We have been treated to a torrent of articles alleging sexual abuse of children who attended Orthodox schools. The tone of the reporting is accusatory, with no heed paid to the actual record of these schools or to the norm that an accused person is innocent until proven guilty. This may be justified, especially where abuse is claimed, because the presumption of innocence refers to legal processes and standards to determine guilt and not to whether the accused has clean hands. Wrongful behavior is wrong not because it is subject to criminal sanction but because it is contrary to values and practices that are essential in civil society.
Yet, it is unsettling that the appropriate efforts to root out abuse and protect children often resemble a crusade. Crusades bring an excess of emotion and fear and with emotion and fear there is the heightened prospect of distortion and false accusations. I quote once more Justice Brandeis’ chilling statement about the wages of fear. Referring to the Salem Witch trials, he wrote, “Men feared witches and burnt women.”
That there have been incidents of sexual abuse in all schools, including the Orthodox, cannot be denied. There is also sexual abuse in home situations and I suspect that it is more common and serious than what occurs in schools. Abuse must never be excused or covered up. When there is credible evidence of abuse – credible here means a lower degree of proof than may be required for other claims of wrongdoing – immediate steps must be taken, including removal of the wrongdoer from the school or home and the notification of public officials.
We read of an “epidemic” of sexual abuse in yeshivas and this is a lie and itself serious abuse and the debasement of truth is greater still when false charges are made by an Orthodox assemblyman or a faculty member at Yeshiva University. I am intensively involved in yeshiva and day school education and over the years I have asked persons involved in various schools whether there has been abuse at their institutions. Overwhelmingly they have answered that there hasn’t been and I believe them.
My view of abuse was powerfully influenced by the articles Dorothy Rabinowitz wrote in the 1990s for the Wall Street Journal. She detailed how dozens of teachers, day care workers and religious personnel were falsely accused and harshly punished. There were suicides, lives were ruined, families shattered as the crusaders ran amok and unchallenged in Washington State, Massachusetts, New Jersey and elsewhere.
It is appropriate to ask why in the many articles alleging abuse no mention is made that this is a field where there have been a significant number of wrongful charges. Does anyone seriously believe that every abuse charge is truthful? Should we not be concerned when teachers or professionals are wrongfully accused and their families thereby suffer horrific and lasting pain? It is possible to strongly condemn abuse and still be alert to the reality that some charges are errant or false.
I write this on a day when the Times published a letter by a Holocaust historian who refers to the “fallibility of individual memory.” There is abundant research demonstrating that even shortly after events have occurred, witnesses distort, often inadvertently, what they have seen. As time goes on, the tendency to embellish or exaggerate is enhanced and this is certainly the case when individuals try to recount traumatic events that may have occurred a long time ago. To this issue is added the problematic status of what is referred to as repressed memory, meaning the capacity to recall many years later in adulthood events that the person was previously not aware of and which may have occurred during childhood.
Legislation pending in New York to open new windows of opportunity to report abuse many years later is ill-advised, despite the apparently good intentions of its authors. In an act of principle and courage, the Rabbinical leaders of Agudath Israel have come out in opposition, highlighting the potential damage to institutions that can scarcely defend themselves against charges relating to events that may have occurred many years previously.
The Rabbis need to do more. They should declare that no matter what the circumstance, no part of a teacher’s body should come into contact with any part of a student’s body. Each school should schedule sensitivity sessions alerting faculty and staff to such restraints and also their responsibility to report when there are indications that a student has been abused at home. As I have suggested, I believe that home abuse is a more serious problem than what occurs at school.
There are those who will read these lines as a whitewashing of abuse, of downplaying the seriousness of wrongdoing when it does occur at schools. Without exception, when I have been asked to give guidance in abuse cases I have taken a strong position. My argument here is that any system of justice or moral code must strive to protect innocent people against false accusations. I should add that our society is awash in strong evidence that many individuals who were accused and convicted of murder – some even executed – were later proven to be innocent.
It is in the nature of a sin that it breeds additional sins. Abuse breeds additional abuse and this, too, is something that we should be concerned about.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Our Two Tuition Crises
There is much talk about the tuition crisis, about how day school parents feel that tuition is now out of their reach and also about how the scholarship application process is demeaning. We are told that other options are being explored, ranging from public school education that somehow would be linked to religious instruction to charter schools and now also low-cost day schools. This conversation was described nicely by Gary Rosenblatt a couple of weeks ago in a column that came with the unfortunate and inaccurate headline, “Day School Model May Now Be Thing of Past.”
We cannot precisely know what the Jewish educational terrain will look like when the dust settles – if it ever does – but what is certain is that the day school model will endure, albeit somewhat changed, which is generally true of all social arrangements. There will be additional charter schools and they will eat further into non-Orthodox/Modern Orthodox enrollment and, more critically, into the Judaic commitment of their students. The Solomon Schechter system will continue to erode, reflecting mainly the astounding decline of the Conservative movement that not long ago was heralded as American Jewry’s largest.
What is uncertain is how the tuition crisis will play out within the day school world, whether schools will be alert to what more parents are saying or whether they will continue to increase tuition significantly each year, further contributing to the tuition crisis. Efforts to launch low-cost schools where tuition will be half or less of what is charged at the more expensive day schools seem to be beyond the talking stage. If these institutions can offer a viable and reasonably good quality dual-curriculum at below $10,000, the necessary question is why at what seems to be comparable schools tuition is in the $20,000 range and, in some places quite a bit higher. Since the expensive schools are surely nonprofit, what are they spending so much on?
There is no simple answer. It may be that for a dual curriculum, $20,000 isn’t high when we consider that in New York and New Jersey the average cost to educate a single-curriculum publicschooler is about $15,000. Also, the carrying cost for new and improved facilities and to service existing mortgages may have a significant impact on day school operating budgets and therefore also on tuition charges.
It remains that in many ways, the tonier day schools fancy themselves as private schools with expensive layers of bureaucracy starting with the top educator who no longer can be called “principal” because he/she is now the headmaster, at times with principals serving below at the same school. There are department heads, all sorts of auxiliary staff, extra-curricular activities galore and other fine and expensive touches. This could be justified if per school enrollment was high. Typically, day school enrollment is relatively low. This obviously adds to the per student cost. It should also result in a greater sense of fiscal prudence.
While we hear much about the crisis resulting from escalating tuition, there is a second tuition crisis that escapes our attention although it affects far more schools and parents. With few exceptions, yeshivas and Beth Jacobs (girls schools) in the yeshiva-world and chassidic sectors of Orthodoxy, as well as Chabad day schools and immigrant schools, charge low tuition and even so they are hard pressed to collect anything close to full tuition from many parents. As improbable as it may seem, there are schools that spend below $5,000 per student for a dual curriculum and at these institutions and some others, tuition income does not amount to $3,000 per student. This is the tuition crisis that we do not read about, although it encompasses dozens of schools and at least several tens of thousands of students.
