YWN NOTE: There are still approximately 20 girls without a high school to go to in Lakewood, and an unknown number of children still not accepted in primary. Sources tell YWN that the Roshei Yeshiva are considering not allowing any schools in Lakewood to open this year if every child is not accepted.
The following is an unedited letter YWN received:
Dear fellow Mommies, Totties and all Jewish brethren,
There are no trips for school supplies this week for several families. My neighbors and friends children have no school to go to. These are my sisters, these are your sisters.
My daughter does not belong in a school if these girls do not have a school.
How can I happily buy school supplies and uniforms with my “lucky” child? My friends and neighbors are crying, the children so sad and rejected. School starts this week and they know they are not wanted.
In 2019, in America, where we are able to practice yiddishkeit freely, these children are banned from learning Torah.
We are a nation of kindness and we provide services for each other all across the world. We are constantly helping the children who are in distress, who are struggling with yiddishkeit, who are running away from our beautiful Torah lives. We cannot ensure that every child will have a happy and healthy school experience. But we can do everything possible to ensure that every Jewish child that wants to go to a Bais Yaakov or Yeshiva has a school to go to.
Our nation has survived so many trials and tribulations; we are a strong, stubborn and persistent nation. We survived the holocaust and built up a new generation of living, breathing precious Jewish children. We know how to fight for our rights. Let’s fight for our children and the children of all of Am Yisroel. Let us unite and pool all our resources and together solve the problems of getting our and your precious Jewish children into schools.
Name withheld upon request.
NOTE: The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of YWN.
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17 Responses
the problem is Lakewood is no longer a yeshiva town and the roshei yeshiva don’t control things but rather it is controlled by businessmen who own yeshivas.
this is an annual conversation that deserves a logical response while acknowledging the tzaar and sleepless nights . let me make a few brief points as a parent who knows the systems…
1. lets differentiate between the chassidim where u belong to the company and the mosad is run by the kehilla . those mosdos have the power to accept and their attendence is a given no marketing or public opinion can change the numbers more than a bit.
2. supply & demand- is a rule of life thats affects mosdos as well .. practicly a mosad is rated and graded by YOU the parent body. the circle on the grass in the colony rates each mosad in shades like benjamin moore thats basicly what seperates one from the other ( yes eng. or no , white shirt…/
3. most parents want a mosad thats ” better than them” so no one really goes where they are wanted
4. ever elementary yeshiva can show you a list of ” mitzvos” that they TOOK IN – be it no $$ or dysfunction or reb shmuel called…. they can also show you a list of MITZVOS that cost them BIG TIME be it behaviral , kedusha..or reputation..
5.THE PARENTS; hashem is the ultimate judge BUT your actions and level of dikduk behalacha & yiddishkeit ( culturally) has ramifications.. although what you are doing is not asur & you may be superior in other ways still there are communal markers
6. HOW DID THE other half of the waiting list get in ; 3 ways all good options -some parents agreed to be the better ones in a shvache mosad others sacrificed $$ to help the mosad in turn for a spot which not owed to them / had people like you plea on their behalf
its like shul after borchu everyone finds a seat the next time you berate a menahel ‘ YOU TOOK HIS DAUGHTER” he drives a pk up truk …his wife was jogging looking like?><.know that you add fuel to the fire
An annual letter with the same unanswered questions.
. NO school accepted them, or, the one they feel they MUST attend said no, and they are raising the roof about it.
. Is your child the tzadekes you make her out to be or has she run roughshod over teachers in rpevious years, and you the parents did little or nothing to help the school rein her in.
. Is your child suited to the schools she applied to, academically, hashkafically?
I’d like to read the responses from the schools that did not accept this particular child.
To paraphrase a saying…there are three sides to every story. His side, her side and the truth.
So far the Lakewood Roshei Yeshiva in recent weeks only issued a letter in regards to the NY yeshivas but have been silent on Lakewood schools,shame on the ppl in charge that allow for this to happen year after year. Some ppl will have blood on they’re hands
The answer is to follow the many “ANTIVAXXER” people who are now using various homeschooling strategies because they were kicked out of Yeshivas first by the our community of Chesed and than by the Government of Chesed. It will be a Chesed to your family when you save fortunes of money on Yeshiva tuition and are able to live with much less financial stress and pressure and the humiliation and embarrassment of having to be raked over the coals by a yeshiva tuition committee or administrator. You will also not have to worry about skirt lengths being measured and so on.
