When calling out the double standards of Shraying Givalt about New York State’s crackdown on some Chassidishe Yeshivas while ignoring the crisis of girls and bochrim who do not get into any school and are left on the sidelines, there was one common response I got from several people: “How dare you speak that way, do you know how much time other Askanim and I dedicate to getting kids into schools.”
Incidentally, this is exactly the problem I was talking about. Unfortunately, our current system is built to fail a percentage of our children–a situation we cannot remain silent about.
Speaking to parents in Lakewood, I hear of people needing special recommendations, “pull,” or “protektzia,” to get a kid into middle school or even first grade. Why is there an askan industry for getting kids into school? Why are so many askanim (who, in most cases, are truly kind, selfless, and dedicated to the klal) needed for the simple task of getting a child into elementary school? Why is the seminary a mother went to or the Yeshiva a father went to a function at all in getting a child into school?
Even if most frum families end up getting their child into school with a relatively small effort and getting the recommendations they need relatively easy, does the process you have gone through not tell you what others who are not as well connected as you are going through???
Our system is broken, too many kids are left out or left scared for life, and too many kids look at the system they have been through and decide this is not something they would like for their child.
To the senior mechanchim and mechanchos who know a little about the history of Jewish life in America: I beg you, ask yourself why it was that people in your positions were knocking on doors begging families to send their children to your mosdos in the 1950s and 1960s. Remember the days that as long as someone was shomer shabbos, we were thrilled to have them as part of our community? Now that everyone has their comfortable shtellers and jobs, and your schools are full by virtue of you waking up in the morning, we are suddenly telling people we don’t take them into our schools???
A principal of a prestigious girls’ seminary in Israel said not long ago that had she and her colleagues grown up today; there is no way they would get into the schools they are running. Are we making a conscious decision to let go of 10-20% of our children so that our schools can keep a fake and immoral sense of exclusivity? Has the yardstick for measuring how frum a school is by how many people we push away? We must be honest with ourselves, and if that is indeed the measure, we must change things around very quickly.
The Gemara (Bava Basra 21a) tells us that originally, only children with a capable father were studying Torah until finally Rabbi Yehoshua Ben Gamla established schools in every town so that every child have access to Torah education–even if they didn’t have a father and even if they misbehaved. We are told that had it not been for him Torah would have been completely forgotten from our people. Why? Because when Torah depends on Shayenh Yidden with high social status and everyone else is out, that is the beginning of the end. We must not allow this to happen.
I once spoke to a menahel about getting a kid into a school and was told that he would like to take the kid in, but there are those families who complain when a kid from a less solid background is allowed in. To those who think they are making things better for everyone by keeping other people out: your children are, infact not better off by excluding others. It may work one year or two years, but children have a very good sense for what is right and what is wrong and eventually, they will realize the immorality of such actions and either turn on you or on the way you raised them.
It is time to give more attention to the double digits of people leaving our community and the not even single digits joining it than we do to insulting articles in the New York Times. It is time to make Askanim, connections, Yichus, “protektzia,” “pull,” and other negative new trends in school admissions obsolete so that every child knows they have a place to go, from kindergarten to elementary school, to Yeshiva, High School, seminary, and summer camp.
Vechol bonayich Limuday Hashem Ve’Rav Shlom Bonayich.
The writer is an eleventh-generation rabbi, teacher and author. He has written Sacred Days on the Jewish Holidays, Poupko on the Parsha, and hundreds of articles published in five languages. He is a member of the executive committee of the Rabbinical Council of America.
3 comments:
The real problem is the attitude of parents - if my child doesn't get into "this specific yeshiva" then I'd rather he stay home. No one is forcing these children to stay home. There are other schools. There are MO schools, chas v'shalom (said sarcastically). The mindset that is "I'd rather my child be a bum on the street than send him to a MO school" is at the level of thinking of a spoiled toddler.
@ 2:58 PM
About 70% of Modern Orthodox high school kids today are mechalel Shabbos, at least betzinah.
A menahel at MO Flagship "elite" school Ramaz has publicly admitted that 95% of his high schoolers hold views that are kefira mamash, especially in the area of promoting toyevah even if they are not personally gay!
Drugs are rampant in MO schools.
Some sheretz-toifess parents of MO students openly promote issurei Torah that undermine the whole kedushas Klal Yisroel of "sanitizing" znus with mikvah. In fact the toyevah rebels at YU are also calling to be mevatel the issur of premarital mikvah for their straight supporters.
There are enough schools for all types of children and families. The problem is that parents want to send their kids to schools that they don’t want to keep up with the schools requirement.
Schools have a right to set forward policies and parents who aren’t willing to keep to those policies can send elsewhere.
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