Family size and economic hardship account for the inability of thousands of fervently Orthodox parents to pay what may be regarded as fair tuition. As is obvious, the fertility rate is high and I believe it has risen within the yeshiva-world sector. Contrary to the nasty caricature that many embrace, fervently Orthodox fathers are overwhelmingly in the labor force, and there is a high proportion of working mothers, despite their family and home obligations. Many of these men and women teach in our schools or have other low-paying communal positions. Even those who are good earners by ordinary societal standards often cannot make ends meet because of the large number of mouths to feed, tuition charges and other expenses arising from their religious commitment.
Poorer schools scramble and struggle to collect tuition, yet they are severely handicapped by financial realities, including this year’s severe downturn, and also in most instances by their abiding sense of mission which translates into a willingness to accept or retain students whose parents pay relatively little tuition. This is in contrast to the demeaning scholarship processes favored by far more affluent institutions. Few fervently Orthodox schools utilize the FACTS tuition arrangement which squeezes and debases both parents and schools and which is employed now at a great number of high-charging day schools.
The poorer schools also scramble and struggle to raise funds. They compete in a crowded field and within a community that is blessed with an astounding array of chesed activities that also seek support. Contributions to Orthodox day schools is not a priority in nearly all of American Jewish philanthropy, not in the Federation domain and not even, in fact, among many of the Orthodox.
Most fervently Orthodox schools get by because they are extremely low-cost, skimping on everything, especially on faculty salaries as they rely on the dedication of teachers who work hard and care despite being paid little and often late. This isn’t a story that we read about. The next time we hear about the tuition crisis, is it possible to pay attention to this situation which involves far more schools and students than the tuition crisis that we do read about?
We cannot precisely know what the Jewish educational terrain will look like when the dust settles – if it ever does – but what is certain is that the day school model will endure, albeit somewhat changed, which is generally true of all social arrangements. There will be additional charter schools and they will eat further into non-Orthodox/Modern Orthodox enrollment and, more critically, into the Judaic commitment of their students. The Solomon Schechter system will continue to erode, reflecting mainly the astounding decline of the Conservative movement that not long ago was heralded as American Jewry’s largest.
What is uncertain is how the tuition crisis will play out within the day school world, whether schools will be alert to what more parents are saying or whether they will continue to increase tuition significantly each year, further contributing to the tuition crisis. Efforts to launch low-cost schools where tuition will be half or less of what is charged at the more expensive day schools seem to be beyond the talking stage. If these institutions can offer a viable and reasonably good quality dual-curriculum at below $10,000, the necessary question is why at what seems to be comparable schools tuition is in the $20,000 range and, in some places quite a bit higher. Since the expensive schools are surely nonprofit, what are they spending so much on?
There is no simple answer. It may be that for a dual curriculum, $20,000 isn’t high when we consider that in New York and New Jersey the average cost to educate a single-curriculum publicschooler is about $15,000. Also, the carrying cost for new and improved facilities and to service existing mortgages may have a significant impact on day school operating budgets and therefore also on tuition charges.
It remains that in many ways, the tonier day schools fancy themselves as private schools with expensive layers of bureaucracy starting with the top educator who no longer can be called “principal” because he/she is now the headmaster, at times with principals serving below at the same school. There are department heads, all sorts of auxiliary staff, extra-curricular activities galore and other fine and expensive touches. This could be justified if per school enrollment was high. Typically, day school enrollment is relatively low. This obviously adds to the per student cost. It should also result in a greater sense of fiscal prudence.
While we hear much about the crisis resulting from escalating tuition, there is a second tuition crisis that escapes our attention although it affects far more schools and parents. With few exceptions, yeshivas and Beth Jacobs (girls schools) in the yeshiva-world and chassidic sectors of Orthodoxy, as well as Chabad day schools and immigrant schools, charge low tuition and even so they are hard pressed to collect anything close to full tuition from many parents. As improbable as it may seem, there are schools that spend below $5,000 per student for a dual curriculum and at these institutions and some others, tuition income does not amount to $3,000 per student. This is the tuition crisis that we do not read about, although it encompasses dozens of schools and at least several tens of thousands of students.
Family size and economic hardship account for the inability of thousands of fervently Orthodox parents to pay what may be regarded as fair tuition. As is obvious, the fertility rate is high and I believe it has risen within the yeshiva-world sector. Contrary to the nasty caricature that many embrace, fervently Orthodox fathers are overwhelmingly in the labor force, and there is a high proportion of working mothers, despite their family and home obligations. Many of these men and women teach in our schools or have other low-paying communal positions. Even those who are good earners by ordinary societal standards often cannot make ends meet because of the large number of mouths to feed, tuition charges and other expenses arising from their religious commitment.
Poorer schools scramble and struggle to collect tuition, yet they are severely handicapped by financial realities, including this year’s severe downturn, and also in most instances by their abiding sense of mission which translates into a willingness to accept or retain students whose parents pay relatively little tuition. This is in contrast to the demeaning scholarship processes favored by far more affluent institutions. Few fervently Orthodox schools utilize the FACTS tuition arrangement which squeezes and debases both parents and schools and which is employed now at a great number of high-charging day schools.
The poorer schools also scramble and struggle to raise funds. They compete in a crowded field and within a community that is blessed with an astounding array of chesed activities that also seek support. Contributions to Orthodox day schools is not a priority in nearly all of American Jewish philanthropy, not in the Federation domain and not even, in fact, among many of the Orthodox.
Most fervently Orthodox schools get by because they are extremely low-cost, skimping on everything, especially on faculty salaries as they rely on the dedication of teachers who work hard and care despite being paid little and often late. This isn’t a story that we read about. The next time we hear about the tuition crisis, is it possible to pay attention to this situation which involves far more schools and students than the tuition crisis that we do read about?
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
Everyone Blew It
Although it is of course welcome news, the dropping of the charges against Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman is not an entirely satisfactory outcome. They weren’t acquitted, which means that a cloud will remain over these two former AIPAC staff members. There are unanswered questions and unfinished business. This is a story without any heroes. Everyone blew this one, from the Justice Department and FBI to the entire American Jewish establishment, as well as our media. We did not have the courage or self-respect to challenge a prosecution that stank from day one. The greatest disgrace was AIPAC’s perfidy.
Hopefully, we will learn more about the case, why under a statute enacted nearly ninety years ago that had never been even remotely used for such a purpose, Rosen and Weissman were accused of serious crimes when what they essentially did was what diplomats, lobbyists, journalists, etc., do routinely each day in Washington. Perhaps we will learn about who else in Jewish life, American and Israeli, are targets of the FBI, the intrepid folks who excel in trivial pursuits even as they are asleep on the big stories, as they were on 9/11. Our G-men and AIPAC share the distinction of being vastly overrated.
