The Government Should Keep Its Involvement in Religious Schools to a Minimum

June 21 2021

In February, the New York City mayoral candidate Andrew Yang said in an interview that the municipal government “shouldn’t interfere with [ḥasidic] religious and parental choice” regarding schooling, “as long as the outcomes are good.” After the increased governmental scrutiny of ḥaredi schools in recent years over concerns that they provide inadequate secular educations, such statements have won Yang the support of some prominent Orthodox rabbis and communal leaders. Michael Broyde and Moshe Krakowski argue that his position is fundamentally correct:

While data about ḥasidic economic and educational outcomes are limited, the information available does not suggest that Ḥasidim are particularly disadvantaged economically. . . . So too, it’s not clear that ḥasidic students—who are largely English-language learners since their first language is usually Yiddish—would fare any better in public schools. For example, eighth-grade English-language learners in public schools in Williamsburg, [a Brooklyn neighborhood where many Ḥasidim live], had a zero-percent proficiency rate in math and English in 2016, according to the city’s own data.

Use of education law to mandate schooling that conflicts with religious faith is exactly what our constitutional system opposes. And for good reason: forcing parents into an educational model that they religiously oppose is unlikely to succeed.

In a multicultural society, we must all make room for each other and for our diverse values. While most Americans will attend public schools, private schools (particularly parochial schools), exist to provide other kinds of education—in Mandarin or Yiddish, focusing on Native American culture or talmudic law, providing an Amish or Catholic view of the world. Rather than mandating conformity, New York should support reasonable educational rubrics—ones that are consistent with each religious community’s values, and that, as Yang suggests, produce good outcomes. Carrots from government, rather than sticks, need to be used to achieve those goals.

Read more at Education Next

More about: Andrew Yang, Education, Freedom of Religion, Hasidism, Jewish education, New York City

Egypt Is Trapped by the Gaza Dilemma It Helped to Create

Feb. 14 2025

Recent satellite imagery has shown a buildup of Egyptian tanks near the Israeli border, in violation of Egypt-Israel agreements going back to the 1970s. It’s possible Cairo wants to prevent Palestinians from entering the Sinai from Gaza, or perhaps it wants to send a message to the U.S. that it will take all measures necessary to keep that from happening. But there is also a chance, however small, that it could be preparing for something more dangerous. David Wurmser examines President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi’s predicament:

Egypt’s abysmal behavior in allowing its common border with Gaza to be used for the dangerous smuggling of weapons, money, and materiel to Hamas built the problem that exploded on October 7. Hamas could arm only to the level that Egypt enabled it. Once exposed, rather than help Israel fix the problem it enabled, Egypt manufactured tensions with Israel to divert attention from its own culpability.

Now that the Trump administration is threatening to remove the population of Gaza, President Sisi is reaping the consequences of a problem he and his predecessors helped to sow. That, writes Wurmser, leaves him with a dilemma:

On one hand, Egypt fears for its regime’s survival if it accepts Trump’s plan. It would position Cairo as a participant in a second disaster, or nakba. It knows from its own history; King Farouk was overthrown in 1952 in part for his failure to prevent the first nakba in 1948. Any leader who fails to stop a second nakba, let alone participates in it, risks losing legitimacy and being seen as weak. The perception of buckling on the Palestine issue also resulted in the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s assassination in 1981. President Sisi risks being seen by his own population as too weak to stand up to Israel or the United States, as not upholding his manliness.

In a worst-case scenario, Wurmser argues, Sisi might decide that he’d rather fight a disastrous war with Israel and blow up his relationship with Washington than display that kind of weakness.

Read more at The Editors

More about: Egypt, Gaza War 2023