Meir G, what you are describing is a cult, the elitist cult that is dividing the Jewish people.
leah 2330 – its not about elite, most schools have a mix and for a number of reasons our children are more weak & vulnerable than ever before needing more of a proactive shemira . there is a place for everyone , lakewood mosdos have not kept up with the population growth brooklyn has plenty of space . many people that ” COULDNT GET IN ” to many brooklyn mosdos today can supply & demand see above
@ apushatayid you know nothing! Schools here in Lakewood are not accepting anyone. You can’t even get an application. This place is mafia run. The vaad is useless and Lakewood doesn’t want any school that is different to succeed. Everyone here is corrupt. My girls school closed and we have not even been able to get an application to another school. There are 100 girls without a school right now and everyone is passing the buck onto someone else. Not one of these families got accepted anywhere bc they could not get an application. So no they aren’t trying to be picky bc they didn’t get the school they wanted! If only we could even get an application that would be a start.
Flatbush antivaxxer, exactly.
Lol @ flatbushantivaxxer
I think the measles got to your head
It’s the same thing every year. It looks like the strategies need to change. Perhaps the parents should stop threatening to send their kids to public schools and follow through. Frum maintain a majority on the board, it would make it easy enough to shape the public schools to their liking.
asa long as my way or the highway rules Lakewood, this is a siman to move out. hibadelu mitoch ha-eidah hazot….
The yearly op-eds about the crazy lakewood school system are why my wife and I agreed we will never move to Lakewood/Jackson/Toms River.
homeschool is still an option
The onset of the school year has brought to the surface the problem of yeshiva less kids. With it are the heaps of accusations and counter accusations, the annual ping pong blame game. While there is enough blame for everybody, I suggest there are patterns that have developed with values we might question. Changing these will not be easy, and guidance from our Gedolim would be critical.
Firstly, let us note that this almost never happens out of town. There is an issue when we have heavy, concentrated populations. This translates to having many schools. This accompanied by attitudes that restrictions on admissions are somehow a positive thing. Likewise, the child that is less gifted can be viewed as “someone else’s problem”. Denying admission is viewed as a necessity for the school, and of no consequence to the student, who can apply to countless other yeshivos.
Secondly, the mere presence of multiple yeshivos in the same community fosters a mindset of competition. This diverts the focus from the student to the institution.
Thirdly, these concentrated populations continue to grow faster than the available seats in classrooms. Lakewood would need to build an entire new school every year to accommodate the annual growth of the population. Expecting X number of schools to accept X+1 number of students is simply unrealistic.
Skip the complaints about Rabbi Ploni or Rebbetzin Plonis. They won’t work to fix the above issues. The right strategies will force the cramming of another kid into a class, but nothing at the communal level will be affected.
There might be refusals that warrant shame to mosdos or their administrations. But the problem is far greater than that, and changes require great leaders to show us direction.
As long as we continue to live in large communities, with all the advantages that this entails, we will encounter problems like this. Living in town versus out of town is a serious matter, without easy answers.
I am not blaming anyone for this, but how many of these girls wouldn’t go to schools that were willing to take them in? There is a group of tireless Yidden who work on this issue every year despite it not being their responsibility. And sometimes you have a girl ( more commonly a parent) that says I am only going to (fill in the blank with school of choice ) despite being accepted to one or more good schools. That being said these girls/parents feel that the system is failing them for whatever reason and need our sympathy and support.
Is your child suited to the schools she applied to, academically, hashkafically – unless the kid believes in Avodah Zara, that isn’t a reason to not accept a kid into a yeshiva/b”y. Yeshiva is supposed to make you into a better person.
This subject relates to the question of whether frumkeit is for the rich and smart, and the answer seems to be yes. If you’re rich, you can get your kid no matter where, even if you don’t have the same hashkafah as the school