The issue of wiretapping has taken on greater importance since the revelation that Representative Jane Harman of California is a victim of what Justice Brandeis described in the infancy of the tactic as dirty business. Why aren’t our organizations and media asking who else in Jewish life is being surveilled and bugged? Why aren’t we challenging Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the power-hungry boss of the House of Representatives who is ever-ready to protect crooks in her caucus yet who seemed eager to throw Harman to the wolves.
One explanation for our timidity is that nearly twenty-five years after Jonathan Pollard’s arrest, we still are afflicted by the trauma arising from his actions.
During the eight years of what may be properly described as George W. Bush’s “Injustice Department,” there was an abundance of dubious prosecutions and miscarriages of justice. Too many U.S. Attorneys around the country embraced Rovian machinations and prosecuted people who should not have been prosecuted. The AIPAC matter may be nothing more than an ambitious U.S. Attorney in Virginia bringing charges that ultimately could not stick. Still, there is in our ranks, not only among the Orthodox, many who worshiped at the shrine of the Bush Administration. They should contemplate the AIPAC prosecution.
After quickly sacking two loyal staffers, AIPAC pretended to act as if nothing had happened, continuing to revel in hoopla and boasting. It still has to contend with Steven Rosen’s lawsuit for wrongful dismissal. My hunch is that it will do all it can to settle.
The organization also needs to contend with a changed environment, including a new administration with which it does not have close ties and – I hope that this is not wishful thinking – a Jewish community that is less enamored of the antics of a group that for far too long has been infused with an instinct for gratuitous exhibitionism. There are hopeful indications of AIPAC altering its style, if not its message.
Whatever lies ahead, we ought not dismiss the harm that AIPAC has caused through its loud and incessant boasting that it is all-powerful. Immature kids do that. We do not need this kind of proof that Jews can be stupid. It should be a no-brainer that AIPAC’s determination to secure bragging rights played directly into the hands of the Mearsheimers and Walts and others who proclaim that U.S. Middle East policy is hostage to the Israel lobby. How can we cry foul or anti-Semitism when enemies echo what AIPAC has proclaimed about itself?
As a collateral matter, has anyone noticed that AIPAC’s style does not play well on college campuses?
The larger question concerns substance and not style. It is whether AIPAC’s activities make a difference. According to an editorial in these pages last week, while the organization is “imperfect,” it is “indispensible.” I disagree, believing that the organization’s clout is greatly overrated, a theme developed in the same issue of this newspaper by Jerome Chanes in a fine review of a new book on “America’s Israel Lobby” by Dan Fleshler.
The Bush years represented the zenith of AIPAC’s engagement with the White House and the administration, the period when its exhibitionism went out of whack. During the same period, there were major developments, including Israel’s withdrawal from Gush Katif in Gaza, the Lebanon War, the Gaza War, Israel’s relations with China and the accessibility to Israel of U.S. military technology. On each of these issues, AIPAC’s role was just about nil, not because it was neglected but because on critical diplomatic and military matters inevitably the organization is not in the loop.
This despite the thousands of AIPACers who scurry around Washington going through the open door that is getting members of Congress to say nice things about Israel. Even on matters of foreign aid, the record is nothing for AIPAC to boast about.
If AIPAC can control its instinct for self-promotion and also the instinct for timidity when push comes to shove, it can still play a useful role, albeit one that is of significantly less significance than too many of us attribute to the organization. AIPAC needs to tone down and it also needs to pay heed to the reality that, as is true of Israeli public opinion, American Jewish opinion about Israel is divided on key issues including how best to deal with the Palestinians and the Iranian threat.
Hopefully, we will learn more about the case, why under a statute enacted nearly ninety years ago that had never been even remotely used for such a purpose, Rosen and Weissman were accused of serious crimes when what they essentially did was what diplomats, lobbyists, journalists, etc., do routinely each day in Washington. Perhaps we will learn about who else in Jewish life, American and Israeli, are targets of the FBI, the intrepid folks who excel in trivial pursuits even as they are asleep on the big stories, as they were on 9/11. Our G-men and AIPAC share the distinction of being vastly overrated.
The issue of wiretapping has taken on greater importance since the revelation that Representative Jane Harman of California is a victim of what Justice Brandeis described in the infancy of the tactic as dirty business. Why aren’t our organizations and media asking who else in Jewish life is being surveilled and bugged? Why aren’t we challenging Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the power-hungry boss of the House of Representatives who is ever-ready to protect crooks in her caucus yet who seemed eager to throw Harman to the wolves.
One explanation for our timidity is that nearly twenty-five years after Jonathan Pollard’s arrest, we still are afflicted by the trauma arising from his actions.
During the eight years of what may be properly described as George W. Bush’s “Injustice Department,” there was an abundance of dubious prosecutions and miscarriages of justice. Too many U.S. Attorneys around the country embraced Rovian machinations and prosecuted people who should not have been prosecuted. The AIPAC matter may be nothing more than an ambitious U.S. Attorney in Virginia bringing charges that ultimately could not stick. Still, there is in our ranks, not only among the Orthodox, many who worshiped at the shrine of the Bush Administration. They should contemplate the AIPAC prosecution.
After quickly sacking two loyal staffers, AIPAC pretended to act as if nothing had happened, continuing to revel in hoopla and boasting. It still has to contend with Steven Rosen’s lawsuit for wrongful dismissal. My hunch is that it will do all it can to settle.
The organization also needs to contend with a changed environment, including a new administration with which it does not have close ties and – I hope that this is not wishful thinking – a Jewish community that is less enamored of the antics of a group that for far too long has been infused with an instinct for gratuitous exhibitionism. There are hopeful indications of AIPAC altering its style, if not its message.
Whatever lies ahead, we ought not dismiss the harm that AIPAC has caused through its loud and incessant boasting that it is all-powerful. Immature kids do that. We do not need this kind of proof that Jews can be stupid. It should be a no-brainer that AIPAC’s determination to secure bragging rights played directly into the hands of the Mearsheimers and Walts and others who proclaim that U.S. Middle East policy is hostage to the Israel lobby. How can we cry foul or anti-Semitism when enemies echo what AIPAC has proclaimed about itself?
As a collateral matter, has anyone noticed that AIPAC’s style does not play well on college campuses?
The larger question concerns substance and not style. It is whether AIPAC’s activities make a difference. According to an editorial in these pages last week, while the organization is “imperfect,” it is “indispensible.” I disagree, believing that the organization’s clout is greatly overrated, a theme developed in the same issue of this newspaper by Jerome Chanes in a fine review of a new book on “America’s Israel Lobby” by Dan Fleshler.
The Bush years represented the zenith of AIPAC’s engagement with the White House and the administration, the period when its exhibitionism went out of whack. During the same period, there were major developments, including Israel’s withdrawal from Gush Katif in Gaza, the Lebanon War, the Gaza War, Israel’s relations with China and the accessibility to Israel of U.S. military technology. On each of these issues, AIPAC’s role was just about nil, not because it was neglected but because on critical diplomatic and military matters inevitably the organization is not in the loop.
