Jewish State Senator Holds Budget Hostage Over Exemption For Yeshivas

Image by Wikipedia

By Josh Nathan-Kazis March 30, 2018

As Albany scrambles to pass a New York State budget before the holiday, one State Senator is using his unusual influence to demand that religious yeshivas be exempt from state education standards.

The Daily News reported Friday that the demand by Senator Simcha Felder, who is key to the Republican’s control of the chamber, could derail the entire budget.

Felder, who is Orthodox, is demanding that yeshivas not be subject to the state-mandated standards for secular education to which all public and non-public schools are held. The activist group Yaffed has agitated for enforcement of the standards at Hasidic boys yeshivas in Brooklyn, some which it alleges fail to provide sufficient secular education to their students. At Yaffed’s urging, New York City’s Department of Education has pursued an investigation of the yeshivas.

Felder’s power play has drawn condemnation from across the state. In Newsday, the editorial board called his demand “outrageous.” “It’s enough to blow everything up,” one unnamed source told the Daily News.

“If anything, we should be fighting in the other direction,” Naftuli Moster, Yaffed’s leader, told the Daily News. “These yeshivas are getting millions of dollars of public money.

Contact Josh Nathan-Kazis at [email protected] or on Twitter, @joshnathankazis.

Josh Nathan-Kazis is a staff writer for the Forward. He covers charities and politics, and writes investigations and longform.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO