State Senate, Orthodox Jewish children are doomed to suffer because no one’s looking out for their best interests. Unless they want to become under-educated rabbis.
(Screenshot via YouTube. Thanks to Brian for the link)