Lakewood, NJ – Close to 400 students in Yeshiva Bais Hatorah were scheduled to start their school year today, but instead remain at home, with parents wondering where they will be going tomorrow.
Sources tell YWN, that the Yeshiva, which was started approximately 12 years ago, has been hit hard in the recent financial crisis, and following a board meeting yesterday decided to shut their doors.
The Yeshiva is located on Swarthmore Avenue, in Lakewood’s Industrial Park.
(Chaim Gross – YWN Lakewood)
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29 Responses
This is terrible! But it is better to close now than to find themselves without money for the payroll in a month or two. I hope and pray that the other schools in the area will be able to find space for all the students.
This is tragic not only for the talmidim of the yeshiva, but for its mechanchim and other employees, and their respective families as well! How will they now find parnassah on such short notice?!!
HaShem yeracheim!
While I am hopeful that good jewS will come along & fund the yeshiva so it can re open. I think in the meanwhile the yeshiva is educating us all – not to spend if you dont have- dont borrow if you cant repay!
Sounds like a sly fund raising scam.
What did they find out yesterday that they didn’t know month ago?
This should be a wake-up call to us all.
You can’t just muddle through anymore. You have to pay your tuition and watch every single expense in your household.
There is a Midas Hadin in the world–We are being judged with great severity. Let’s pray that next year, we will merit Heavenly mercy.
Consider the following possibility: It is time to close down ALL institutions in the Galut and return to Israel. G-D in His mercy is pushing the Jews out of the Galut with gentle shoves and back to Israel. There is absolutely no reason for a Jew to be living outside of Israel today. The economy is better in Israel than any country in the Galut. Jews are safer in Israel than any other place. All of the old excuses are used up. Of course it is difficult to move and start a new life but if the Jews in the Galut do not utilize the limited time they have to voluntarily move themselves, they will be involuntarily moved by the Goyim.
Aryeh Zelasko
Beit Shemesh
Can someone clarify? Did they wake up yesterday? That would be very irresponsible. Were they expecting a grant and just found out its not coming?
#3, how is the yeshiva educating us all? Did they not know at the end of the last school year that they were in trouble financially? They just left 400 students without anywhere to go without any notice. I guess all of these boys can now go keep company of all of the Lakewood girls who already had no school to go to. This problem in Lakewood is going from bad to worse!!
My granddaughter’s school in Lakewood closed down in March, she is now going into first grade and still has no school to go to.
While Lakewood is in a more precarious situation (being famous for a low percentage of “Baal ha-Batim”), I suspect many frum schools are in more serious trouble than in past years. The only options to address a crisis are to reduce teachers’ salaries (which aren’t especially high to start with), raise tuition (but most families can’t pay any more than they are paying already, and the number of “full tuition families” is probably falling), or raise money from rich people (whose numbers of been declining over the last two years).
Aryeh,
Perhaps you mean well, but it just aint so.
First, regarding your veiled threat against massive numbers of your fellow Jews, we have a mesorah that America will be the last stop for Torah in Galus before the true geulah (may Hashem redeem us all BB”A).
And I guess Rabbis Feinstein, Kaminetsky, Kotler, Perlow and many others all missed your memo and are still relying on “old excuses” since they seem to have no plans of moving not themselves nor their institutions from their current locales.
As to the facts, Eretz Yisrael is holy and precious and a it is a mitzva (not the greatest overriding, but a mitzva nonetheless) to live there. However, the State of Israel, on the other hand, is a secular anti-Torah country whereas many gentile countries are respectful of religion. That has many ramifications which you may not appreciate unless you’ve experienced both.
The whole mess with the Arabs has not gone away either, and may Hashem protect all of Am Yisrael, especially when “peace” breaks out again, as is bound to happen.
Chinuch is an issue as well. While tuition is an enormous burden for many people, the ability to educate children in a fitting way is not to be taken for granted and is not necessarily the same or better anywhere else including in Israel.
When you have all the answers to the above, kindly let everyone know.
Gam zu l’tovah.
To Aryeh Z, I was going to comment about this story but since you decided to make outragous statements I feel the urge to respond to that.
