Photo: Shutterstock / Rachel Rose Boucher

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young clerk looked up from his handwritten tally and, upon instruction from Rep. Jason Smith (R-MO), informed the members of the House Ways and Means Committee of the final vote for Bill 9462 — 23 in favor and 16 opposing.

The bill, known as the Educational Choice for Children Act — ECCA for short — had passed the first step on the way to becoming law. It was the first time since 1972 that a federal school choice bill had cleared such a hurdle.

Under the bill, individual taxpayers who make donations to scholarship granting organizations (SGOs) could then claim those donations as a dollar-for-dollar (nonrefundable) tax credits — not simply deductions — of up to 10 percent of their adjusted gross income. The SGO would then fund scholarships for eligible students to go toward approved educational expenses, such as private school tuition. The bill was hailed by education groups pushing for choices for students beyond public school, especially in failing school districts.

“The design of this bill is basically to ensure that families who face obstacles and barriers at the state level will be able to access the resources they need to broaden the array of educational options available to them,” said Greg Brock, a senior advisor with the Invest in Education Coalition, a group that advocates for school choice in all 50 states.

Welcome News

For the frum community across the United States, though, ECCA could finally offer a chance at tuition relief for parents laboring to keep their children enrolled in yeshivos and Bais Yaakovs.

Given that the largest Orthodox populations live in deep blue progressive states, where lawmakers are hesitant to support school choice initiatives, the passage of a federal bill is welcome news. In addition, the bill has three provisions of particular importance to the frum community.

Number one, the bill has a relatively high eligibility rate for students to qualify for the scholarships (300% of an area’s median income), which ensures that scholarships can be awarded to both middle- and lower-income families. For example, in Ocean County, New Jersey, home to more than 50,000 private school students, the median income is over $130,000, allowing students in households with income of $300,000 to be eligible for scholarships.

Second, unlike some government-funded programs that come with strings attached, ECCA is specifically designed to respect the autonomy of the schools parents choose, keeping them free of government intrusion. That provision is especially relevant in light of the New York State Education Department’s tussle with the yeshivah system, a legal battle still being waged out in court.

Finally, the writers of the bill envision having various scholarship granting organizations service different communities. Thus, donations to an SGO serving New York’s Jewish private schools would grant scholarships exclusively to students attending those schools, keeping donations from the community in that community.

Ultimately, the more donations a community can generate, the more scholarships that community will be awarded. If a community galvanizes its members to take advantage of the tax credit, a healthy percentage of that community’s student body can be awarded scholarships.

(The bill calls for a Treasury Department allocation of $5 billion in taxpayer credits. Ten percent of that total will be allocable equally among the states, each getting a minimum of $10 million. The remaining $4.5 billion will be awarded on a first-come-first-serve basis.)

Frum Friendly

The fact that ECCA is “frum friendly” is no coincidence. While a broad coalition of (mostly conservative) advocacy groups pushed for the bill, Agudath Israel of America was a key player in the effort.

Rabbi Abba Cohen, Agudah’s vice president for government affairs and Washington director; Rabbi A.D. Motzen, national director of government affairs; and Rabbi Avi Schnall (who transitioned from his post in the Agudah’s New Jersey office to director of federal education after being elected to the State Assembly earlier this year) were instrumental in working with House and Senate sponsors to craft a bill that would cover Agudah’s constituents.

“We firmly believe that one of the keys to educational excellence is parental involvement and that there is no better way to encourage such involvement, and to ensure educational accountability, than to allow parents to choose the school that is best suited for their children, whether public or nonpublic, secular, or sectarian,” the Agudah wrote in an official memo in support of the bill just prior to the committee hearing. “Scholarship tax credit programs, like ECCA, support two of the highest ideals in Judaism: education and charity. The bill will effectively encourage taxpayers to invest in education and cover a variety of expenses facing public and private school children.

“Thousands of students currently attend Jewish schools as a result of scholarships, but the need far exceeds the demand. This bill will spur the philanthropic spirit of American taxpayers and encourage them to invest in the future of our country — the education of our children.”

Now that the bill has cleared this committee, how smooth of a ride will it have in becoming law?

“We’re now at first base,” said Rabbi Schnall from Washington, D.C. “We still have to get to home plate for this to actually have an impact, but this shows that we’re in the game. Hundreds of bills are introduced in Congress every year, and only a fraction end up meriting a committee hearing. Getting a bill to committee shows that leadership has a vested interest in it — and during the actual committee debate, you can gauge how enthusiastic the support is and what level of opposition you’ll face.”

In the committee debate on the ECCA, supporters were passionate and focused, while the opposition’s arguments largely fell flat. Committee Democrats attempted to stall the bill, complaining that scholarships recipients could attend schools not subject to the same level of accountability and government oversight as public schools. Republicans pointed out that the bill’s entire intent is to put parents, not technocrats, in charge of their children’s education.

How can the bill get to home plate? It could head to the House floor, where, given the (albeit slim) Republican majority and Speaker Mike Johnson’s support, there is a healthy chance it would pass. (An earlier version had over 153 cosponsors, comprising 70% of the Republican caucus.)

From there, the bill’s passage into law would depend on the outcome of the November elections. If Republicans hold the House and take the Senate and the White House, the ECCA could be fast-tracked through the 119th Congress in January 2025 and then the Senate, and then to the president for signature. Even if Republicans control only two out of those three, the ECCA would likely be included in a negotiation package. If Democrats pull off a trifecta, chances that ECCA will be signed into law will be significantly slimmer.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1029)

The post National School Choice Clears a Hurdle first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

Photo: Shutterstock Anton Ivanov

A proposed new amendment under consideration by the New York State Board of Regents would effectively negate parents’ rights to file complaints about the implementation of services for their children in nonpublic schools. This has been one of the most potent tools available to parents of nonpublic school children with special needs to force local school districts to provide services mandated by federal law.

The proposal is officially known as “Proposed Amendment of Section 200.5 of the Regulations of the Commissioner of Education Relating to Special Education Due Process Hearings.”

Parents often face resistance from school districts over the services their children need — even when the services are documented as needed in a child’s Individualized Education Services Plan (IESP). New York state law allows parents to pay for private services and be reimbursed if the local school district cannot provide them, which is often the case. The final determinations are made by impartial officers at official hearings. The amendment would do away with the hearings, and it is this aspect of due process that is now under threat.

More often than not, parents have emerged victorious at these impartial hearings. As a practical matter, most students receiving special education services in New York have obtained their funding as a result of these hearings. It is precisely this due process, the impartial hearing enforcing implementation, that is threatened by the proposed new amendment to state education regulations.

This proposal would adversely impact all nonpublic school parents, and askanim are working with Catholic advocates and others in the nonpublic school community to combat it. There are whisperings, however, that rather than being a cost-saving measure, the amendment is actually fallout from last year’s New York Times articles, which, among other canards, accused yeshivah parents of taking more than their fair share of services.

“This is a huge issue,” says Mrs. Toba Lichtenstein, director of Agudath Israel’s Parent Navigator program. “The local district is responsible for delivering the services written on a child’s IESP. I’ve been involved in many cases where the district did not assign service providers to the children of our community. For an elementary school student, this may mean not learning how to read. The parent’s recourse is to pay out-of-pocket and then request an impartial hearing to obtain reimbursement. If this amendment is adopted, that avenue is closed to parents, and the child will be left without needed special education services.”

Families with special-needs children will have no other options than mediation and a state complaint process, neither of which have the same appeal and reimbursement allowances as the current impartial complaint process .

Askanim have engaged the Board of Regents and the State Education Department in trying to persuade officials to reject the proposed amendment. Conversations thus far have been productive, but it is expected to be an uphill battle.

As Agudah chief of staff Avrohom Weinstock put it, “Children with special needs are our communities’ most vulnerable population. They must have every avenue open to ensure they receive the services they need to thrive.”

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1015)

The post Silencing Parents over Special Ed first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

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he Bais Brucha shul in Toms River, New Jersey, won a big victory last Friday in its three-year legal battle with the township. A federal judge ruled in the congregation’s favor in its lawsuit against Toms River, finding that the township had conducted a discriminatory campaign to hinder the growth of the local Orthodox Jewish community.

The court victory clears the way for Bais Brucha’s plans to build a 4,680-square foot shul in the North Dover section of Toms River that will accommodate its growing membership.

“Our clients are deeply grateful that the court has affirmed the fundamental principle that places of worship must not face unjust and discriminatory exclusion from any municipality,” said Bais Brucha attorney Roman P. Storzer. “We remain committed to defending our clients’ rights to live, learn and worship as freely as any other citizen.”

The shul, led by Rav Mordechai Sekula, initially applied for a zoning permit on the property more than three years ago. The Toms River township denied the application in January 2021, based on zoning laws then in effect that forbade construction of houses of worship in the area where the Bais Brucha property is located.

Bais Brucha’s lawsuit pointed out that other nonreligious uses were permitted in similar zones. That constituted a violation of federal law, which prohibits towns from enforcing land use regulations that impose a “substantial burden” on religious exercise, absent a “compelling justification” that the restriction furthers a government interest.

Moreover, the township’s regulations on houses of worship even in zones where they were ostensibly permitted included such burdensome requirements as a ten-acre-lot minimum (a size scarcely found anywhere in Toms River), and a 300-foot-minimum lot width.

Finally, the plaintiffs alleged that the zoning laws, which were drafted in 2009 — just as the Orthodox Jewish population had started settling in the South Jersey township — were motivated by anti-Semitic animus. The lawsuit cited campaign mailers from a township council race in which two candidates photoshopped their opponents giving the thumbs-up to a “Welcome Lakewood Developers” sign. The mailers also promised that the candidates, if elected, would “stop Lakewood-style development” — a not-so-veiled reference to Orthodox Jews. The candidates also distributed a fake newspaper to convince voters that their opponents would turn Toms River “into Lakewood.”

Turning Tide

Bais Brucha’s court victory comes two years after the US Department of Justice reached a settlement with Toms River over the township’s violations of the federal Religious Land-Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA). As part of that settlement, Toms River amended its zoning laws to roll back many of the restrictions on religious land uses.

That settlement may have satisfied the US Department of Justice, but it came as a disappointment to many in the Orthodox community. The settlement brought Toms River into compliance with the strict letter of federal law, but still fell short of addressing the community’s needs. For example, Bais Brucha still could not build the shul it needed to host its tefillos.

But Friday’s finding by the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey will finally allow the congregation to move services out of Rabbi Sekula’s basement, where they were held until now.

While Bais Brucha’s plans are ostensibly protected under federal law — such as the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the US Constitution, and the RLUIPA — scheming local officials can throw up plenty of roadblocks in the short term, as Rabbi Sekula and his kehillah learned. But with the Bais Brucha decision following on the heels of several other such victories in South Jersey, the tide in the area may be turning.

Several months ago, Agudath Israel of America settled a seven-year lawsuit against neighboring Jackson Township, home to several thousand Orthodox families, making it one of America’s largest frum populations in its own right.

The Agudah alleged in its suit that the Jackson township council had violated the RLUIPA in passing zoning regulations that made it impossible for Orthodox Jews to build schools, dormitories, and eiruvs.

The settlement was ratified by the Jackson township council (which now includes a frum member) on October 31, 2023. It authorizes construction of schools and dormitories that don’t disrupt the town’s suburban character of suburban life. The council further committed to pass ordinances that allow every neighborhood in Jackson to have a house of worship, eiruv, and mikveh, previously prohibited.

“It has always been one of Agudath Israel’s priorities to simultaneously ensure that Orthodox Jews have schools for their children and maintain the quality of life for those who live in Jackson,” said Rabbi Avi Schnall, then director of Agudah’s New Jersey office, just before his own election to the New Jersey State Assembly.

In January 2023, Jackson also settled with Oros Bais Yaakov, which sued the township in 2014 after its request to build there was denied. After a decadelong fight, the township agreed to pay $1.35 million to Oros, and to shelve its requirement that schools receive accreditation prior to seeking land use approval for construction.

Because the state of New Jersey does not even offer accreditation to private schools, that seemingly innocuous regulation effectively barred non-public schools from building in Jackson. In March 2023, the Jackson planning board approved plans for a campus that will host three Orthodox Jewish private schools with a collective student body of 2,300.

As New Jersey’s frum population continues to grow, expanding into new jurisdictions, activists trying to set up proper communal infrastructure have often found they had their legal work cut out for them. Given the precedential nature of the US court system, though, every victory in court marks an incremental advance, clearing the trail ahead one step at a time.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1003)

The post South Jersey Shul Wins Big in Court first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

A political tremor struck New Jersey on Election Night, when the 30th Legislative District, which includes Lakewood, elected its first-ever Democrat to the General Assembly — Rabbi Avi Schnall. Now pipe dreams like tuition relief and special ed funding stand a chance at becoming policy.

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hen Rabbi Avi Schnall, director of Agudath Israel’s New Jersey office, announced his unlikely candidacy for the statehouse as a Democrat just a few short weeks before Election Day, he faced a daunting task.

Political pundits and analysists laid out what they saw as his single plausible path to victory in a district that had sent only Republicans to Trenton since its formation some 30 years ago. First, they posited, he would have to unite the Orthodox vote. Second, he’d have to actually get them to the polls. Finally, voter turnout from Republicans in surrounding areas would have to be seriously suppressed. If he managed to pull off that trifecta, they estimated, then the unthinkable might happen: a Democrat would represent the deep-red district.

As the results were tallied last Tuesday evening, it became clear that the Schnall campaign had managed to do more than just triumph. His resounding victory trumped many forecasts, and his campaign’s success sent shockwaves through Trenton.

State political junkies are beginning to unpack the ramifications of the results. One salient point is that Lakewood voters sent a message to lawmakers that their needs can no longer be ignored, their issues and concerns no longer treated as state budget leftovers. The New Jersey Globe, a respected political website, called the Lakewood race “the most unusual election result of the year,” and Joey Fox, a political analyst with the site, wrote that “this year was a massive demonstration of the Lakewood Orthodox community’s political power.”

Indeed, at the very first caucus meeting in which five new Democratic assemblymen-elect took part, Speaker Craig Coughlin singled out just one for attention.

“Avi,” said the Speaker, looking at Assemblyman-elect Schnall, “it’s been too long that District 30 hasn’t had the representation it deserved here in Trenton, and we’re thrilled that you’re here.”

Lakewood on the Map

That the 30th Legislative District hasn’t received due consideration from lawmakers was a point hammered home by the Schnall campaign. It circulated a blizzard of slick, eye-catching ads throughout Lakewood over the last month of election season. The ads highlighted that state legislators have yet to greenlight the widening of Lakewood’s traffic-congested Route 9, and have also failed to address the township’s school busing shortfall.

The ads went heavy on statistics, pointing out that despite Lakewood being New Jersey’s fourth-largest city, it ranks 50th in the amount of state funding it receives, out of 52 municipalities. State funding for special education services in non-public schools is already woefully inadequate, and budget projections for the coming fiscal year showed that the meager services Lakewood students receive were at risk of being reduced even further. This, despite an exploding nonpublic school population, driven by Orthodox community growth. Lakewood public schools owe the state a hopeless debt of some $230 million, with no relief in sight. Newark, by contrast, a city with 10,000 fewer students than Lakewood, receives more than $1 billion in state special ed funding.

After highlighting these stark inequities, the Schnall campaign shifted focus to its second selling point: A New Jersey politician can only be effective as a member of the majority party. With Democrats controlling the governor’s mansion as well as both chambers of the legislature, sending a Republican in Trenton is tantamount to having no representation at all, as evidenced by Lakewood’s lackluster results of the past two decades.

“Our campaign went from focusing on what we were missing to highlighting what could actually get done if one of us is inside the room where the sausage is being made,” said Tzvi Herman, campaign manager for Avi for Assembly.

The prospect of a frum representative serving as a Democrat gave hope that ideas never previously discussed, such as tuition relief, could become reality. In fact, alongside the Avi Schnall campaign signs were other signs proclaiming, “Tuition relief is possible,” in bold letters against a backdrop of black hats. The signs were sponsored by United for Education New Jersey (UENJ), a political action committee started by askanim affiliated with the Adirei HaTorah movement, with the express goal of bringing tuition relief to the Garden State.

With Avi Schnall’s win, issues such as Lakewood’s dilapidated infrastructure, its underfunded special education needs in nonpublic schools, and some sort of tuition relief program will gain a hearing previously denied to them in Trenton.

Heeding the Call

The Schnall victory was part of a Democratic wave. The party extended its legislative majority to a commanding 12 seats. Republicans were hoping that voter antipathy toward Joe Biden and a new criminal allegation against Senator Bob Menendez would boost their chances. In the end, they suffered an embarrassing string of losses. Democrats were quick to claim a new mandate going forward, while Republicans could only point fingers. State GOP chair Bob Hugin called the low voter turnout, an all-time low at just 30 percent, “unacceptable.”

