Chillul Hashem Or Not?

You paint with a very broad brush. Why are you being so politically correct? Spell it out.

According to NYC law, Title 45 Section 187, any student is allowed to ride the city bus for free, and don’t need to show ID, as long as they are going for a “qualified school purpose”.

I don’t know what a “qualified school purpose” is, but maybe these kids were doing that.

Are we doing a bad job educating oyr youth?

Maybe yes, maybe no. What I fail to see is, how does an isolated incident serve as a reflection on such broad question, to which a proper study must be conducted.

To answer your question, we’re doing a great job! Just ask any of the local Police Precincts.

Of course it is a chillul Hashem, and quite frankly one that happens more often than not. In fact my husband who is a public school teacher as well as a teacher in a yeshiva can attest that the public school kids behave more often than not better than his yeshiva students (and he is not the only one in his public school job to say this). As to your question “are we doing a bad job educating our youth” the answer is yes and no. I feel that we teaching boys to be better Jews then people with derech eretz even though “derech eretz kadma l’torah”. When I was in high school we had “chesed hours.” Only in Yeshiva of Flatbush have I heard of boys having that requirement. I am not saying that chesed hours is a cure all and will automatically help, but an emphasis on long hours of learning and little secular studies, community awareness, and public service does little to help either.

“To answer your question, we’re doing a great job! Just ask any of the local Police Precincts. “

Uh, not such a great job if you look at the number of allegedly frum people doing time in prison for financial crimes.

Grandmaster, enough of the high handed superiority complex. I’ve taught and worked in and with public schools, Jewish day schools, yeshivos ktanos, and yeshivos and Jewish high schools. I’ve seen good and bad schools, and good and bad students in all of them. There are public schools with great academics, no violence, no drugs, and a culture of respect. There are yeshivos with drug, violence, bullying, and respect problems. Denying our faults is a useless and dangerous pursuit. Putting down non-Jews reflexively is a transgression of kovod habriyos. Do you have 20 years of experience dealing with both systems? Can you back up your broad assertions with experience? Have you encountered a child in a chareidi yeshiva who wet his pants with fear every time a teacher approached his desk because he was being physically and emotionally abused at home? I have. Have you encountered a child in a chareidi yeshiva who cried when he didn’t win a can of coke in an in-class contest because his family of 14 couldn’t afford even a bottle of soda and he didn’t know what it tasted like? I have. Have you had to ask the principal to suspend a bullying bochur, a rabbi’s son, a repeat and systemic little criminal who forced money and other things from other kids in the chareidi yeshiva he went to? I have.

Of course there are violent and unsafe public schools. But there are also ones which are models of manners, respect, tolerance, learning, and inclusiveness. I’ve taught Catholic high school kids about the Shoah and they showed more interest and value in the lessons to be learned than some of the frum kids I have encountered.

That said, I have encountered rebbeim, students, and families in yeshivos who set a gold standard of menschlichkeit.

Do you sleep better at night thinking only the goyim and the frei have problems? Wishing does not make it so.

superiority complex

The Am Hanivchar is superior.

No link this time?

Will you let me post it?

The Wolf

If you’ve learned anything from the shakla v’tarya of regular learning, Grandmaster, you should know that setting up straw men is a frankly amateurish way to argue. So let me address your points, even though you ignored mine.

Being the am hanivchar means exactly what it says. Chosen. For a higher purpose, a higher calling. An Ohr Lagoyim. It also means chosen for nisayon. As you might know, we don’t always do very well with our nisyonos. Have you learned sefer Shoftim? We have sometimes abjectly failed our nisyonos individually and as a people. We have shown hakodosh boruch hu that we have the potential to lower ourselves to the 49th level of tumah, but also to raise ourselves to the 49th level of purity. If we are superior in ANYTHING, it is in our potential. Don’t ever have the arrogance to think we are at the 49th level of purity simply by being born into yiddishkeit. We have to work at it. Anivus, by the way, is something else we should work on.

I fully concede that the yeshivos in NY and elsewhere do not have a gun problem. I’ve got a newsflash for you, though. Young people are physically hurt and bullied every single day in yeshivos, as they are elsewhere. there is a makkah of lack of derech eretz and lack of kovod all over the place. If you want to take comfort and pride in the fact that our bochurim are not shooting each other, please do so. I’m more concerned about the problems that need to be addressed, rather than the ones that don’t.

I don’t live in New York, and where I live the public schools don’t have metal detectors, so I can’t speak to the NY experience. Frankly, though, it is an irrelevancy and a straw man, because I never asserted that all yeshivos were more dangerous than all public schools.

Now perhaps you could address the points I raised.

btw, although students are entitled to ride the bus free they cannot just get on the bus. They have to be registered through a school and have the free metrocard they were issued. if they do not have the cards on them they cannot ride free.