This despite the thousands of AIPACers who scurry around Washington going through the open door that is getting members of Congress to say nice things about Israel. Even on matters of foreign aid, the record is nothing for AIPAC to boast about.
If AIPAC can control its instinct for self-promotion and also the instinct for timidity when push comes to shove, it can still play a useful role, albeit one that is of significantly less significance than too many of us attribute to the organization. AIPAC needs to tone down and it also needs to pay heed to the reality that, as is true of Israeli public opinion, American Jewish opinion about Israel is divided on key issues including how best to deal with the Palestinians and the Iranian threat.
Friday, May 01, 2009
Guessing About Iran
When nations are in conflict – and often when they are not – diplomacy is largely a guessing game. When the stakes escalate, so does the guesswork. States cannot be certain about what they will do down the road, in some measure because they are undecided and also because they cannot know for certain what the nations with which they interact will do. There is intelligence gathering, some of it errant and much of it irrelevant, and also rhetoric and speculation as diverse scenarios are simulated. When push comes to shove, matters can get out of hand or have a life of their own and whatever planning or diplomacy preceded the later events, what was planned and expected is readily discarded.
When a nation’s security is at stake, its calculations should allow for a greater margin of error, which is to say that this is not a time for rose colored glasses. Planning must be based to a significant extent on the worst case scenario and borrow in a sense from the clear and present danger test that for decades determined when government could limit otherwise constitutionally protected speech. The greater and more proximate the danger, the greater the right of government to allow reasonable suppositions to restrict First Amendment rights. Likewise, the greater the danger to a nation’s security, the greater is its right – and probably its obligation – to allow its fears and suppositions to determine policy.
The danger Israel faces from Iran is real and it is different from any that it has faced for more than six decades from Arab neighbors bent on causing serious harm. For all of the animus of Palestinians and other neighbors, there is a more or less balance of power in the relationship and there are tacit understandings about boundary lines. Since policies and actions are determined by mortals who are prone to miscalculate, from time to time these boundaries are transgressed. Even then, the danger is contained. Not so regarding Iran whose president constantly advocates Israel’s destruction and is the force behind his country’s nuclear ambitions.
There is plenty of room to debate how Israel should react or, for that matter, how our government should react. A strong case can be made for patience and diplomacy, for a containment policy conceived along the lines of American policy toward the Soviet Union during the more than four decades of the Cold War. A weaker case can be made for preemptive military action now because of a host of critical military, logistical, diplomatic and other impediments. Admittedly, this is a guessing game and that is not likely to change any time soon.
What isn’t guesswork is the threat from Iran. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been clear about his intentions and it is reckless and worse to dismiss his words as play acting. What Iran is doing is a clear and present danger and it would be wrong for Israel not to consider it as such.
What we are hearing from some quarters echoes the reaction of too many in the media to Hitler and Stalin. No less a journalistic worthy than Walter Lippmann wrote after Hitler came to power that Jewish complaints about him were badly misguided. At the New York Times, we now have Roger Cohen pounding away on the theme that Washington must get tough with Israel and be far more conciliatory toward Iran, claiming that Jews remaining in Iran tell him that they are happy with the regime and do not feel threatened. What would Mr. Cohen require to reverse his apologetics for a country whose leader demonizes Jews and Israel?
I expect that before long the Times will nominate Cohen for a Pulitzer Prize. The newspaper just garnered another five of these, adding to questions about how these awards are selected, and it celebrated the news this past Sunday in the “Week in Review” with a self-congratulatory page listing all of the Times staffers who have been so honored. The fourth name on the list is Walter Duranty who was the bureau chief in Moscow from 1922 to 1936. He received a Pulitzer for his 1931 “coverage of the news from Russia.” Indeed, 1931 was a particularly bad year in the workers’ paradise as through Stalin’s deliberate actions millions starved to death. In 1931 and before and after, Duranty covered up Stalin’s crimes. Several years ago, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr. acknowledged this additional blot on the reputation of our most notable newspaper.
The defense of Iran also comes from sources outside of journalism. In its April 17 issue, the Forward published an ad signed by about 200 Jewish organizations and individuals sharply attacking Israel on Iran. Is it an excuse that the Forward was paid for this extreme exercise in Israel bashing by the usual suspects, including the crazies from the Neteurei Karta and Noam Chomsky? The statement makes the Durban declaration about Israeli racism seem like a love letter to the Jewish State. We are told that “Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program,” Ahmadinejad has not called for Israel’s destruction, Mordechai Vanunu is lavishly praised and that in order to get “support for an Israel military strike against Iran,” Israel uses memory of the “Nazi Holocaust.”
Can the Forward use the First Amendment or the fact that the extreme Israel bashing was contained in an ad and not an article or editorial as fig leaves to cover its publication of so puerile a statement?
While most of us are still guessing about what Israel or the United States should do, there is no such hesitation among those who constantly attack Israel. Whatever the issue, Israel is wrong.
When a nation’s security is at stake, its calculations should allow for a greater margin of error, which is to say that this is not a time for rose colored glasses. Planning must be based to a significant extent on the worst case scenario and borrow in a sense from the clear and present danger test that for decades determined when government could limit otherwise constitutionally protected speech. The greater and more proximate the danger, the greater the right of government to allow reasonable suppositions to restrict First Amendment rights. Likewise, the greater the danger to a nation’s security, the greater is its right – and probably its obligation – to allow its fears and suppositions to determine policy.
The danger Israel faces from Iran is real and it is different from any that it has faced for more than six decades from Arab neighbors bent on causing serious harm. For all of the animus of Palestinians and other neighbors, there is a more or less balance of power in the relationship and there are tacit understandings about boundary lines. Since policies and actions are determined by mortals who are prone to miscalculate, from time to time these boundaries are transgressed. Even then, the danger is contained. Not so regarding Iran whose president constantly advocates Israel’s destruction and is the force behind his country’s nuclear ambitions.
There is plenty of room to debate how Israel should react or, for that matter, how our government should react. A strong case can be made for patience and diplomacy, for a containment policy conceived along the lines of American policy toward the Soviet Union during the more than four decades of the Cold War. A weaker case can be made for preemptive military action now because of a host of critical military, logistical, diplomatic and other impediments. Admittedly, this is a guessing game and that is not likely to change any time soon.
What isn’t guesswork is the threat from Iran. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been clear about his intentions and it is reckless and worse to dismiss his words as play acting. What Iran is doing is a clear and present danger and it would be wrong for Israel not to consider it as such.
What we are hearing from some quarters echoes the reaction of too many in the media to Hitler and Stalin. No less a journalistic worthy than Walter Lippmann wrote after Hitler came to power that Jewish complaints about him were badly misguided. At the New York Times, we now have Roger Cohen pounding away on the theme that Washington must get tough with Israel and be far more conciliatory toward Iran, claiming that Jews remaining in Iran tell him that they are happy with the regime and do not feel threatened. What would Mr. Cohen require to reverse his apologetics for a country whose leader demonizes Jews and Israel?
