Please Stop Attacking Our Communities

The New York Times has leveled a barrage of outrageous attacks recently on our Hasidic and Haredi (or “Ultra-Orthodox”) communities. These articles present a grossly distorted picture of our Yeshivas and our way of life. They disparage our way of life writ large — everything from the way we educate our children, handle marriage, divorce and custody disputes and even the way we support our families while holding fast to our faith and traditions. 


What’s missing from this narrative

is a respect for faith, freedom and facts.


The Hasidic community in New York is thriving, but you wouldn't know that from the New York Times. Its coverage has lacked any semblance of balance and lobbed accusations bordering on slander. 


We are here to set the record straight and ask our own questions about what’s being reported in the pages of the New York Times:


1. Why is our community being unfairly attacked? 

2. Why is our community’s success being mischaracterized?
The New York Times contends that our community is impoverished. Nonsense. Our median income is higher than average, and our schools graduate thousands upon thousands of professionals, entrepreneurs, and business leaders. Yes, our families are larger and younger than the average U.S. family, and so to measure us against the federal poverty rate is sloppy at best and deliberately misleading at worst. 

3. Why are we being singled out and scrutinized for legally mandated spending? We are saving New York taxpayers money, to the tune of billions a year. Our parents largely self-fund our education system. New York is one of the few states that provides no school choice programs for parents who opt for an educational alternative to public school. The vast majority of funding that is “given” to private schools is actually just reimbursement to the school for items the state mandates. Most of the rest are items which follow and go directly to children, such as student transportation and school lunch. 

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  • Orthodox Jewish children studying in school.

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4. Why are our schools being accused of rampant child abuse?
The New York times asserts there have been “more than a dozen claims” of child abuse at yeshivas over a five-year period. We can all agree that even just one allegation of child abuse is one too many, and our schools have zero tolerance for sex abuse or corporal punishment. It’s important to note that the figure cited by the Times pales in comparison to the thousands of complaints at public schools that have been met with the paper’s silence - 16,671 complaints alleging corporal punishment to be exact, from January 2016 through June 2021. 


The vast majority of graduates from our yeshivas go on to lead successful lives. There are tens of thousands of successful graduates who have attended our yeshivas. Why weren’t any of their stories included in these vast “investigations”? 


Thanks to these “investigations,” New York policymakers are attempting to single out our community and impose draconian requirements on our private schools. Requirements not imposed on New York’s public schools, and which have questionable educational value. Why are our yeshivas being targeted and held to unfair and unusual standards?   


And finally, why are New York Times reporters basing their reporting on a fringe group of anti-Orthodox agitators who were created for the sole purposed of fundamentally upending Orthodox and Hasidic education?


KnowUs.org is a grassroots project of Agudath Israel with the goal of asking policymakers, journalists and all New Yorkers to stand up and respect diversity, embrace the cultural patchwork that is New York and to champion faith, freedom and facts.

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