Jews are in “galut” ( golus) throughout the world including Eretz Yisrael. Jews are not safe where ever they are including Eretz Yisrael. Jews will go en masse to E”Y when Moshiach comes. Until then you are very much in “galut” there as well. If the economy is so great in israel, why does the Israeli government shnorer billions from the US? If the economy is so fantastic over there, why do Israeli meshulachim come shnorrering to the US? Why are ‘nt there any American meshulachim shnorrering in E”Y? The bottom line is that we are all in “Galut” and for you to think that you are safer where you are over any other place in the diaspora is a huge mistake.
although I am not familiar with this particular Yeshiva, I think yeshiva closures come as a Middah kneged middah
for refusing to take in Bochurim that want to learn.
I would like to respond to aryeh_z #6 — do you recommend that all Jews in Galus move to Israel and become dual citizens?
Do you know anything about the disturbing case in your own Bet Shemesh no less in which an American Jew was recently arrested after asking one of the local “real Israeli” boys to call his father on the phone to discuss all the anti-American sentiment his hang had expressed to the man’s children over the year since their aliyah?
The anti-American sentiment of the police who’s inaction led to the escalation over the year is also of concern.
But it is specifically all the giving up of one’s rights by coming to Israel that concerns me.
They came with achdus and ahavas yisroel yet have been persecuted, culminated in a false arrest due to the anti-American bias of the police.
They also discovered that the US consulate cannot do anything to help any American Jew dumb enough to accept Israeli citizenship!
This is consistent with how rabbis in Israel have explained the anti-American sentiment in Israel – that to any real Israeli, American Jews seem stupid, because someone would have to be stupid to want to come to Israel.
There are of course organization that help Jews to come to Israel, but leave them High And Dry – h-a-d — they even give their victims a hat which proclaims they’ve been h-a-d.
aryeh-z, not to go in discussion with you, but you really think you know what you’re saying are you really crazy? as far that everybody knows there is no such unsafe place like Israel and even the economy is NOT better there you think you can knock in the head and try to convince everybody with such shtusim, this only make sense if 1+1 is by you a chair, your closing your eyes to see the truth, open it up a little and look around with no negias, the only reason the zionist build israel was to get Bitachon (security) and this is something that they never delivered,
again this is without going in discussion in Halacha if jews are allowed to make a public aliya which is one of the shulesh shevues, and nobody never never came with an answer on this question which is hanging in the air for the last 60 years
No school ever closed down just because of money.
This Yeshiva (& the girls school that closed down last year) was rife with politics.
Good old Benuri. Not familiar with the Mosad, but has already worked out the Eibishter’s Mida Kneged mida cheshbon.
#16 the talmidei hagra and talmidei habesh”t have already answered your question and felt that we have to move to e”y to bring moshiach come, this has nothing to do with the state which is indeed pasul the past 60 years, to move there has been a want and dream for hundreds of years by ehrliche yidden who were moser nefesh to do so, and in those times they did so even to merely die there. all the commentataor was saying was that in todays times you dont have the hardships of hunger and travel as ppl had 100-200 years ago, so there is no more excuses but rather do what our ehrliche forefathers wished and attempted to do.
again this has nothing to do with the state, or america being the last golus, or the shalosh shevuos (which of course you are not over by living there as all the greatest tzadikkim have done in the past). this is the mitzva of yishuv e”y, trumas and maasros, ein torah ketoras e”y, etc etc, the things that a person can fulfill today even if e”y of course is still galus. but as the chofetz chaim said “shom tiyhe pleita”
Why was there no talk about problems there until now? Were there other board meetings during the summer? How about bringing this out earlier than the day before school opening?
Why is it that people have money for summer homes (which is a luxury) in the country; but they don’t have money to pay tuition to the schools?
If the schools would teach children how to live in this world,teach how to earn a decent honest living so a generation of young people will earn money to support yeshivos and kehillos,perhaps the schools would be able to pay their expenses and teachers. This ponzi scheme of depending on grandparents to support their children has collapsed.
