New York State Education Department’s policies discriminate against Chassidic Jews and threaten their ability to maintain a Jewish-centered education, according to a federal complaint that four yeshivas in Brooklyn filed on Monday.
Bobover Yeshiva Bnei Zion, Oholei Torah (Chabad), United Talmudical Academy (Satmar), and Yeshiva and Mesivta Arugas Habosem (Tzelemer) argue in the complaint that state targeted them unfairly with its “Part 130” regulations in 2022.
The regulations require nonpublic schools to prove that their curricula are “substantially equivalent” to those of public schools. Schools failing to meet that standard — which is tied to anti-Catholic rules that date back more than a century — must adjust their curricula or risk losing their status and students’ eligibility to attend.
Although there is another pending lawsuit, challenging the “substantially equivalent” standard, this complaint alleges that the state is making it impossible for the yeshivas to comply with the law.
“When the nanny state and the secular state converge, it is no surprise that government finds no value in Jewish education and no regard for the educational choices that parents make for their children,” the complaint adds.
“This is not a challenge to the regulations that were passed a few years ago. The complaint makes that clear,” Avi Schick, a partner at Faegre Drinker Biddle and Reath and attorney for the yeshivas, told JNS.
“What this does attack is the state and city drive to standardize and secularize the education, philosophy and mission of these yeshivas,” he said. “What we have seen are bureaucrats focused on making sure that yeshivas don’t graduate what government thinks are a bunch of narrow-minded Jews of the past. That’s very troubling, and not only is it troubling, it’s illegal.”
Rabbi Mendel Blau, head of school at Oholei Torah, told JNS that the Chabad yeshiva had a positive relationship with the state’s education department until recently.
“Rather than focusing on the quality of education our talmidim receive and their many achievements, the Department of Education appears intent on imposing specific frameworks for how and what we teach,” he said.
“Families choose Oholei Torah, because they value an education rooted in Torah and guided by the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe,” he added. “The complaint was filed to ensure that the rights of our yeshiva and its families are protected, and to safeguard the diversity and richness of New York’s educational landscape.”