NYC Yeshiva Population Explodes

PEARLS:

Parents for Educational and Religious Liberty in Schools (PEARLS), an organization defending parents’ right to choose a yeshiva education for their children, filed an amicus curiae brief defending yeshiva education.

The brief, filed in federal court in Brooklyn, was co-signed by Agudath Israel of America, Torah Umesorah and the United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg. It counters the misguided and inflammatory claims contained in a lawsuit filed by an organization named YAFFED.

In its lawsuit, YAFFED challenges the constitutionality of a change in the New York education law – enacted in April, and widely known as the Felder Amendment – and uses that challenge as a launching pad for its all-out attack on the yeshiva system.

YAFFED seeks to have the court supplant the Legislature, the State Education Department and the NYC Department of Education in setting education policy, and asks the court to direct SED and DOE to ignore the rich educational values students derive from their yeshiva education.

According to the PEARLS brief, “YAFFED cloaks its disappointment with the Legislature that enacted the Felder Amendment in constitutional garb”.

However, the PEARLS brief points out that there is nothing in the constitution that prohibits consideration of the academic rigor and educational value of limudei kodesh, referred to in the Felder amendment as “the entirety of the curriculum.”

Affidavits accompanying the brief, cite examples, predating the new law, where agencies looked at the multi-faceted yeshiva educational program when evaluating if it meets the bar of “substantial equivalency” to public school education.

The amicus brief also notes that the United States Supreme Court has time and again found that parents have a fundamental right to direct the educational paths of their children. That is not only a religious right, but also a fundamental parental right.

“While parents choose yeshiva education to fulfill a religious mission,” the brief says, “their ability to do so vindicates an important secular right – the fundamental right that has been repeatedly invoked by the United States Supreme Court to strike down state attempts to limit parental freedom to direct how their children are educated.”

The amicus brief counters YAFFED’s repeated claim that children who attend yeshiva do not receive critical tools and skill sets needed for long-term personal growth, and notes that “it has apparently not occurred to those who have established YAFFED that Chasidic parents utilize a different barometer than theirs for measuring a meaningful and successful life.”

Declarations submitted alongside the brief provided the court with an overview of the development of the yeshiva system in the United States and the unique role played by yeshivas in creating, maintaining and sustaining frum life here; a description of a typical Jewish Studies curriculum, and how that intersects with the Common Core and Next Generation learning standards, and the work that PEARLS has undertaken to facilitate enhanced educational opportunities.

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