A simple solution to the financial problems of the yeshiva world is for the yeshivas to educate there students and promote a college/professional career path. If the alumni go to college/graduate school and pursue professional careers instead of sitting in yeshiva for years “being supported” then they would be able to give back to yeshivas and pay the tuition of their children. The yeshiva system is a ponzi scheme and not sustainable…WAKE UP…money does not grown on trees. Money is earned and that comes from education and hard work.
21: – the people who are not paying tuition do not have summer homes and the people who have summer homes have a right to as long as they are paying there own tuition. You can make people work for other peoples tuition
If only everybody chapped how smart the people who run that school really are. They knew weeks ago that they are stuck financially and no one to turn to for help.
Why did they decide today, of all days, to close down? The answer is quite simple. What is a better time to close down a Yeshiva other than when Reb Aron Leib is in America to make an emergency asifa??!!
Let’s feign a close down, Reb AL will get involved, after all it is 400 tinokes she’ll beis rabin that have no school, and they’ll have an emergency fundraising campaign. Geniouses!!!! Why didn’t every Yeshiva think this way and there will be no Yeshivos suffering anymore.
A number of comments above indicate that too Bnai Torah — who should know better — have succumbed to a galus mentality no less than non-Torah Jews. As Aryeh_Z correctly points out, they have come up with all sorts of excuses, ad nauseam, why they don’t have to make aliyah.
Rav Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld zt”l, the venerable Rav of Yerushalayim, wrote (as quoted by Rabbi Zev Leff in his essay: “Where is the Religious Aliya from the West)” (AND READ THIS CAREFULLY):
“Now I understand the words of Musaf for Yom Tov: ‘Because of our sins were we exiled from our country and distanced from our Land.’ THIS WE HAVE DONE VOLUNTARILY! Many times have I directed that the religious Jews in the diaspora be instructed that anyone who has the ability to come to Eretz Yisroel and DOESN’T, will have to account for his FAILURE in HaOlam Haba.” (Ha’ish Al Hachoma, vol. II, p. 149)
Get it??? Many Jews stay in golus not because they HAVE to, but because they WANT TO, VOLUNTARILY. Any of the thousands of bnei Torah who are able to make Aliyah but refuse to do so, who come up with excuse after excuse, will be held accountable for their abject FAILURE to embrace the mitzvah of yishuv ha’aretz. The true ba’alei Emunah are the ones who board their Nefesh b’Nefesh flights each summer and answer Hashem’s call.
In this regard, everyone should also be aware of the words of the Chazon Ish, zt”l, in the following story (also quoted by Rabbi Leff):
A yeshiva student from the diaspora who had been learning in an Israeli yeshiva came to bid farewell to the Chazon Ish before returning to his home. “Is one permitted to leave Eretz Yisroel?” the gadol asked him. The student stammered and replied, “I understood that if one came to Eretz Yisroel with the intention of returning eventually, he is permitted to leave.” The Chazon Ish spoke in a tone of disappointment: “WE ARE TRYING TO DEVISE METHODS TO GET BNEI TORAH TO SETTLE HERE, AND YOU ARE INVOLVED IN FINDING WAYS TO BE ABLE TO LEAVE?!” (Peer Hador, vol. II, p. 42)
To Aryeh_Z: you are right on the money! Unfortunately,
you’re talking to an audience which is both deaf and blind. The goldena medina has its grip on them…they will not leave even when the Ribbono Shel Olam is sending message after message that it’s time to go.
ues which planet do you live on? The one I live on is full of college-educated people who are out of jobs. These are tough economic times, and plenty of educated people are having to take jobs that require none of their degrees, just to put bread on the table.
to John Stein:
Israeli schnorrers come to America to buy apartments for their children that will learn.
the economy is fine here. I make more money working for an Israeli firm then my brother-in-law in Monsey makes working for a business there.
to #15.
what on earth are you babbling about in your rant?
“They also discovered that the US consulate cannot do anything to help any American Jew dumb enough to accept Israeli citizenship!”
correct–an Israeli must abide by the laws of Israel when in Israel regardless of what other citizenship he has.
The israeli consulate in America wouldn’t help out an Israeli/American who’s arrested for crimes in America.