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.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

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.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

$90 → $180 $180 → $360

$360 → $720

Other amount