But for the more than 20,000 members of the frum community who went to the polls to cast ballots for “Alexander ‘Avi’ Schnall,” the victory meant much more than partisan politics or even making sure that Lakewood has a seat at the table in Trenton. The success of Schnall’s campaign reaffirmed that Lakewood’s Orthodox will heed the call of rabbanim.

Only three years ago, many were questioning the effectiveness of an official, rabbinic-led community endorsement in a Lakewood that had grown more diverse and opinionated. Naysayers pointed to Election Day 2021, when Orthodox voters balked at the Vaad’s endorsement of incumbent Democrat governor Phil Murphy and instead opted for Republican challenger Jack Ciattarelli, who made numerous visits to the Orthodox stronghold to win votes. In that election, Ciattarelli won Lakewood by 61% to Murphy’s 38%.

But this year, rabbanim from Lakewood and beyond endorsed Avi for Assembly, and the community turned out en masse to vote for him. Aside from Lakewood, Legislative District 30 includes smaller townships such as Avon-by-the-Sea, Belmar, Farmingdale, Howell Township, Lake Como, and Wall Township, but the numbers from the predominantly frum districts showed an absolute blow-out: Avi took 21,000 votes compared to just 300 for his opponent. No political factor can explain the stunning turnout other than the level of involvement from the rabbanim.

“This campaign didn’t just have the stamp of approval from the gedolim,” said Tzvi Herman, Avi’s campaign manager, “they were actively encouraging it from the very beginning.”

Indeed, Avi’s candidacy was announced only after the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah gave strong support for the idea of a frum politician advocating for Lakewood from within the majority party. From the campaign’s get-go, letters of support went out from several gedolim, many of them from Lakewood, but just as many from out of state. Among the signatories were the Lakewood Roshei Yeshivah, Rav Elya Ber Wachtfogel, and members of the Moetzes: Rav Yitzchok Sorotzkin, Rosh Yeshivah of Mesivta of Lakewood; Rav Shlomo Miller; Rav Shmuel Kamenetsky, the Philadelphia Rosh Yeshivah; Rav Elya Brudny, the Mirrer Rosh Yeshivah; and Rav Aharon Feldman, Rosh Yeshivah of Ner Yisroel in Baltimore.

Just two days before the election, the BMG Roshei Yeshivah signed a letter reaffirming their support for the election of Avi Schnall. Rav Yitzchok Sorotzkin recorded a 15-minute video in which he explained why the members of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah urged Avi Schnall to run for the statehouse as a Democrat. On Election Day, a video circulated of Rav Yeruchem Olshin himself, Rosh Yeshivah of Beis Medrash Govoha, standing on line at a polling station, happily explaining that he was being mekayem the mitzvah of “sha’al avicha v’yagedcha, zekeinecha v’yomru lach.”

When the results were tallied, it became clear that Avi Schnall had won, but the ultimate victor was the Ihr HaTorah’s obedience to daas Torah.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 986)

The post A Seat at the Table first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

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iven that the Garden State is deep blue, with Democrats holding solid majorities in both chambers of the legislature as well as occupying the governor’s mansion at Drumthwacket, frum advocates have had to leverage the holiest of progressive values — equality — to benefit the fast-growing community.

If a program is made available to the public school students, askanim have argued, their yeshivah counterparts should get the same. That was the point Agudah’s Rabbi Avi Schnall tried to get across to legislators when they introduced a universal free lunch program for public school students.

The bill would have removed the current income eligibility limits and allowed all students to partake in the government program, thus ensuring all students have access to healthy, nourishing meals during the school day, while removing the stigma of partaking in those meals. (Currently, only families under a certain income threshold qualify.)

Yet buried deep in the fine print was a provision limiting the state’s largesse only to public school students. Rabbi Schnall, together with political whiz and Agudah’s New Jersey associate director Shlomo Schorr, worked the floor in Trenton to garner support for an amendment to make the bill more inclusive — by allowing the state’s non-public school students to benefit as well.

“The arguments we advanced, focusing on equality, coupled with the recognition that we represent the fastest-growing constituency in the state — from Lakewood to Linden — worked in our favor,” said Shlomo Schorr as negotiations got underway.

Their gambit paid off, and Bill A-5773, “as amended,” to offer the prospect of free lunches to thousands of yeshivah students across the state, sailed through the committee hearings. Initial reports of the bill’s success had parents elated, but the excitement was short lived. The $500 million price tag attached to the bill was too much for Governor Phil Murphy — a Democrat with 2028 presidential ambitions — and he threatened to veto it.

A last-minute scramble by legislators resulted in a compromise: the eligibility limit would be raised, rather than eliminated. More students would be allowed to partake, but there would still be a limit. Thus, the final version of the bill was a reduced-fat, sodium-free, diet version of the original.

But the key point that frum advocates hoped to get across — that for the sake of equality, the nonpublic school students must be included as well — remained intact.

After an intense season of negotiation, the budget was signed late on Friday — right before lawmakers left for their July 4th celebrations. Rabbis Schnall and Schorr, who had both been in the state capitol lobbying legislators and staff for the benefit of the frum community up until the final bell, made it back to their Lakewood homes only shortly before Shabbos, for the most part satisfied with the budget.

Though it doesn’t look like there will be any such thing as a free lunch after all (at least not this year), the increased eligibility for the lunch program — and more importantly, ensuring that any new legislation must be inclusive — was, for the Agudah duo, a real victory that will hopefully create a new paradigm.

