NEW YORK
Forward
Josh Nathan-Kazis
May 12, 2016
A powerful Hasidic leader has slammed a bill in the New York State legislature that would enforce laws that require religious schools to teach secular subjects.
Moderate Jewish groups that are normally vocal on religious education issues, meanwhile, are staying stayed silent.
The bill, introduced by Assemblywoman Ellen Jaffe in early May, is one of two proposals currently moving through the New York State Legislature that seek to give teeth to existing legislation that already requires nonpublic schools to teach subjects similar to those taught in public schools.
Some Hasidic schools for boys routinely flout the existing laws, offering minimal time for English, history and math, or skipping the subjects altogether. The new bills that would give regulators new tools o enforce those laws come amid increased statewide attention on the lack of secular education in some Hasidic yeshivas, driven largely by the advocacy group Yaffed .
The Hasidic leaders’ opposition to the bill, and the lack of vocal support for the bill on the part of moderate Jewish groups, could spell trouble for Yaffed’s reform campaign.
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