Thread by @shevereshtus

In defence of Haredi education, a thought experiment & rant in thread form.

Imagine if you will a newly formed Haredi organization, with a very simple goal: we are so saddened by the poor levels of literacy in Jewish studies in the reform and conservative day schools, we will now use all of our power to reshape it as we see fit. Lhavdil even MO ones!

We will get backers who do not live in those people’s communities, and even though we do not have any ground support from those communities for our goals, it doesn’t matter: Judaism is too important to let people who are blind to their own good.

The early years are so important. Learn about rock stratas and dissect frogs?! They need to learn Misnhayos & Midrashim! Shakespeare? Gotta be kidding. Gonna teach Yiddish instead. Algebra? Please. Much better for you to break your head on a Tosfos. Science? More like Kitzur SA.

Since they won’t accept what’s obviously the right thing to do, we’ll just have to find BTs who left their world to talk about how bad & useless their schools are, & use non-Jewish politicians who appreciate our generous donations to strong arm them into accepting our curriculum

Now how does that sound?

One of the frustrating things as a Haredi Jew is to see how we are on one hand vilified but on the other hand we are infantilized.

We do not need “saviors” to come to our community, and show us their enlightened way. We are not barely literate peasants.

We don’t need outsiders to save us from ourselves. We are not uncaring parents who are dooming our children to miserable lives. We are fully aware of what the world is outside of our community; we are perfectly happy not being a part of it anymore than we currently are.

Our view from education is different from yours. We do not believe in the 19th century Protestant ethos that the goal of those precious schooling years is how to best mold a child into being a productive 9-5 worker. This is not how Jews have traditionally seen education.

We believe that education means to give our children the moral backbone and tools to live as a Jew the way our ancestors have lived, all the way to Sinai.

We are also not all the same. We might dress similarly but our yeshivot differ greatly.

You have some communities where there is quite a lot of time devoted to secular studies. You have others where there is none. You have others where they do until they reach Bar Mitsvah age. Others they start after Bar Mitsvah age.

Look at our yeshivot & the public school system. Almost none of the problems that exist there exist in our system. Not that we’re perfect, but we don’t have to deal with kids engaging in pre-marital relations, boys harassing or even attacking girls in schools, substance abuse etc

Some of you might think “Hey having relations, smoking pot & getting drunk with friends was great, I really enjoyed m/h school”. You might have enjoyed yourself, but these are not our values and not something we want for our children. Call us old fashioned (3334yo fashion really)

Some of you might think “How are they gonna get jobs?” This is not a recent development. Many of us came off the boats not speaking English, managed to start businesses, buy homes, and now send their children to receive the same education they received.

I have former students now in university. I have many more in trade schools. Plenty who started businesses on their own. When you’re a good person & hard working, you’re gonna find your way to get a decent job in America. Or Canada. Or wherever else we are.

At the end of the day, we have different values than most people, and don’t try to force them on others. We want to live with decency & not have others trying to force their values on us.

We are not yokels or too stupid for our own good, this is the way we want to live our lives

How many Haredi Jews are in gangs? Sell drugs? Are in prison? Commit property or petty crimes? Murder people? Assault strangers in the subway? How often do you have to run away from roving gangs of Hasidim?

What societal problems are we fuelling exactly?

At the end of the day, we work hard, we pay our taxes, and all we want is to be left alone & to be allowed to live our lives according to our conscience and belief in G-d, without infringing on our neighbor’s rights.

I can’t think of anything more American in essence than that.