“We established a principle that our children are equal to public school students,” Rabbi Schnall told Mishpacha, “and even though we didn’t get the specific outcome that the original bill would have given us, we believe that the precedent we set will open up many opportunities for the frum community.”

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 968)

The post No Free Lunches in Lakewood    first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

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he obligation to provide children a sound education is on their parents, not their school.

This is how a state Supreme Court judge split her ruling, supporting the New York State Education Department by upholding the century-old law mandating that private schools be “substantially equivalent” to their public counterparts, while preserving parents’ right to determine their children’s schooling.

In the 21-page Solomonic ruling handed down last Thursday afternoon, Judge Christina Ryba agreed that the state had a compelling motivation to ensure that every child receives a sound secular education, but it did not have the authority to penalize or shut down schools that are not in compliance with the law. Legislation to grant the education department that power has been proposed several times in recent years but has languished in Albany, with virtually no cosponsors or support.

The law, Ryba wrote, “places the burden for ensuring a child’s education squarely on the parent, not the school.” She added that “certain portions of the new regulations impose consequences and penalties upon yeshivos above and beyond that authorized by the compulsory education law.”

The case centered on two thorny constitutional issues — whether the state may interfere in religious schools, and the scope of the education department’s mandate to enforce laws. Ryba ruled in favor of parents on both questions.

Avi Schick, a partner at the Troutman Pepper law firm who argued the case on behalf of three pro-yeshivah organizations, five of the state’s oldest yeshivos, and several parents, hailed the ruling as a victory for the cause.

“The court ruled that the state does not have the authority to penalize parochial schools that do not meet the state’s substantial equivalency standard,” he said. “More importantly, the court struck from the regulations the provision stating that a school found to be non-equivalent does not meet the requirements of a school under the compulsory education law. In other words, a yeshivah is a school, regardless of whether the state believes that its secular studies are lacking.”

If the state deems a school to be noncompliant with the law, Ryba said, its authority is limited to informing parents about the status of their child’s school. Parents may then supplement the secular education component with an after-school program or homeschooling.

The ruling left several gaps. It is unclear, for example, what would happen if parents were to ignore the state’s warning. Additionally, the ruling does not address a situation in which a child’s parents are divorced and have divergent desires about the child’s education.

This is the second round for Ryba on this case — in 2019, she struck down the state’s initial attempt to impose guidelines on yeshivos, directing them to first present them to the public for comments. Since then, two comment periods garnered nearly 450,000 comments, the vast majority critical of state interference in yeshivah education. In August, the Board of Regents and Education Commissioner Betty Rosa pushed them through anyhow.

The judge’s ruling was welcomed by Agudath Israel, one of the plaintiffs in the case.

“While not the complete victory many were praying for, Agudath Israel is grateful that the court recognized the egregious overreach the regulations sought,” Agudah said in a statement. “The prospect of forcibly shutting down schools, and of the state mandating which schools children should be reenrolled to, is not something one would typically associate with 21st-century America.”—

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 955)

The post New York Yeshivos Score Partial Victory first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

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potentially catastrophic law that could have led to women being drafted into the United States military has been averted for the second year in a row — due in no small part to the efforts of Agudath Israel.

When the United States abolished its military draft 50 years ago this month, it simply stopped calling up conscripts, never bothering to permanently end it. But to maintain the ability to reinstate the draft in the event of a national emergency, the US armed forces still require all 18-year-old men to register with the Selective Service system.

That requirement is limited to men — women have never been required to register. But with the blurring of the genders slowly infiltrating society, a bipartisan majority of lawmakers have been pushing to expand the requirement to females as well. For the second year in a row, the House and Senate voted to include the provision in the mammoth Pentagon budget. But Agudath Israel’s Washington representative, Rabbi Abba Cohen, has been a pivotal voice in pulling together a coalition to prevent it.

“It could very well have been passed and enacted,” Rabbi Cohen said. “It was a very distinct — maybe even more than a distinct — possibility. We basically dodged a bullet.”

Just days before the record $858 billion defense bill was signed by President Biden last week, it contained language that would have forced women to register if a draft were reinstated. This raised concerns among Jewish groups and community leaders as to where that could have potentially led. On guard because the same thing had happened the year before, Rabbi Cohen invested months of work, advocating and pigeonholing lawmakers, until it was taken out.

In Israel, the parshah of the female draft was a long and painful one, with the Chazon Ish famously taking the position that it was a yeihareg ve’al yaavor. A compromise was finally reached that exempted frum girls.

Historically, the United States has invoked military drafts on an ad hoc basis. Whenever hostilities broke out, Congress would authorize the president to call up a certain number of people. When World War II concluded in 1945, the draft remained in effect as the US faced down the Soviet Union everywhere from East Asia and Europe to Florida’s doorstep in Cuba and across South America.

Figuring that an end to the draft would sap antiwar protesters of a cause, President Nixon abolished it as of January 27, 1973. But the military kept collecting registration cards in the event it was reinstated.

“We have a voluntary military, but this is all about the future,” noted Rabbi Cohen, who has been Agudah’s DC delegate for 34 years. “The fact is that there’s been no serious effort on Capitol Hill to get rid of it permanently. It can be brought back if there is a military conflict or a national emergency. If this bill had passed, the stage would have been set for women to have to be part of the military.”

The effort to include women in the draft began in 1978, when President Jimmy Carter put forward the Equal Rights Amendment, a proposed addition to the US Constitution that sought to eliminate legal distinctions between women and men. The proposal failed to be ratified by two-thirds of the states and so never became constitutional law. Rabbi Moshe Sherer, then the leader of Agudah, raised the alarm at the time about what it portended for a religious lifestyle.

