Investigators Find Butcher Shop Where Yeshiva Should Be — Then Move On
Ultra-Orthodox children Image by Getty Images
New York City officials investigating allegations that yeshivas don’t provide enough secular education found a butcher shop on the ground floor of an address listed for a school that received nearly $10 million in federal funding — so they moved on, the New York Post reported.
Officials crossed the United Talmudical Academy in Brooklyn off their inspection list after finding that the site did not house a religious school, according to a report issued last week.
But the yeshiva reform group Young Advocates for Fair Education claims that the school’s administrative offices occupy at least one of the top floors. The school also has a marked mailbox at the site, the organization’s founder told the Post.
YAFFED, a group of 52 yeshiva parents, former students and others, first filed a complaint about the issue in July 2015. The group asserted that at 39 yeshivas, students were taught basic English and math from about age 7 to 13, for about 90 minutes a day. Other secular subjects were largely skipped to make room for religious studies.
New York City school chancellor Richard Carranza recently sent a 14-page letter to New York’s state education commissioner expressing his concern that 15 yeshivas haven’t let officials investigate. Nine of those schools received millions in federal funding, according to records.
Avi Schick, an attorney for the yeshivas in question, denied the city’s claim, according to the Post.
At an unrelated press conference Monday, Mayor Bill de Blasio countered Schick’s statement.
“We repeatedly asked, they were evasive, they were unhelpful, he was unhelpful,” he said. “He should knock it off also. Let us into the schools so we can do our work.”
Alyssa Fisher is a news writer at the Forward. Email her at [email protected], or follow her on Twitter at @alyssalfisher
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