I expect that before long the Times will nominate Cohen for a Pulitzer Prize. The newspaper just garnered another five of these, adding to questions about how these awards are selected, and it celebrated the news this past Sunday in the “Week in Review” with a self-congratulatory page listing all of the Times staffers who have been so honored. The fourth name on the list is Walter Duranty who was the bureau chief in Moscow from 1922 to 1936. He received a Pulitzer for his 1931 “coverage of the news from Russia.” Indeed, 1931 was a particularly bad year in the workers’ paradise as through Stalin’s deliberate actions millions starved to death. In 1931 and before and after, Duranty covered up Stalin’s crimes. Several years ago, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr. acknowledged this additional blot on the reputation of our most notable newspaper.
The defense of Iran also comes from sources outside of journalism. In its April 17 issue, the Forward published an ad signed by about 200 Jewish organizations and individuals sharply attacking Israel on Iran. Is it an excuse that the Forward was paid for this extreme exercise in Israel bashing by the usual suspects, including the crazies from the Neteurei Karta and Noam Chomsky? The statement makes the Durban declaration about Israeli racism seem like a love letter to the Jewish State. We are told that “Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program,” Ahmadinejad has not called for Israel’s destruction, Mordechai Vanunu is lavishly praised and that in order to get “support for an Israel military strike against Iran,” Israel uses memory of the “Nazi Holocaust.”
Can the Forward use the First Amendment or the fact that the extreme Israel bashing was contained in an ad and not an article or editorial as fig leaves to cover its publication of so puerile a statement?
While most of us are still guessing about what Israel or the United States should do, there is no such hesitation among those who constantly attack Israel. Whatever the issue, Israel is wrong.
Friday, April 24, 2009
The Times and American Jewry
On the first day of Pesach, the New York Times published three articles about Jews, not counting Michael Kimmelman’s long piece on Poland searching “its own soul and its anti-Semitism.” Peter Applebome wrote about the burning of chametz in Monsey, by and large keeping under wraps his disdain for religious Jews. There was an article about major companies adapting their appliances to make life easier for the Orthodox on Shabbos, with potential halachic issues omitted from the story. A long article served as a paean for kosher for Passover dog food and what was stupidly and offensively described as a seder for dogs, accompanied by a photo of a canine with a yarmulke on its head.
There is a growing tendency in what still passes as journalism to focus on the bizarre, for contemporary reportage to borrow heavily from the approach of the old National Enquirer. The Forward featured an article on a seder for sexual bondage perverts – the greater perversion was the debasement of journalism – and perhaps worse of all, this newspaper several weeks ago had an article on a website for Orthodox Jewish adultery, with the sick claims of the site’s promoter reported as the whole truth.
In the days before Pesach, the Times carried two long articles on the Blessing for the Sun, the once in twenty-eight years ceremony that caused much excitement among the Orthodox, a long and empathetic Op-Ed piece by Nathan Englander, a noted novelist, on the Haggadah, Alex Wichtel’s approving article on the dairy seder of Nicholas Lemann and Judith Shulevitz and several Holocaust-related stories.
For all of the deserved criticism that comes its way, the Times is a serious newspaper that recognizes that what it publishes serves at least as footnotes to history and sociology. The newspaper has an enormous amount of ground to cover including religious and ethnic life. It’s my impression that far more attention is given to Jews than to other groups, with the exception of gays, although there are far fewer American Jews than there are, for example, Catholics or Hispanics. I may be wrong about this, yet the question merits study in journalism schools.
Why all of the Jewish coverage? Can it be that despite our relatively small and continuously shrinking numbers, we continue to constitute a large share of the newspaper’s readership and consequently the Times is making both an editorial and business decision to report developments that are of interest to those who buy the newspaper? Or is it that editors and reporters, themselves disproportionately Jewish, are likely to favor stories that have a distinct Jewish angle? The nature of Jewish life, notably our abundance of organizations and activities and the collateral desire of persons associated with them to get publicity may result in a heightened media focus, including at the Times, on Jewish stories.
There is, of course, the possibility that my impression is errant, that the attention I believe the Times gives to Jews is no more than a reflection of my intense interest in Jewish affairs, so that I pay close attention to Jewish stories and conclude that these stories get inordinate space.
If I have to come up with an explanation it is that journalism has changed, that increasingly it is personal in nature, with some reporters and certainly columnists having much leeway in what they file. At the Times, the Op-Ed pages used to be the special sanctuary of columnists, with the rest of the paper devoted to hard news. Nowadays, columnists are scattered throughout the newspaper, especially in the sections that cover American or local life. Many years ago and for a long time, just about every Jewish story reported in the Times was channeled through Irving (Pat) Spiegel, which itself is an interesting story. No longer as personal journalism has expanded and with it the prospect for Jewish coverage.
Several weeks ago, I ruefully remarked that we do not need either the Times’ caresses via schmaltzy human interest stories about American Jews or the nasty bite of its Middle East coverage. Unfortunately, many Jews regard the space we get in the Times as a plus, as a demonstration of our importance and a form of flattery. Our enemies also regard this as a sign of our importance. Journalism is two-edged and the hand that feeds us is also the hand that bites. Without meaning to do so, the Times promotes the harmful notion that Jews are powerful. If we are the Chosen People, let us be chosen in more exalted ways.
Whatever we think of the newspaper’s attention, what the Times publishes matters and this entails the responsibility to be careful. Just about every book about American Jewry is apt to contain citations from the newspaper. Erroneous or prejudicial statements have a long afterlife. As I have noted, the newspaper is a sourcebook for history and sociology. When it publishes something that is erroneous or thoughtfully challenged, it needs to provide a correction, especially as the Internet expands, else the original wrong is apt to be multiplied over the years.
As I have learned, the Times has a sense of responsibility when it comes to correcting errors. More than a year ago, in its Sunday City Section, there was a story about Borough Park that put the number of Orthodox Jews at 300,000, an astounding figure since the population of the entire neighborhood is barely above 100,000. I pointed out the mistake; at first, the newspaper defended its estimate, relying on evidence that made little sense. After I persisted, there was a tiny correction buried somewhere in the same section.
As I prepared this column, I checked the Times website and happily the correction is front and center in the article as now posted. Congratulations to the newspaper that we love to read and that we love to hate.
There is a growing tendency in what still passes as journalism to focus on the bizarre, for contemporary reportage to borrow heavily from the approach of the old National Enquirer. The Forward featured an article on a seder for sexual bondage perverts – the greater perversion was the debasement of journalism – and perhaps worse of all, this newspaper several weeks ago had an article on a website for Orthodox Jewish adultery, with the sick claims of the site’s promoter reported as the whole truth.