Although the ERA effort failed, Congress over the years gradually passed many laws that undercut the traditional view of women. That culminated, in a sense, when a bipartisan majority of lawmakers tacked onto the 2022 annual defense bill a provision requiring women also to register for Selected Service. Rabbi Cohen joined a coalition of traditional conservatives and religious right figures to eliminate it from the final bill.

“It was quite tense,” he recalled. “But there are still a lot of voices in society who are very uneasy with ending the separation of genders.”

The effort succeeded. When it came up again in the 2023 bill, only the Senate included it; the House didn’t. And the final bill stripped it completely.

Rabbi Cohen is confident that Congress will leave the issue alone for the next couple of years.

“It’s not unusual that after you try twice, you regroup to come up with new arguments,” Rabbi Cohen said, “but I’d be surprised with this Congress if it were to come back soon.”

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 943)

The post Women in US Dodge a Bullet   first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

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ompared to previous years, 5782 seemed to be winding to an uneventful close. There were no mayors or governors singling out the Jewish community for harsh polemics, there were no public officials resigning in disgrace, no riots or flames in Midtown. Even the pandemic seemed to have petered out, although government agencies were averse to surrendering the powers it conferred.

But that very lack of drama perhaps set the stage for a late-breaking power grab by New York’s Board of Regents. Days after acknowledging that the “vast majority” of the 350,000 comments the board received for its sweeping private school regulations were opposed to the measures, the Regents voted unanimously last Tuesday to assert control. A lawsuit is certain to be coming, meaning it will likely be years before the regulations can go into effect.

The Board claimed that public education officials, not parents, are the parties responsible for deciding how children should be taught: “The argument that parents have an unfettered right to dictate the degree of education their children receive has been repeatedly rejected by State and federal courts.” This issue, which has already riled up conservatives around the country, is likely to be at the core of any legal action.

The sudden year-end assault on religious rights also extended to Yeshiva University, the vaunted hub of Modern Orthodoxy. A state judge ordered it to recognize a student organization that runs counter to its religious values, with the Supreme Court rejecting a request to overturn it ahead of a trial. That forced YU to begin the appeals process in state court.

There was some notable activity in the political arena this past year. Eric Adams, a moderate Democrat with a flair for wordplay and a proclivity for swagger, became mayor of New York, ending the eight-year de Blasio era. During his mayoralty, de Blasio’s budgets rose from $70 billion a year to $100 billion, without a commensurate rise in quality of life. New York remains the only major US city that hasn’t yet recovered the jobs it lost during Covid lockdowns, its leader reluctant to cede power. Adams hopes to achieve the legacy of repairing his predecessor’s botch-ups, including the empowerment of the progressive left.

Speaking of which, the past year has seen AOC’s star diminished, with virtually none of her Democratic primary endorsees crossing the finish line. In the party primary for the 10^th Congressional District — which covers parts of Boro Park but is considered one of the most progressive House seats in the nation — the race was won by a relative moderate, Dan Goldman.

In New Jersey, Governor Phil Murphy, a moderate Democrat with close ties to the Jewish community, won reelection. Lakewood, however, voted for the Republican, Jack Ciattarelli, who waged a surprisingly tight race, coming within three percentage points of victory.

But lest the Tristate Jewish community feel it has been singled out in 5782, many of its problems have been experienced across the country — red-hot price increases, rising crime, mounting anti-Semitism, and progressive district attorneys who refuse to prosecute all but the most violent criminals. In the campaign for New York’s November gubernatorial election, pitting Democratic incumbent Kathy Hochul against Republican Lee Zeldin, the latter has promised to fire Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, who has declined to prosecute scores of cop-slappers, repeat burglars, and petty thieves.

An incident emblematic of the new lawlessness came in July, when Bragg confounded common sense by charging a bodega owner with murder for defending himself against a knife-wielding assailant. Charges were finally dropped after a national outcry.

Like I said, a relatively uneventful year.

Prediction

In one candid interview by then-mayor Bill de Blasio in 2017, he revealed his yearning to abolish all home ownership and have government decide “which building goes where, how high it will be, who gets to live in it, what the rent will be.”

That thankfully did not happen, but a week after that comment, I interviewed the mayor. I was warned by his handlers not to mention that quote, I assumed because he made the mistake of saying the quiet part out loud. The truth mustn’t get out to the masses.

I boldly predict that in the coming year, the masses will tire of progressives and the increase in misery they bring and will vote the bums out of New York.

Most Unexpected

A group called Save Maimonides formed with the goal of toppling the Boro Park hospital’s leadership, complaining about its customer service, financial management, and patient care. The hospital pushed back, under the slogan “There is another side.”

Maimonides is one of the largest landowners in Boro Park and has long ridden roughshod over complaints from neighbors and public officials. It will be interesting to see if it can ride this one out.

Bright Spot

One heartwarming event this year turned out to be the Adirei HaTorah event in June, held at Philadelphia’s Wells Fargo Stadium. There was plenty to inspire, from the “We All Admire Our Yungeleit” banner that wrapped around the stadium, to the singing when the Lakewood roshei yeshivah walked in, and even the clip that circulated of a non-Jewish Wells Fargo staffer swaying to the music’s beat. Honoring Torah is for everyone.

135,158

Lakewood’s population in the 2020 US Census, far larger than the federal estimate of 106,000. This means the ir haTorah grew by nearly 40,000 over the last decade. Other Torah centers saw similar jumps — Monsey went from 18,000 in 2010 to nearly 27,000 now, a growth of 50 percent, while the country’s three exclusively frum villages also grew by leaps and bounds, with Kiryas Joel adding 9,000 residents, New Square 2,700, and Kaser 700.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 929)

The post Going Out with a Bang first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

IT'S

been over three years since the New York State Education Department first tried to spread its regulatory net over private schools but ran up against a wall of 140,000 comments. The latest iteration of that effort is now here. The department’s newest revised set of regulations has been out for a month, and the public has until May 30, less than four weeks away, to comment on it.

