By Rav Elya Brudny, Rav Yaakov Bender and Rav Yisroel Reisman
We are grateful for the outcry of Klal Yisroel, protesting the new State guidelines. It is your chorus of concern that has brought the issue prominence. We must keep the pressure up. Your interest is what will bring hatzlachah in this battle for the heart and soul of our yeshivos.
You have protested specific aspects of the guidelines that would set the curriculum at our yeshivos and mandate long hours of secular study. They want to evaluate which of our teachers are worthy of the job.
We are delighted that the NYS Education Department heard your protests and has taken back its demand for 7 hours per day of secular studies. We are certain that the community pressure and extraordinary siyata diShmaya are the sole reason for this retraction.
Much more work remains to be done. SED is still demanding 17.5 hours a week of secular studies for the upper elementary school grades. SED is still making unreasonable demands, including 17.5 hours a week of secular studies for the upper elementary school grades and is trying to undermine the independence of our yeshivos.
We want to impress upon you that this is all part of a bigger picture. What is at stake is the autonomy of our yeshivos.
Are decisions about yeshiva curriculum, schedule, educational emphasis and hiring to remain in the hands of the menahalim, roshei yeshiva and Vaad Hachinuch, or will they be dictated by the State Education Department and local school districts?
This is the issue.
Never in our long history in this medinah shel chessed have we experienced such an attempted intrusion into the independence of our yeshivos.
With your continued help, Klal Yisroel will be zocheh to the protection and preservation of the autonomy of our mosdos haTorah.
{Matzav.com}
The Yeshivas have more school days than the public schools so they may be able to spread out the hours to fewer hours per day.
If 3.5 hours is bad, too, where do we draw the line? If the State was out of the picture, where then would we draw the line on our own?
4.25 hr a day. Mon-Thu
oops, more like 4.5 hr/ day
please add BARUCH HASHEM to the headline !
The headline is false. They did not take back anything. They clarified what many of us knew all along – there was no such requirement in the first place.
It was clearly in the guidance.
Yeshivos and bais yaakovs have produced students who are above average in secular subjects for at least three generations now. While I can understand wanting to evaluate the actual quality of the secular education they provide, imposing an arbitrary number of hours on successful programs makes no sense.
B’H! Now maybe the Agudah could address vaccinations. Sakanta is chamira m’isurah.
Don’t relax just yet THere is still a problem, 17.5 hours per WEEK.
DON’T STOP TO DAVEN, AND PETITION.
Don’t get to lax.
The original headline here is inconsistent with the message written: Read the words of the Roshai Yeshiva Shlita:
“We want to impress upon you that this is all part of a bigger picture. What is at stake is the autonomy of our yeshivos.
Are decisions about yeshiva curriculum, schedule, educational emphasis and hiring to remain in the hands of the menahalim, roshei yeshiva and Vaad Hachinuch, or will they be dictated by the State Education Department and local school districts?
This is the issue.
Never in our long history in this medinah shel chessed have we experienced such an attempted intrusion into the independence of our yeshivos.”
This clarification of hours does not in any way call for us to become complacent, relaxed or relieved. Anyone who says otherwise is being misleading. We must strengthen our efforts to keep the government out of our chinuch system. Our Gedolim and Rabbonim understand this issue better than most and recognize the serious threats we face. Let us follow them.
Don’ t relax just yet. Keep up the Tefillos, cry to Hashem. The state found a different way to persecute the schools. 17.5 hours of secular studies week. Keep protesting Yidden. One school to be harrassed and shut down is one too many.
one kid thrown out of yeshiva for gaiyva is one to many!
crickets shkoach for shtelling your shitas it mammash has what to do with what were talking about
“Keep protesting Yidden. One school to be harrassed and shut down is one too many.”
one kid thrown out of yeshiva for gaiyva is one to many!
if somebody gets upset over a Yeshiva being forced to close. shouldn’t they also be upset about Kids not being accepted in to Yeshivas or having no Yeshiva to go to.
do you disagree?
(if you are a yeshiva bochur. does your Rosh Yeshiva Approve of your internet access?)
One doesn’t preclude the other. That is not the topic here. Stick to the conversation and keep personal bitterness out of this. Wait for the subject to be discussed…and inject your opinion.
December 20, 2018 at 3:03 am
last time I checked it’s up to the moderator to decide what posts make it through. and low and behold you are not him. so anybody can post what they want! if you dont like it you can ignore it!
so a yeshiva teaching more hours of secular education is fine to discuss. but children with no jewish studies not 1hour not 1 minute roaming the streets is off topic! and when they get tattoos marry goyim and cremate! then people will bellow and bemoan!
One thing is for sure 3.5 hours is better than 7 hours at least now there are a lot of good yeshivas out there that are not at an immediate threat of closing down . But we have to still fight this through with the guidance of the gedolem
Mr. field do you care to explain yourself? Or are you above reason
To Anonymous
you clearly miss what’s really going on!!! Mr. Field is correct!
Are the Patriots done?
Important to realize that some people who comment on this site do not have the best interest of the Torah and our community in mind. They have the right to do that but suffice it to say that our community is and will remain strongly united and will follow what we know is in our best interest. That is to allow our Yeshivas autonomy. We will not allow the SED to intervene and bring the issues that the public schools have to our schools.
“We will not allow the SED to intervene and bring the issues that the public schools have to our schools.”
and what issues is that?
smoking? drugs? alchohol? (tv? internet?)
you think yeshiva bochrim don’t smoke or use drugs or drink alchohol?
this happened for a simple reason there were schools not providing english education (to what degree is different depending on the institution). which then caused Yeshivas that do provide adequate secular education to also be caught in broadside!
*the broadside
So tell me,are the Muslim and Catholic schools being dictated to have 7 hours of secular studies a day?
It sounds like they are targeting us.
Pretty sure it aplies to all private schools! But go ahead and believe what ever makes you sleep at night!