In the days before Pesach, the Times carried two long articles on the Blessing for the Sun, the once in twenty-eight years ceremony that caused much excitement among the Orthodox, a long and empathetic Op-Ed piece by Nathan Englander, a noted novelist, on the Haggadah, Alex Wichtel’s approving article on the dairy seder of Nicholas Lemann and Judith Shulevitz and several Holocaust-related stories.
For all of the deserved criticism that comes its way, the Times is a serious newspaper that recognizes that what it publishes serves at least as footnotes to history and sociology. The newspaper has an enormous amount of ground to cover including religious and ethnic life. It’s my impression that far more attention is given to Jews than to other groups, with the exception of gays, although there are far fewer American Jews than there are, for example, Catholics or Hispanics. I may be wrong about this, yet the question merits study in journalism schools.
Why all of the Jewish coverage? Can it be that despite our relatively small and continuously shrinking numbers, we continue to constitute a large share of the newspaper’s readership and consequently the Times is making both an editorial and business decision to report developments that are of interest to those who buy the newspaper? Or is it that editors and reporters, themselves disproportionately Jewish, are likely to favor stories that have a distinct Jewish angle? The nature of Jewish life, notably our abundance of organizations and activities and the collateral desire of persons associated with them to get publicity may result in a heightened media focus, including at the Times, on Jewish stories.
There is, of course, the possibility that my impression is errant, that the attention I believe the Times gives to Jews is no more than a reflection of my intense interest in Jewish affairs, so that I pay close attention to Jewish stories and conclude that these stories get inordinate space.
If I have to come up with an explanation it is that journalism has changed, that increasingly it is personal in nature, with some reporters and certainly columnists having much leeway in what they file. At the Times, the Op-Ed pages used to be the special sanctuary of columnists, with the rest of the paper devoted to hard news. Nowadays, columnists are scattered throughout the newspaper, especially in the sections that cover American or local life. Many years ago and for a long time, just about every Jewish story reported in the Times was channeled through Irving (Pat) Spiegel, which itself is an interesting story. No longer as personal journalism has expanded and with it the prospect for Jewish coverage.
Several weeks ago, I ruefully remarked that we do not need either the Times’ caresses via schmaltzy human interest stories about American Jews or the nasty bite of its Middle East coverage. Unfortunately, many Jews regard the space we get in the Times as a plus, as a demonstration of our importance and a form of flattery. Our enemies also regard this as a sign of our importance. Journalism is two-edged and the hand that feeds us is also the hand that bites. Without meaning to do so, the Times promotes the harmful notion that Jews are powerful. If we are the Chosen People, let us be chosen in more exalted ways.
Whatever we think of the newspaper’s attention, what the Times publishes matters and this entails the responsibility to be careful. Just about every book about American Jewry is apt to contain citations from the newspaper. Erroneous or prejudicial statements have a long afterlife. As I have noted, the newspaper is a sourcebook for history and sociology. When it publishes something that is erroneous or thoughtfully challenged, it needs to provide a correction, especially as the Internet expands, else the original wrong is apt to be multiplied over the years.
As I have learned, the Times has a sense of responsibility when it comes to correcting errors. More than a year ago, in its Sunday City Section, there was a story about Borough Park that put the number of Orthodox Jews at 300,000, an astounding figure since the population of the entire neighborhood is barely above 100,000. I pointed out the mistake; at first, the newspaper defended its estimate, relying on evidence that made little sense. After I persisted, there was a tiny correction buried somewhere in the same section.
As I prepared this column, I checked the Times website and happily the correction is front and center in the article as now posted. Congratulations to the newspaper that we love to read and that we love to hate.
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
Fifty Years and What Do You Get?
My first article advocating government aid to parochial schools was published in 1959 in the Orthodox Tribune, the newsletter of Agudath Israel. Fifty years is a long time to be on the same firing line, especially since my side has come up nearly empty. I am not a glutton for punishment, yet I continue to believe that public funding for the secular curriculum at religious day schools is permissible under the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause and perhaps required under the Equal Protection Clause.
Although from the perspective of two generations there is little for me to cheer, the story was different in the early years. There were legislative and legal victories in the 1960s, notably the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act which explicitly included nonpublic school students, including those in parochial schools, in grant programs and the Supreme Court decision upholding this legislation. In the early 1970s, New York’s Textbook Law which encompassed religious school students was also upheld by the Supreme Court.
The feeling at the time was that more good news lay ahead. In 1968, as founder and president of the National Jewish Commission on Law and Public Affairs or COLPA, a small Orthodox group comprised mainly of young lawyers, I organized a conference on “Government Aid to Parochial Schools – How Far?” The “How Far?” testifies to our expectations. They turned out to be unfulfilled. Our initial achievements, enduring as they have been, have had no more than meager second acts.
Why? It was not because of liberal opposition. Our victories in the 1960s and 1970s occurred when both houses of Congress were firmly liberal and the Supreme Court was known as the Warren Court. Perhaps we had bad karma or poor strategy or perhaps the opposition was better organized and/or too strong. A contributing factor was our lack of focus, the curious circumstance that among those who constituted the core constituency for government aid, that issue was relegated to a backseat as other, more ideological, issues came to the fore. Since the early 1990s, the greatest emphasis of pro-religion groups has been by far on the place of religion in the public square – school prayer is an example – and not on whether in a neutral way public funds can go toward state-mandated academic programs in schools sponsored by religious groups.
If we look at the religion-oriented litigation docket of the past two decades, it is evident that it is more urgent for those who advocate for religion to focus on religious expression and activity in public institutions than to advocate government aid. The most significant federal education legislation since the 1960s, the “No Child Left Behind Act,” left behind just about all nonpublic school students. This was the signature education legislation of President George W. Bush, a strong believer in religion in the public square and faith-based programs.
Several days ago, I participated by telephone in a conference in Boston aimed at challenging the Blaine Amendment, the notoriously anti-Catholic provision in about three-fourths of the state constitutions that goes beyond the First Amendment limitations. A proper regard for tolerance and values shared overwhelmingly by Americans mandates opposition to a provision rooted in nineteenth century bigotry. This circumstance notwithstanding, it is certain that organized American Jewry fiercely supports Blaine.
Judicial invalidation of Blaine, itself not an easy task, would secure no funding for parochial schools, especially because state policymakers do not want the additional burden of funding nonpublic schools. What is needed is a more creative approach that targets Blaine and concurrently argues for public funding for the academic curriculum offered at religious schools.
Here, briefly, is the argument that should be made: Each state has a mandatory education law requiring children to attend school up to a designated age. Each state has in its constitution or laws a commitment to provide basic education to all children of school age. Each state requires that certain curriculum standards be met by all schools, public and nonpublic. Finally, each state permits these obligations to be performed by nonpublic schools, including religious schools, that are under state supervision.