Once again, grandmaster, not addressing the issue. Tell me, please, what direct experience do you have in or with a public school. Have you taught in one? Have you consulted for one? Have you worked with administrators to deal with issues of prejudice and violence in Public schools? Because I have done so. You know what else? I’ve personally witnessed Rebbeim and administrators in Yeshivos assault students. Not brutally, not so as it would leave a scar, but 100% within the legal definition of assault. Never once saw that in a public school. Anyone who is found to do so would lose their job. In our community, it is par for the course. So applaud yourself if you wish about the lack of shootings – which, if you didn’t notice, I already conceded. Applaud yourself over the relative absence of drugs (and if you believe they are totally absent, I have a piece of swampland in Florida to sell you). Those are pretty sad benchmarks for the am hanivchar. —-We’re sooo much better because we don’t have shootings. That’s the standard we measure by.—-

Oh, and if the am hanivchar is superior on all levels in all regards across the board, why are we in golus, exactly?

yichusdik: You will not cause anyone to become unconvinced that the Am Hanivchar, even whilst in golus, are far superior in all regards over others. Even if you bring more sheker and loshon hora against Yeshiva bochorim and rebbeim.

Mods, can you please change Grandmaster’s subtitle to “Joseph”?

Thanks!

First: I am not a public school teacher. I have in the past taught in chareidi schools, consulted in public schools, catholic schools, M.O schools, and other Jewish schools. I’ve supervised educational staff working in small Jewish communities. And tell me, please. Does a public elementary school in, say, rural Nebraska in the middle of the bible belt have a gang problem? Because you said it did by tarring all with the same brush.

Next, I am not a hired union pr thug – in fact I will state very clearly for the record that my politics are conservative and I am not a fan of unions in general and teachers unions in particular.

I’m writing what I know and have seen in this forum davka because I’d rather share it with people who are nogeah b’dovor and might recognize the reality – and then do something about it (not loshon horah, not only because I didn’t identify what schools, when or where, but also because it is given over in a spirit of tikun) than make a mockery of the whole yeshiva system befarhesia, as you, Grandmaster, do of the public system. There are many excellent yeshivos, but there are also too many which desperately need guidance, chizuk, and tikun.

Next, I mirrored your comments. You denigrated a system serving a population of 330 million in the US alone, by referencing serious problems that apply to a small fraction of the schools in the US. I gave examples from what I know. I stood at the desk of the kid who was terrified, and watched him shrink away from me in dread when I asked him to answer a question on the board. This particular incident happened 21 years ago, but I still remember his name and his face, the haunted eyes and the bent glasses, and his unfortunate story which I learned from other teachers who had taught him before. How dare you call his pain sheker!

I also know that the very best, most respectful, most cheindik student I ever encountered was at the same school. He wasn’t a genius, but he always worked hard, always was the first to help, always treated his teachers and his peers with respect, and always had a smile on his face. I know his parents, and he is cut from the wonderful cloth that represents all that is beautiful about Chareidi communities.

Metro, you are absolutely right about my use of the word systemic. I was writing so fast that I used a word I was thinking of to describe the problems yeshivos must address (systemic) instead of one describing this boy’s modus operandi (systematic). Thank you for the correction. By the way, To show you and any other reader that I’m not saying the whole system is completely rotten, the bochur who was bullying eventually got older and wiser, changed his behavior, and became a real ben torah. Someone got through to him within the yeshiva world. Sorry for the cadence of my words, if it was distracting. I tend to write that way when I’m passionate about the subject.

Finally, I don’t intend to conflate my discussion about being am hanivchar with criticism of some problems in the yeshiva world.

I may not cause you to change your mind, and that is your prerogative, grandmaster. But perhaps there are those reading who might look at the discussion as an opportunity to reflect on what the eibishter expects of us AS an am hanivchar, rather than using the term as a mark of aristocracy.

You have demonstrated a complete inability to address a single issue I raised by referencing personal experience, statistics, or the experience of someone else who has worked in the system. You insist on ad hominem accusations of lying. Do you even get the point of a coffee room like this?

tryinghard: Good point. There is no comparison to our holy tinokos shel bais rabban in Yeshiva to the vilda chayos in the PS. There is no comparison to our youth who shteig in Torah HaKedosha most of their school day to (l’havdil elef havdolos) those teaching and learning of how they descend from apes and share the same zaida as the gorillas after they finish distributing their c…..’s since abstinence is out of style.

yichusdik: After painting with a broad brush against our tzadikim in the Yeshivos, based on some isolated examples from your alleged personal anecdotal evidence, you finally realize about “tarring all with the same brush” and “problems that apply to a small fraction of the schools” — but apply it only to PS and not Yiddishe kinder and rebbeim in our holy Yeshivos?

Yes, yichusdik, being a member of the Am Hanivchar is a mark of aristocracy.

In NYC students are only entitled to free rides through graduation from high school. As a college student I have to pay the same gouged price for the same awful service as everyone else. I usually walk or bike.

Joseph: Your ignorance is amusing. Please keep it up.