Reckless Yeshivas are asking teachers not to test for COVID-19, to try to prevent school closures

 

Charedi yeshivas in Brooklyn are asking teachers not to get tested for COVID-19, and also not sharing information about students who test positive, to try to avoid school closures, said three sources with direct knowledge of specific schools said in interviews.

 

The news comes amid an uptick in COVID-19 cases in six Queens and Brooklyn neighborhoods which include the “Ocean Parkway Cluster” of Borough Park, Midwood and Bensonhurst — named after the avenue that links them, according to a Department of Health statement issued Tuesday.

 

At Bais Yaakov of Borough Park, administrators called teachers individually and asked them to do the school a “favor” and not test — “even if you have fever,” wrote one teacher in a text shared with the Forward and confirmed by the teacher. The school, which is a girls’ elementary school with almost 2,000 students, told faculty to only seek testing if the school asked for it, according to the text.

 

That school is one of many who have adopted this and similar strategies in order to remain open, said parents of students in Haredi schools in Borough Park, a Brooklyn neighborhood that’s home to several Orthodox Jewish communities, including Satmar, Bobov and Belz communities.

 

“This is one of the more open-minded schools in Borough Park, so I wouldn’t put it past other schools doing the same thing,” said one Borough Park resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity and who has direct knowledge of similar policies in this school and others. “They want to keep schools open at whatever costs.”

 

Other schools in the Satmar and Bobov communities have similar policies, said a Borough Park parent, who has children in several schools: “Schools tell students with COVID to stay home, but don’t tell anyone that there was a student with COVID in school.”

 

The parent noted that there are several outliers; Borough Park’s Bais Brocho, affiliated with the Karlin Stolin movement, tried to keep its classes socially distant when they had their first case a few weeks ago. The Stoliner Rebbe is one of the few Hasidic rebbes who is encouraging social distancing [https://t.co/pGcEhlLA0c] among his followers.

 

The Department of Health said in its statement that the current increases could “evolve into more widespread community transmission and spread to other neighborhoods unless action is taken. We are monitoring the situation for the need to take further steps in these areas.”

 

New York’s Haredi neighborhoods had been hit hard by the virus earlier this spring, with some estimating [https://www.bhol.co.il/news/1093954?utm_source=whatsapp&utm_medium=link] at least 700 deaths in the early weeks of the virus.

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