Diane Ravitch on the East Ramapo School board, yeshivas and Orthodox Jews
Has anyone heard about this?
This is new to me and I am researching it.
I started with Diane Ravitch, and this is what I found.
I am told a similar thing happened in Lakewood NJ and I trying to find something on that.
I really like what this guy says.
"Ari Hart is an Orthodox Jew who disapproves of the actions taken by the Jewish-dominated school board in East Ramapo, Néw York.
In that district, the majority of the populace is Orthodox Jews, whose children attend yeshivas. Most students in the public schools are black and Hispanic. The school board takes good care of the yeshivas but it shortchanges the public schools.
Today, the state assembly passed a bill to install a state financial monitor for the district, to protect children in public schools.
Ari Hart chastises his co-religionists."
He writes:
“The board has drastically increased the funding going to yeshivas, but it has cut public school classes and extracurricular activities, attempting to sell public school assets at below market prices to private yeshivas, and more. These ethically and at times legally dubious actions have been documented by everyone from newspapers like this one to the New York City Bar Association to the New York State Supreme Court.”
“As an Orthodox Jew, when I first learned about what was happening in East Ramapo and about the attitudes of the board, I was shocked and disgusted. The Talmud teaches, “The world endures only for the sake of the breath of school children.” The public actions of this school board over the years have been in flagrant violation of that and so many other Jewish values and teachings.
The Torah we share demands over and over again we never trample the stranger, the immigrant and the poor — apt descriptions of many in the public school district. They have also caused a massive Chillul Hashem — desecration of God’s name. The leadership of the school board to date has grossly violated both American and Jewish values. This is not the way to use Jewish power in America.
Instead, we need to find a way to both advance our interests and needs while taking the needs of our fellow citizens into account; rather than just grabbing more and more slices of the pie and leaving those around us hungry, we work together to grow the pie so there is enough for all.
This would be a moral use of Jewish power, using it to call out those who are acting unjustly, even when they are from our own community. That is why thousands and thousands of Jewish New Yorkers are lobbying their legislators to pass these bills, which will provide needed oversight. Ultimately, this is about those school children in East Ramapo, and it’s about the very legacy that Jewish New Yorkers will leave on this great state.”
Read more: http://forward.com/opinion/national/309145/in-east-ramapo-an-immoral-use-of-jewish-power/#ixzz3comkGOxQ
http://dianeravitch.net/2015/06/12/ari-hart-the-school-board-of-east-ramapo-betrays-jewish-values/
= new reply since forum marked as read
"Sporadically" is about as much as they can do in this geographic media market.... w/o going out of business, that is.
Echoes of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank abound. Another reason why it's avoided (i.e. as a polite topic of political conversation) like the plague.
No one wants to think of historical victims as potential perpetrators.
(Who was it said: "We become what we hate."?)
Bad theater ( playing against "type"
as well as short-sighted politics.
Let's just say that rational discussion of this topic has so far eluded us.
In THIS region, anyway.