Orthodox Jewish groups objected to the previous set of revisions, which called for private schools to provide more than four hours of daily secular studies in order to meet the legal threshold of being “substantially equivalent” to state public schools. That requirement was dropped in this round and replaced with a basket of six options.

Orthodox parents still have five reasons to worry about the latest set of rules, which will have major impacts on how yeshivos have operated in the postwar era.

1. Big Brother Is Here

To Agudath Israel’s Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwiebel, the greatest apprehension is that yeshivos would, for the first time, be required to cede control over their operations to the state education bureaucracy.

“There are definite improvements in this version over the original one, but it still has a lot of potential problems,” says Rabbi Zwiebel, the executive vice president of Agudath Israel of America and chairman of the Committee of New York City Religious and Independent School Officials. “Most pernicious in my mind is that the local school districts will now come into our schools and look over our shoulders, having the authority to determine that the way we do things does not satisfy the requirements of the law.”

2. No Unity This Time

While the last set of regulations brought together the entire private school community, covering 400,000 students, in opposition, there will be no unity this time around. For one thing, the Catholic, Muslim, and specialty schools, which constitute 60 percent of all private schools, will easily pass muster under the new regime. While the Catholic school system last time insisted that the public school bureaucracy is its competition and it wouldn’t submit to state inspections, it is not expected to put up a fight this time.

Secondly, even among New York yeshivos, the new rules will have a somewhat disparate impact. For example, modern Orthodox schools, girls schools, and some litvish-style yeshivos could meet the new requirements, availing themselves of one or more of the six options. The ones with the most to lose are the mosdos with a mesorah to limit secular studies. While their robust limudei kodesh programs instill critical thinking and analytical skills, enabling graduates to make their mark in business or the arts, under the narrow definitions of the regulations, these mosdos would not pass.

So while all Jewish schools, from the right to the left, are opposed to the intrusiveness of the regulations, the intensity of their opposition is colored by how seriously they are impacted.

3. Accreditation Is No Lifeline

The new rules allow private schools to avoid local district supervision if they administer the state Regents exams or gain state accreditation. But gaining accreditation is a prohibitive task that can take up to five years.

“The regulations speak of schools that are already accredited, not schools that are in the process of getting accredited,” Rabbi Zwiebel notes. “Most Catholics and other nonpublic schools are already accredited by the state. But for whatever reason, only a handful — about a half dozen — of yeshivos have gone through the accreditation process. So that accreditation lifeline will be available to the Catholic schools, it will be available to the independent schools, but not to most yeshivos.”

While it can take up to five years for a school to receive accreditation, the new rules would allow the state to shut a school down in only 45 days. All it takes to trigger an investigation by the local school superintendent is a complaint made by anyone — even if that petitioner does not provide evidence of being harmed by the private school’s policies. The only avenue for the private school is to appeal to the state education commissioner, who does not answer to politicians or the court.

“The provisions,” Rabbi Zwiebel says, “basically invite any malcontent who has a grudge to settle to challenge the status of a yeshivah. They don’t have to have gone to that school and they don’t have to have any standing to make that challenge. This is an outlandish concept that doesn’t exist anywhere else.”

Furthermore, if the new rules are approved, there will be a flood of accreditation applications from yeshivos, swamping the system and leading to massive delays. The state has not shown any inclination to speed up the process.

4. The Meaning of Testing

As for the Regents exams, Rabbi Zwiebel says much remains to be clarified. Do schools have to offer the tests to be in compliance, or must their students pass them? If yes, by what percentage? Public schools students don’t pass at anywhere near the rate that most yeshivah students pass. In the school year ending in 2019, the last before Covid disrupted schedules, fewer than half of public school students passed eighth grade, and only a third were deemed proficient in math in English.

5. Progressive Curriculums

The most pressing concern, however, is the power the regulations give to local school authorities — in Boro Park, Crown Heights, and Williamsburg, for example, this would be the New York City Department of Education, while in Monsey it would be East Ramapo School District — to demand that yeshivos teach a certain curriculum. This might include civics classes or gym, but a local school authority could impose more progressive demands that diametrically conflict with a yeshivah’s character.

“Take a look at the situation in England,” Rabbi Zwiebel points out. “The education agency there, Ofsted, shut down the Vizhnitzer yeshivah, since it refused to teach subjects they were morally opposed to. That happened just because they had the right to come in whenever they wanted and look over their shoulders at what was being taught, until they said, ‘If you are not going to teach based on our social values, then you are not being compliant.’

“That,” Rabbi Zwiebel adds, “is the stage we are now approaching here in New York.”

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 909)

The post New Rules for Yeshivos, New Worries for Parents first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

Photos: Reuven Schwartz

At the turn of the century, a group of askanim got together to strategize how to ease the tuition burden that was crushing Jewish families’ budgets.

As veterans of the recent victory to get the New York state government to pay for fertility treatments, they realized that when it came to tuition, the sums were so huge that only the government could make a meaningful difference.

The odds were daunting. Most states housing frum communities have Blaine Amendments on the books; these amendments bar taxpayer dollars from going to religious schools. Furthermore, the teachers’ unions, which typically lead the fight against private schools, held legislatures in a viselike grip. And as much as states were pouring money into public schools, the system was demanding far more. But the askanim weren’t deterred.

It’s January 2022, and the first victory is here. And the one behind it credits a “fluke phone call” for leading him to a program that will hand thousands of dollars to hundreds of New Jersey yeshivah parents.

