
✰PREMIUM
Spotlight:
Are Yeshivas secular enough?

Brooklyn is home to roughly 300,000 Orthodox Jews, about 11% of the borough’s population. It’s a community that largely keeps to itself and follows its own traditions — its ways of working, marrying, socializing, educating and administering health care. Many of these traditions are thousands of years old and can bring the Orthodox Jewish community into conflict with modern city mandates.
Last week, four yeshiva schools — Bobover Yeshiva Bnei Zion, Oholei Torah (Chabad), United Talmudical Academy (Satmar) and Yeshiva and Mesivta Arugas Habosem — filed a federal complaint alleging that New York State’s educational regulations discriminate against their religious practices. The complaint argues that state oversight undermines the schools’ Jewish identity by forcing them to prioritize secular studies over their core religious curriculum. The state maintains that its goal is to ensure all children receive a foundational education.
As the 2024-2025 curriculum review deadline approaches, the conflict continues to test the delicate balance between religious freedom and the state’s responsibility to uphold educational standards.
How we got here:
A yeshiva is a traditional Jewish educational institution that concentrates on the study of the Torah, or Hebrew Bible, and the Talmud, the primary text of rabbinical teaching and source of Jewish law. Brooklyn is home to around 70 yeshivas, serving more than 85,000 students. The schools are entirely segregated by gender. Although yeshivas are private schools, they have historically benefited from billions in government funding.
In September 2022, the New York Times conducted a study into the quality of “secular” education within yeshivas — traditional American subjects like English, math, science and history. The Times found that “generations of children have been systematically denied a basic education, trapping many of them in a cycle of joblessness and dependency.” Yeshiva students are fed a steady diet of Jewish philosophy, religious teaching and tradition, with teachers commonly employing corporal punishment (which is illegal in New York) as an educational tool.
Just two days after the Times article was published, The New York Board of Regents unanimously voted in favor of a set of regulations enforcing a long-standing requirement that private schools provide an education “substantially equivalent” to that of a public school. The decision — a naked attempt to enforce broader educational requirements in yeshivas — came after years of debate over the role of municipal oversight in religious schools.
“This widespread violation of the law and the resulting egregious educational neglect was known to officials at every level for decades,” said Naftuli Moster, the former director of Young Advocates for Fair Education, an organization fighting for reform in Hasidic yeshivas.
In June 2023, New York City schools officials wrapped up a years-long investigation into over two dozen yeshivas and found that Yeshiva Bnei Shimon Yisroel of Sopron, Yeshiva Kerem Shlomo, Yeshiva Oholei Torah and Yeshiva Ohr Menachem categorically failed to comply with state regulations by eschewing the minimum requirement for secular education. The officials also recommended the state find another 14 yeshivas non-compliant.
While many applauded the investigation, some advocates complained that the state had taken too long to act.
“A student who was in elementary school at the outset of the investigation would now be in high school,” wrote Young Advocates for Fair Education in a statement following the investigation. “Most [yeshiva students] have been deprived of a basic education — making it exceedingly difficult to be self-sufficient. Very few have the language or general knowledge of the modern world to be able to truly navigate life in today’s world.”
The yeshivas’ federal complaint:
Yeshivas, like all non-public schools, must submit their curriculum to a state board for review. If you ask Hasidic leaders and spokespeople, these practices aren’t administrative, they’re discriminatory. By heavily regulating traditional studies, they infringe on the community’s right to religious autonomy.
“New York categorically refuses to credit any instruction that is a part of their Jewish studies curriculum, despite its academic value and content” reads the federal complaint filed by four yeshivas against the New York State and New York City Education Departments. “If [students] can’t devote sufficient time to Jewish Studies with instruction in their original language…then they are no longer Jewish schools.”
The complaint further alleges that the state assigns a mandatory reading list, interferes in hiring practices and refuses to accommodate the gender profile of yeshiva classrooms that are consistent with traditional Jewish values.
“Taken together, these discriminatory practices would strip the yeshivas of their essential Jewish character,” said Avi Schick, an attorney for the schools.
The New York State Education Department remains firm, stating that the regulations aim to ensure all children receive a foundational education. “We disagree with the allegations, which constitute a challenge to state law,” said spokesman J.P. O’Hare. “The Board of Regents’ substantial equivalency regulations have been upheld in court.”
A number of Jewish advocacy groups in favor of yeshiva reform have spoken out against the yeshivas named in the complaint. “Let’s be clear: this is not about protecting civil rights — it’s about shielding institutions from accountability while tens of thousands of children are denied a basic education,” said Adina Mermelstein Konikoff, executive director of Young Advocates for Fair Education. “Teaching English, math, science and social studies does not contradict Jewish values; it complements them.”
Private vs. public governance
This is not the first time in recent history that Brooklyn’s Orthodox Jewry has crossed swords with the state and city government.
In April 2020, the Brooklyn Hasidic community came under scrutiny for flagrantly disregarding the city’s Covid requirements. In April 2020, a large funeral for Rabbi Chaim Mertz drew an estimated 2,500 mourners, prompting then-Mayor Bill de Blasio to personally oversee its dispersal, later issuing a controversial tweet criticizing “the Jewish community, and all communities” for flouting social distancing rules.
In October 2020, a planned wedding at the Congregation Yetev Lev D’Satmar synagogue on Rodney Street in Williamsburg, intended to host approximately 10,000 attendees, was halted by state authorities. The next month, a wedding at Congregation Yetev Lev D’Satmar synagogue on Hooper Street in Williamsburg attracted an estimated 7,000 worshippers. New York City authorities fined the congregation $15,000 for violating health orders and sent a cease-and-desist order.
A Brooklyn yeshiva was shut down during the pandemic when officials discovered the school was operating in violation of public health mandates. The incident sparked outrage from city leaders, who emphasized the need for compliance to curb the virus’ spread, while members of the Hasidic community argued that the closures disproportionately impacted their educational and religious practices.
In one of the most bizarre incidents, a secret tunnel dug beneath a Brooklyn synagogue became the center of a confrontation between yeshiva students and the NYPD. The unauthorized excavation, intended to expand worship space, was discovered in early 2024, prompting synagogue leaders to attempt to seal it off. This effort led to a physical altercation as students resisted, resulting in a chaotic brawl with police officers called to intervene. Four of the students rejected plea deals and will stand trial for felony criminal mischief charges on April 28, 2025.
What comes next?
The future is uncertain for Brooklyn yeshivas. Donald Trump has embraced a philosophy of parental choice in education, in particular the right for private schools to use public funds as they wish. During a 2024 campaign event in Milwaukee, Trump called school choice “the civil-rights issue of our age.” Among Orthodox Jews who are registered to vote, about 75% voted for Trump in the 2024 election.
As for the legal side of the complaint, experts say it comes down to how state law is interpreted. “The government has the obligation to enforce standards that make children financially self-sufficient and engaged citizens,” said Michael Helfand, a law and religion professor at Pepperdine University. “The problem arises if the government applies these standards differently to Jewish schools.”
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