Hasidic School That Banned Leggings For Moms Orders Internet Filters, Too

Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
Weeks after establishing more stringent rules about modest dressing, a private girls school in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights is now requiring families to install internet filters on their home devices, including phones, if they want their children to enroll this coming fall.
Bnos Menachems sent out a letter to parents ahead of the upcoming school year, the local website Crownheights.info reported.
“Due to the ever growing dangers and complexity of the internet,” the letter stated, “Bnos Menachem school policy now expects assurance that all devices in a student’s home bear appropriate internet filters.”
The letter, signed by the Bnos Menachem Vaad, or council, emphasizes that this restriction includes devices that belong to siblings and parents, not only to students.
Installation of the filters is “a prerequisite condition for your daughters’ return to school in the fall,” the letter says.
The letter indicates that Bnos Menachem’s new requirement is a partnership with the internet filter company TAG.
TAG is one of a handful of “koshering” internet filter services that monitor and block explicit content such as pornography, or websites containing curse words, but they may also prohibit access to news, social media or video sharing sites.
Contact Sam Kestenbaum at [email protected] or on Twitter,@skestenbaum
Why I became the Forward’s Editor-in-Chief
You are surely a friend of the Forward if you’re reading this. And so it’s with excitement and awe — of all that the Forward is, was, and will be — that I introduce myself to you as the Forward’s newest editor-in-chief.
And what a time to step into the leadership of this storied Jewish institution! For 129 years, the Forward has shaped and told the American Jewish story. I’m stepping in at an intense time for Jews the world over. We urgently need the Forward’s courageous, unflinching journalism — not only as a source of reliable information, but to provide inspiration, healing and hope.
