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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?
Nothing disingenuous. And, by the way, i responded to Grandmaster’s comments, not the other way around. I’m just sick and tired of hearing that things are OK, great, no problem, and by the way the andere are behaymes, when in fact we have real issues and in fact some of those andere are doing a good job of educating their children.
Ask an honest yeshiva administrator – better yet a retired one who doesn’t have to worry about losing a job – about the issues I raised, or best, a woman who has worked as a secretary in one of our yeshivos. THey see everything that happens.
Wolf, Charlie, should I even bother to continue postiing in this thread? I know that agree or disagree, you actually read what people write. Am I wasting my time with grandmaster?
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?
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.
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.
ROB – Yes I know the story…Its kind of intimidating, actually.
I mean at V’anachnu Korim Umishtachavim. my understanding is M’B says full kriah – head to the floor, but M’E says no, only on Yom Kippur. Instead we do a deep bow like for Modim in shmoneh esrei.
The first R’ Pinchas Horowitz was born in Prague, lived there (built the Pinchas shul there)then lived in Kracow in the late 16th early 17th century. He was the Rav of both Prague then Krakow, and was also the head of the vaad arba hoaratzos. He was Married to Miriam Baila, sister of the Rema. He lived a very long life for the times, until 83. The Sheloh is a descendant of His, but a different line than mine. (I’m actually 3/8 Horowitz, got it from both sides).
Yes, I know he was a businessman, in Brody, where he had a lumber business. He did not take the position of the rav of the community, but he supported a lot of learning, and many people came to him with Shailos from around Galitzia. This sort of informs my position on the appropriateness of disregarding the Rambam and being completely supported by the community instead of learning AND working. My grandfather was and my son is named for him.
ROB – yes indeed. Rav Pinchas and his brother R’ Shmuel Shmelke were also a bit unusual in that they were both Rabonim and poskim in established communities, but were also among the earliest followers (and leaders) of chasidus. It caused them a lot of controversy and problems with their communities. It also may be part of why my minhagim are a bit all over the map. R’Pinchas’s grandson married the daughter of the Mateh Efrayim, and I am descended from them, so I have the Margoliyus minhagim as well (e.g. no full kriah at Alenu in R’H musaf). Also, as you may know, R’Pinchas was an einekle of the first R Pinchas Horowitz, who married a descendant of the Luria/Spira/Treves branch of Rashis family through Yocheved) so I have minhag Rashi on things like kiddush in the sukkah but no eating on Shmini Atzeres during the day.
I actually made a point of giving my 3 younger children (my eldest has all biblical names after ancestors) both a modern Hebrew name and a biblical one.
A few answers to questions that have been asked.
First, the name Feivel or Feivish. It’s actually worse than being from a christian name like Fabian. The name comes from medieval usage of the name Phoebus – one of the names of the Greek god Apollo! It was a kinui of the name Uri, meaning light, and Phoebus was a name associated with the sun. Don’t take my word for it, look it up. As someone who has researched Rabbinic genealogy for 20 years, it has come up commonly in both my family and many other yichusdik families.
Next; the name Leib may come from the German Loew, but it may also come from the Hebrew Lavi (lamed vet yud alef) for lion cub. There is actually an interesting discussion of where the old French, Latin, and Greek Leon/Leo/ and German Loew word came from, and most etymologists posit a Semitic (Hebrew or Phoenician, which are essentially the same) origin.
As to the issue with Zionist names. You know, I’d like to suggest that anyone who is able should go to visit the citadel in Akko where the old British prison was. It is now a museum. In that museum in one of the displays are the tallis and tfillin of a young man named Dov Gruner (a’h). Dov Gruner was a member of the Irgun, and he was hung in that prison by the British in 1947. He was yeshiva educated born lived and died as a frum Jew. One of the most important and meaningful elements of my first visit to eretz Yisroel was saying tehillim in the place where he was killed. My Brother is named Dov Pinchas. Dov, in honour of Dov Gruner, and Pinchas for our great great great great great grandfather Harav Pinchos Halevi Ish Horovitz, The Hafloh. From what I know of my ancestor Rav Pinchas, and his brother R’Shmuel Shmelke, and and all of our other illustrious forebears, they would have been proud of their descendant carrying the name of a gibor b’Yisroel like Dov Gruner.
Raboisai, there’s actually only one type of Jew. The type you must embrace as a brother. The type you must defend with your life. The type you must be moser nefesh to help when he is in trouble. The type you have to work with to bring the geulah. The type you have to teach and to learn from. And if you don’t know who that type is or how to take his hand, then you need to figure out if YOU are the type of Jew you must be.
SBZTCYY, Sorry to disappoint you. IF my own firsthand experience isn’t enough for you, My brother in law embodies Lakewood, where he learned for many years, and became a musmach. He was a talmid of R’Yaakov Kamenetzky zt’l. R’Yaakov was quoted once as saying “Loving your fellow Jew is a mitzvah in the Torah, and in addition it’s a segulah that if the love is given according to the Torah it will bring its recipients closer to Torah and to Hashem.” The judgement he was talking about is in short supply nowadays. Being Don L’chaf z’chus, and making a place for eager students who want to be within the hashkafic environment in that particular school, not outside it.
My nephew will b’ezras Hashem be getting his smicha soon. He’s learning in lakewood. Just for perspective, My cousin’s son is starting the smicha program at YU-RIETS this fall. My roots are from both chassidish and Yeshivish families and I am familiar, intimately so, with the nature of chareidi life, both in the past and now. I’ve sat down with my nephew, with sons of friends, with my own peers who studied in Beis Medresh there.
I’ve taught in a chareidi school, lived in a chareidi neighborhood, learned with a yeshivish chevrusa, written for a chareidi newspaper, and worked in my father’s (a’h) store dealing with a largely chariedi clientele. I’ve even raised money for a chareidi educational program in Israel. I don’t know how many times I’ve been on Rechov Sorotzkin. DO you mean by Kiryat Itri? By Mattersdorf? In the Belz neighborhood? By Bais Yaakov??
I completely agree with you that someone who puts themselves within the chutzos Hatorah is obliged to listen to the authority of the rabonnim. (Not the balabatim, mind you, or the tznius committee hoodlums, but the Rabbonim and those they designate). What I expect is that schools will judge favourably and give opportunities to people who earnestly want to follow their derech, not refuse to take them a priori because of a chashash of what might be or a simple sfardi name.
“Torah is not subjective or pick and choose.” You’re right, it isn’t. Since it all derives from Veohavto lereacho komocho anyways, let’s start with that mitzvah. And within the firmament of Torah you will find elu voelu divrei elokim chayim. Too many have forgotten that.
Torahpal, I think I had the same teacher. The saying is familiar. But I wish i could say honestly that all of the apparent wrongs that this story brought to the forefront were honest mistakes, or overzealousness in protecting the virtue of our families and communities. If we are not prepared to work to have a positive Hashpo’oh on those who are not quite on the derech, or even to take their children into the one place where they will get that Hashpo’oh, what does it say about our confidence in what we are teaching our kids, and have been for decades? what does it say about our confidence in our own education that our parents sacrificed for? What is a positive frum life for if not to have an influence on your fellow Jew? How can we tell people to become baalei tshuva, learn with them, encourage them, watch them grow in Torah, and then tell them – Oh, sorry, your daughter can’t go to the school we’ve been asking you to emulate, because she has non frum Grandparents or cousins, or she has spent too much time playing piano, or violin, or flute until now?
Why?