Mishpacha can exclusively reveal that Lakewood Township will announce a direct government voucher to school parents from funds it received from the American Rescue Plan, the $1.9 trillion Covid stimulus that last year allocated money to every state, city, and municipality in the country. And several other towns in New Jersey, such as Cherry Hill, Passaic, and Edison, are considering making the same move.

Easing the Burden

“There was never a time in New Jersey when parents actually got checks to pay for tuition,” says Rabbi Avi Schnall, the director of the state’s branch of Agudath Israel, which will be running the program. “It’s happening now.”

Rabbi Schnall says that the program is worth “several millions of dollars” and will give “a minimum of $2,500” directly to parents who can show a Covid hardship by producing tax returns from before and after the onset of the pandemic. The program is open to both public and private school parents.

Schools will not be told which parents have received the vouchers. “I already got a phone call from a mossad,” he said, “which asked, ‘How will we know who’s getting the grant?’ I said, ‘You’re not.’ Only the parents will know.”

If too many parents apply, then a raffle will be conducted by an independent company. “This way,” Rabbi Schnall said, “there’s no room for corruption. There will not be any ‘my nephew called me, my brother-in-law called, the rosh yeshivah called.’ It’s all lottery based. We’ll have an outside auditor come down and oversee the lottery.”

Since the program is funded by stimulus money, it’s only planned to last two years. But organizers are hopeful that Ronald Reagan’s maxim that there is nothing so permanent as a temporary government program will hold true.

The initiative will go a long way toward easing a key financial burden on families in Lakewood, where tuition averages between $5,500 and $6,500 per child, though some mosdos charge as much as $8,500. And that relief can’t come fast enough. The community has grown by leaps and bounds — it annually places atop the list of the state’s fastest-growing townships and is one of the fastest growing in the country.

Lakewood’s population, according to the latest Census figures, is about 135,000, well above what had been estimated based on the 2010 Census count. It is the nation’s number one township of over 50,000 residents in terms of the percentage of children under age five, at 18 percent — there are 23,851 children in Lakewood in that category. For comparison, the number two is Lehi, Utah, at 12.2 percent.

About 70 to 75 percent of Lakewood is Torah-observant, meaning that there are about 100,000 frum residents. And the statistic shows in the school population. Of the town’s 48,000 students, 42,000 are enrolled in a yeshivah or equivalent girls’ school; the rest attend public school. Another 8,000 students are bused into Lakewood yeshivos from the nearby townships of Toms River and Jackson.

Not Just for the Wealthy

Lakewood’s yeshivah students are part of a greater private school landscape across the country. The US today is home to about 35,000 private schools, catering to 5.7 million students — one-quarter of all children attending school in the country. Agudah has historically been a strong proponent of overall private school education — Rabbi Schnall, in fact, is chairman of New Jersey’s nonpublic school advisory committee attached to the education department.

From his close-up acquaintance with this demographic, Rabbi Schnall says that the image of the elite private school parent painted by the teachers’ unions does not necessarily conform with reality.

“There are a lot of very religious people, religious Christians, as well as people who want a better education, who sacrifice a lot to send their children to private schools,” he says. “There are a lot of scholarships and a lot of groups that raise money to help them. There are all sorts of ways that people who are not wealthy can afford to send to private schools.”

Agudah representatives work closely with these groups, both in getting grants and in promoting the value of a nonpublic school education. And that relationship became the odd origin of the Lakewood tuition relief program.

Schnall is a member of a group called CAPE, or the Council of American Private Education, which holds a weekly webinar for private school advocates to strategize on formulas to fund nonpublic schools. While there are about 700 members, since it is rare that real news is made on the call, only about a hundred join on any given week.

Rabbi Schnall was on vacation this past summer — in Miami’s Surfside neighborhood, on Collins Avenue, which days later would become the site of a deadly building collapse — when he popped a pod in his ear and joined the call as he strolled the boardwalk.

“I believe that in order to succeed, you first need to show up,” Rabbi Schnall said. “You need to be present — because you never know, something could be mentioned one week, and if you’re not there, you’ll miss it forever.”

Sure enough, it was that week that the $64,000 remark was uttered. Someone on the call mentioned that a conservative think tank had done a study on the American Rescue Plan — a Covid relief effort — and they felt very confident the money could be used for tuition aid. Rabbi Schnall was able to take that 45-second snippet of conversation and use it to access millions of dollars.

“When I heard that,” Rabbi Schnall recalled, “I had a light bulb going off in my head — tuition is something worth taking a look into. As soon as I got back to Lakewood, I sat with my assistant, Yosef Herz, and went through the sugya. And then we put together a proposal, and the township’s legal counsel reviewed it as well. And we’re now at a point where an unprecedented grant exists in New Jersey just because of a fluke — I was there on the call.”

You Never Know

Rabbi Schnall passed along his findings to Agudah branches in other states. They’ve gotten to work, researching whether the program can be replicated in other locations. What’s needed, Rabbi Schnall explains, is primarily a friendly municipality, since the Covid grants bypass the state and go directly to the city. In Lakewood, Mayor Ray Coles and committee members Meir Lichtenstein and Menashe Miller and the others were receptive to the idea.

The hope is that similarly receptive allies in other local municipalities can see the need there as well, and provide private school parents with tuition relief during a tough time.

The lesson Rabbi Schnall takes from all this is never to miss an opportunity. If he had not tuned in to those 45 seconds on the conference call, the entire program would never have come to fruition.

“The important part is to show up,” he declared. “You have people who are busy with klal matters and they think that this event is not important or that event is not important. You never know which event or which phone call or which conversation will be the key to something like this.”

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 894)

The post Lakewood Tuition Breakthrough first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.