In the aggregate, these conditions amount to nonpublic schools serving as instrumentalities for the fulfillment of each state’s obligations. Through their academic programs, they are doing what each state has committed itself to do. Under the Equal Protection Clause, this should result in the states being obligated and certainly permitted to fund the academic curriculum that public schools are required to offer. It is universally accepted that in social service and health activities that are governmental responsibilities, religious agencies and institutions perform vital public functions and are eligible for funding on a par with public institutions, irrespective of their religious nature. Schools should be treated no differently.
Given the intellectual rigor mortis that characterizes mainstream American Jewish attitudes on church-state issues, our community is certain to do battle against any change in current policy. We have convinced ourselves that great evil will result from the expenditure of public funds to ensure that parochial school children are properly educated, this despite abundant evidence from quite a few democratic countries that do provide such aid that the world does not come to an end when public funding is available in a neutral fashion.
In a sense, we are a paranoid community, placing full faith in our dark fantasies and nightmares about the role of religion. We also walk, with the exception of the Orthodox, in lockstep to this false orthodoxy. Not a contrary word is heard from even a single Federation, nor from the Conservative movement that is enduring a slow death, in some measure because of the constant weakening of its Solomon Schechter schools that cannot receive public funding.
If I have any consolation, it is the sure knowledge that I won’t be at this for another fifty years.
Although from the perspective of two generations there is little for me to cheer, the story was different in the early years. There were legislative and legal victories in the 1960s, notably the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act which explicitly included nonpublic school students, including those in parochial schools, in grant programs and the Supreme Court decision upholding this legislation. In the early 1970s, New York’s Textbook Law which encompassed religious school students was also upheld by the Supreme Court.
The feeling at the time was that more good news lay ahead. In 1968, as founder and president of the National Jewish Commission on Law and Public Affairs or COLPA, a small Orthodox group comprised mainly of young lawyers, I organized a conference on “Government Aid to Parochial Schools – How Far?” The “How Far?” testifies to our expectations. They turned out to be unfulfilled. Our initial achievements, enduring as they have been, have had no more than meager second acts.
Why? It was not because of liberal opposition. Our victories in the 1960s and 1970s occurred when both houses of Congress were firmly liberal and the Supreme Court was known as the Warren Court. Perhaps we had bad karma or poor strategy or perhaps the opposition was better organized and/or too strong. A contributing factor was our lack of focus, the curious circumstance that among those who constituted the core constituency for government aid, that issue was relegated to a backseat as other, more ideological, issues came to the fore. Since the early 1990s, the greatest emphasis of pro-religion groups has been by far on the place of religion in the public square – school prayer is an example – and not on whether in a neutral way public funds can go toward state-mandated academic programs in schools sponsored by religious groups.
If we look at the religion-oriented litigation docket of the past two decades, it is evident that it is more urgent for those who advocate for religion to focus on religious expression and activity in public institutions than to advocate government aid. The most significant federal education legislation since the 1960s, the “No Child Left Behind Act,” left behind just about all nonpublic school students. This was the signature education legislation of President George W. Bush, a strong believer in religion in the public square and faith-based programs.
Several days ago, I participated by telephone in a conference in Boston aimed at challenging the Blaine Amendment, the notoriously anti-Catholic provision in about three-fourths of the state constitutions that goes beyond the First Amendment limitations. A proper regard for tolerance and values shared overwhelmingly by Americans mandates opposition to a provision rooted in nineteenth century bigotry. This circumstance notwithstanding, it is certain that organized American Jewry fiercely supports Blaine.
Judicial invalidation of Blaine, itself not an easy task, would secure no funding for parochial schools, especially because state policymakers do not want the additional burden of funding nonpublic schools. What is needed is a more creative approach that targets Blaine and concurrently argues for public funding for the academic curriculum offered at religious schools.
Here, briefly, is the argument that should be made: Each state has a mandatory education law requiring children to attend school up to a designated age. Each state has in its constitution or laws a commitment to provide basic education to all children of school age. Each state requires that certain curriculum standards be met by all schools, public and nonpublic. Finally, each state permits these obligations to be performed by nonpublic schools, including religious schools, that are under state supervision.
In the aggregate, these conditions amount to nonpublic schools serving as instrumentalities for the fulfillment of each state’s obligations. Through their academic programs, they are doing what each state has committed itself to do. Under the Equal Protection Clause, this should result in the states being obligated and certainly permitted to fund the academic curriculum that public schools are required to offer. It is universally accepted that in social service and health activities that are governmental responsibilities, religious agencies and institutions perform vital public functions and are eligible for funding on a par with public institutions, irrespective of their religious nature. Schools should be treated no differently.
Given the intellectual rigor mortis that characterizes mainstream American Jewish attitudes on church-state issues, our community is certain to do battle against any change in current policy. We have convinced ourselves that great evil will result from the expenditure of public funds to ensure that parochial school children are properly educated, this despite abundant evidence from quite a few democratic countries that do provide such aid that the world does not come to an end when public funding is available in a neutral fashion.
In a sense, we are a paranoid community, placing full faith in our dark fantasies and nightmares about the role of religion. We also walk, with the exception of the Orthodox, in lockstep to this false orthodoxy. Not a contrary word is heard from even a single Federation, nor from the Conservative movement that is enduring a slow death, in some measure because of the constant weakening of its Solomon Schechter schools that cannot receive public funding.
If I have any consolation, it is the sure knowledge that I won’t be at this for another fifty years.
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
Reflections on Rabbi Elya Svei, Ztl
Although he was gravely ill for years and could no longer fulfill his leadership responsibilities, Rabbi Elya Svei continued to influence many of us who are involved in Torah education, whether as principals or teachers or lay leaders. For nearly a generation, he was without question the key figure in the spread of Torah chinuch in the United States, giving without personal regard of his endless commitment and remarkable insight into religious education at all levels. His passing last week leaves us with the feeling of loss and leaderlessness, of a void that makes the task of building and sustaining Torah even more difficult.
For all of his understanding of day school education in an environment that was far removed from the pre-Holocaust yeshiva world of Eastern Europe, in a curious way it was as if Rav Elya was of the generation of the transcendent Roshei Yeshiva who were educated in Slabodka, Mir and other outstanding Torah institutions. In this respect, he provided a contrast with his peers in the United States, the yeshiva deans who emerged as Torah leaders about a generation ago.
He came here with his parents and brothers as a young boy, studying briefly in elementary school at the Rabbi Jacob Joseph School and then, for high school, at Yeshiva Torah Vodaath. His advanced yeshiva education was both in Israel and at Beth Medrash Govoha in Lakewood where he emerged as an outstanding student of the great Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Aharon Kotler. In these years, he followed the extraordinary path of his beloved teacher, combining intensive Torah study with activism on behalf of the religious Jewish community, here and in Israel. I remember his vital role in the 1950s in the American Peylim, the effective advocacy group that did much to promote and protect religious life in Israel in the years after the establishment of the State.
