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(New York Jewish Week) — New York’s largest Jewish neighborhood philanthropy funds an training program that helps Jewish faculties, together with Hasidic yeshivas, entry hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in public funding.
UJA-Federation of New York is the most important single donor to The Jewish Schooling Venture, which obtained $4.3 million from UJA-New York final yr. The JEP gives help to Jewish faculties, together with Hasidic yeshivas in Brooklyn, in accessing authorities grants for “skilled growth, pupil assist, and academic supplies,” in response to its web site.
Such public funding is beneath a highlight this week after the New York Occasions revealed an investigative article saying Hasidic yeshivas proceed to obtain public funds regardless of failing to supply secular educations equal to these in non-private faculties, per state legislation.
The connection between UJA-Federation, JEP and the yeshivas was explored Thursday in an article within the Ahead.
JEP’s CEO, David Bryfman, stated that it was centered on making certain that yeshivas had been in a position to “entry authorities funds that are resulting from them.”
“We don’t get into the enterprise of enforcement,” Bryfman instructed the Ahead.
He stated this might change until the federal government has revoked a college’s registration for violating the legislation, including that the group nonetheless gives companies to enhance the training, no matter how they deal with secular research.
UJA-Federation is a non-denominational charity that funds lots of of Jewish nonprofits, faculties and grassroots organizations. (UJA-Federation is a funder of 70 Faces Media, the New York Jewish Week’s guardian firm.) Though its affect among the many insular haredi and Hasidic Orthodox communities is proscribed, it wields appreciable political clout and has lengthy boasted of serving Jews throughout the denominational spectrum.
UJA-Federation officers didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Naftuli Moster, who as head of the group Yaffed has led the cost in searching for to enhance secular training in Hasidic yeshivas, instructed the New York Jewish Week that he has “tried to get the UJA concerned.”
“They’ve at all times wished to remain out of it for concern of upsetting potential events within the haredi communities,” Moster instructed the New York Jewish Week.
“I met with [UJA] CEO Eric Goldstein a number of instances,” Moster stated. “You don’t assume I’ve requested him to get entangled?”
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He added that due to “the revelations coming to the entrance web page of the New York Occasions, it’s time for Jewish management to talk out and demand change.”
The Jewish Neighborhood Relations Council of New York, an umbrella group that serves as a liaison among the many Jewish neighborhood, politicians and legislation enforcement, put out an announcement on Wednesday that it agrees that New York State has “a reputable curiosity in making certain the standard of its college students’ training each in non-public and public faculties.”
The New York Board of Regents, which units training coverage for the state, accepted new guidelines on Tuesday setting out how it will decide whether or not non-public faculties, together with yeshivas, are providing secular instruction that’s much like that provided in public faculties.
“It’s also our view that the brand new pointers established by the board be carried out with non secular and cultural sensitivity in thoughts in order that they embody the complete spectrum of the academic expertise that Yeshiva college students bear on a day-to-day foundation,” the JCRC assertion stated.
A JCRC spokesperson instructed the New York Jewish Week that the group is “in discussions with all mandatory events and is working with them to search out the easiest way ahead.”
Met Council, an anti-poverty group and a number one supplier of meals help to impoverished members of Hasidic communities, additionally receives funding from the federation. It has additionally not made any public feedback concerning the Occasions investigation and didn’t reply to a request for remark from the New York Jewish Week.
The New York Occasions report was harshly criticized by Hasidic leaders, who declare that they reserve the suitable to coach their college students as they see match and see authorities oversight as an infringement of their non secular liberty.
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