Eli Spitzer on the New York Times's Controversial Yeshiva Report

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This month, the New York Times published a lengthy investigation into New York state’s funding of ḥasidic yeshivas and the secular education, or lack thereof, those schools provide. The front-page report, “In Hasidic Enclaves, Failing Private Schools Flush With Public Money,” claimed that the state has given one billion dollars over the last four years to ḥasidic yeshivas, which in turn have failed to provide the education in secular subjects like math and reading that the state demands. The story has attracted major attention and elicited outrage: outrage from taxpayers who feel taken advantage of, from ḥasidic families who feel misunderstood, from readers who pity the students that the Times portrays, and from Jewish communal leaders who see in this front-page exposé an attempt to target their schools, teachers, and families.

What’s really going on? To sort things out, Mosaic’s convened a discussion on Tuesday, September 13 with our columnist Eli Spitzer, himself a ḥasidic educator. Last year, Spitzer published a story on this very subject, arguing that those who defend ḥasidic yeshivas against increasing state regulation have conjured up an unrecognizable fairy-tale world—but the arguments of the state’s defenders are even worse.

Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

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Eli Spitzer on the New York Times’s Controversial Yeshiva Report

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