School buses sit parked outside the Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin Elementary Division in the Midwood neighborhood in the Brooklyn borough of New York, U.S., on Thursday, Sept. 24, 2020. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said a recent uptick of coronavirus cases in south Brooklyn and Queens neighborhoods requires “urgent action,” including stepped-up testing, education and enforcement. Photographer: Amir Hamja/Bloomberg via Getty Images Photo by Getty Images

By Arno Rosenfeld March 29, 2022

Yeshiva enrollment in Rockland County grew more than 63% in the past decade, underscoring rapid Hasidic population growth in counties north of New York City where these families have increasingly settled in recent years. The data, gathered by the Orthodox Jewish Public Affairs Council, also showed enrollment at Brooklyn schools ticking up a more modest 12% over the same period.

“The growth in Rockland has been insanely high,” said Yossi Gestetner, a co-founder of OJPAC, which shared the enrollment figures gathered from New York State data with the Forward. “It has been felt in limited space in schools and on the roads.”

The yeshiva enrollment figures show steeper growth than that reflected by Census numbers, which found that the overall population increased 8.5% between 2010 and 2020, while the youth population in Ramapo –- a Hasidic center –- increased by 30%.

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Gestetner said Hasidic residents are now expanding beyond Ramapo in a search of housing. Rockland and adjacent Orange County, which saw a 53% increase over the last decade, are becoming crowded enough that Gestetner said some families are looking for more room elsewhere.

“I do think it’s a situation where people feel -– I don’t want to say squeezed out, but they did hit a wall and decided they’d rather go to New Jersey,” he said. “The growth over there is also astonishing.”

The size of yeshivas — Orthodox Jewish days schools — is an important gauge of population growth in the Hasidic community, where more than half the members are under 18-years-old and almost all children attend private schools.

Overall enrollment in New York State yeshivas reached 163,000, compared to 98,000 in 2001, but much of that increase is centered in Rockland and Orange counties, which are northwest of New York City along the northern border of New Jersey.

And even as Brooklyn yeshivas saw their numbers rise in the past decade, those for Manhattan yeshivas were down slightly.

The growth of the Hasidic community, concentrated in particular towns, boroughs and regions, has political implications, with voting patterns shifting to the right in recent years, including strong support among many for former President Donald Trump.

Yeshivas themselves have also become a flashpoint, with critics noting that many fail to meet government standards for secular education and calling for government officials to intervene.

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