This developmental period served as an apprenticeship as he worked under the tutelage of Torah leaders, earning their confidence and respect as they entrusted him with expanding responsibilities. It is a major deficit of the yeshiva world of today that the crucial process of shimush or apprenticeship has been neglected, a deficit that I fear will escalate in its untoward consequences in the coming years.
For all of his obedience to Torah leaders, Rav Elya had a strong independent streak, a quality that was evident in his establishment nearly fifty years ago of the major advanced yeshiva in Philadelphia where he was soon joined by Rabbi Shmuel Kaminetsky. He eschewed the perhaps easier path of serving as a Rosh Yeshiva at the Mirrer Yeshiva in Brooklyn, then headed by Rabbi Avrohom Kalmanowitz, his father-in-law. In Philadelphia, Rav Elya educated and influenced thousands of students, a great number of whom have had fruitful roles in our religious life.
With the passing of the Torah giants of the previous generation, Rav Elya was thrust into leadership, not as a result of any election or selection but simply through the recognition that he was, in effect, designated by his predecessors. This role was especially acknowledged by Israeli Torah leaders. In one of my few involvements with Rav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv regarding an American religious issue, I was told that this preeminent Torah leader was interested in hearing the views of Rabbi Svei and no one else.
Although his influence extended across our religious life, Rav Elya’s impact was most strongly felt in the educational sphere where he worked without personal regard and often in a state of exhaustion, assisting yeshivas and day schools throughout North America. He had remarkable awareness and insight into the dynamics of day school education. For all of his Herculean and singular efforts, he was intensely modest, not once speaking of his own role.
Over the years, the circle that relied on his guidance grew, as was often apparent at weddings and dinners where there was constantly a line of educators and lay leaders seeking his counsel. For all of the public persona that emerged, he was a quiet and thoughtful man and I confess that, at times, I hoped that he would abjure public speaking altogether. He was a terrific listener, drawing out the salient points from those who sought his advice. He treated those who came to him with respect and he regarded each situation and institution as unique. There was no formulaic response to the questions that came to him. He was, at once, wise and fair. When years ago, the Rabbi Jacob Joseph School took the extraordinary step of ensuring the survival of the Jewish Foundation School of Staten Island, Rav Elya’s guidance was critical as we traversed difficult issues.
A man of total integrity, I doubt that he ever felt fully comfortable in the organizational world, even in situations where he was vested with authority. Organizations require a degree of loyalty that can compromise one’s commitment to integrity. He struggled with this dualism for years and the struggle constituted a painful chapter that cannot readily be discussed, at least not yet. When he decided to leave organizational life, many in his circle followed his example, not because he instructed them to do so but because they believed that it was the right thing to do.
In his deeply moving hesped or eulogy more than twenty-five years ago for Rabbi Shneuer Kotler in Lakewood, Rav Elya cried out, “You can now go to your father and say, ‘I have fulfilled your mission, I have fulfilled your mission.’” So, too, Rav Elya can now go to the great Rosh Yeshiva and say, “I have fulfilled your mission, I have fulfilled your mission.”
For all of his understanding of day school education in an environment that was far removed from the pre-Holocaust yeshiva world of Eastern Europe, in a curious way it was as if Rav Elya was of the generation of the transcendent Roshei Yeshiva who were educated in Slabodka, Mir and other outstanding Torah institutions. In this respect, he provided a contrast with his peers in the United States, the yeshiva deans who emerged as Torah leaders about a generation ago.
He came here with his parents and brothers as a young boy, studying briefly in elementary school at the Rabbi Jacob Joseph School and then, for high school, at Yeshiva Torah Vodaath. His advanced yeshiva education was both in Israel and at Beth Medrash Govoha in Lakewood where he emerged as an outstanding student of the great Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Aharon Kotler. In these years, he followed the extraordinary path of his beloved teacher, combining intensive Torah study with activism on behalf of the religious Jewish community, here and in Israel. I remember his vital role in the 1950s in the American Peylim, the effective advocacy group that did much to promote and protect religious life in Israel in the years after the establishment of the State.
This developmental period served as an apprenticeship as he worked under the tutelage of Torah leaders, earning their confidence and respect as they entrusted him with expanding responsibilities. It is a major deficit of the yeshiva world of today that the crucial process of shimush or apprenticeship has been neglected, a deficit that I fear will escalate in its untoward consequences in the coming years.
For all of his obedience to Torah leaders, Rav Elya had a strong independent streak, a quality that was evident in his establishment nearly fifty years ago of the major advanced yeshiva in Philadelphia where he was soon joined by Rabbi Shmuel Kaminetsky. He eschewed the perhaps easier path of serving as a Rosh Yeshiva at the Mirrer Yeshiva in Brooklyn, then headed by Rabbi Avrohom Kalmanowitz, his father-in-law. In Philadelphia, Rav Elya educated and influenced thousands of students, a great number of whom have had fruitful roles in our religious life.
With the passing of the Torah giants of the previous generation, Rav Elya was thrust into leadership, not as a result of any election or selection but simply through the recognition that he was, in effect, designated by his predecessors. This role was especially acknowledged by Israeli Torah leaders. In one of my few involvements with Rav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv regarding an American religious issue, I was told that this preeminent Torah leader was interested in hearing the views of Rabbi Svei and no one else.
Although his influence extended across our religious life, Rav Elya’s impact was most strongly felt in the educational sphere where he worked without personal regard and often in a state of exhaustion, assisting yeshivas and day schools throughout North America. He had remarkable awareness and insight into the dynamics of day school education. For all of his Herculean and singular efforts, he was intensely modest, not once speaking of his own role.
Over the years, the circle that relied on his guidance grew, as was often apparent at weddings and dinners where there was constantly a line of educators and lay leaders seeking his counsel. For all of the public persona that emerged, he was a quiet and thoughtful man and I confess that, at times, I hoped that he would abjure public speaking altogether. He was a terrific listener, drawing out the salient points from those who sought his advice. He treated those who came to him with respect and he regarded each situation and institution as unique. There was no formulaic response to the questions that came to him. He was, at once, wise and fair. When years ago, the Rabbi Jacob Joseph School took the extraordinary step of ensuring the survival of the Jewish Foundation School of Staten Island, Rav Elya’s guidance was critical as we traversed difficult issues.
A man of total integrity, I doubt that he ever felt fully comfortable in the organizational world, even in situations where he was vested with authority. Organizations require a degree of loyalty that can compromise one’s commitment to integrity. He struggled with this dualism for years and the struggle constituted a painful chapter that cannot readily be discussed, at least not yet. When he decided to leave organizational life, many in his circle followed his example, not because he instructed them to do so but because they believed that it was the right thing to do.
In his deeply moving hesped or eulogy more than twenty-five years ago for Rabbi Shneuer Kotler in Lakewood, Rav Elya cried out, “You can now go to your father and say, ‘I have fulfilled your mission, I have fulfilled your mission.’” So, too, Rav Elya can now go to the great Rosh Yeshiva and say, “I have fulfilled your mission, I have fulfilled your mission.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)