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18 NYC yeshivas do not adequately teach secular studies, investigation finds
(New York Jewish Week) — The New York City Department of Education has found that 18 yeshivas are falling short of secular education standards, a landmark ruling in the ongoing fight over government oversight of Hasidic day schools.
Letters sent to the yeshivas by the education department on Friday mark the culmination of an eight-year investigation that has pitted the city against the leadership of its large Hasidic communities. Arriving after years of activism by secular education advocates — and pushback from the yeshivas’ defenders — the letters represent the most significant determination by a government agency that the schools are failing to teach secular studies to their students.
In addition, according to The New York Times, seven yeshivas that were investigated were found to be complying with the law. The New York State Education Department must now affirm the findings of the investigations.
The education department sent the letters on Friday, close to the beginning of Shabbat, and did not make them public. Two were published online by The City, a nonprofit news organization covering New York.
Those letters show that investigators saw no instruction in English during their visits in 2019. Ultimately, city officials concluded about Yeshiva Bnei Shimon Yisroel of Sopron, for example, that the Williamsburg, Brooklyn-based boys school “has not demonstrated that it is providing instruction that is substantially equivalent to the public schools in the New York City school district,” according to the letter. The letter said that the school is not meeting educational standards “in the four core academic subjects of [English Language Arts], mathematics, science, and social studies/history.”
But what consequences the schools may face remains unclear. The two published letters mandate that the yeshivas in question create a plan within the next 60 days to reach a “substantially equivalent” level of secular education by the end of the next school year. But the two letters did not mention any further consequences if those deadlines are not met. Earlier this year, a state court ruled that the state Education Department lacks the authority to close the schools if they fail to provide a secular education, though it could deprive them of public funding.
“The findings profoundly change the playing field, though the game has a long way to go,” David Bloomfield, a professor of education law at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “This is the first time there have been official findings of over a dozen yeshivas violating the law on secular instruction.”
He added, “So now the cure is clearly in government hands. How long and how complete that process will be is open to question.”
The letters show that city investigators confirmed what journalists have twice documented and advocates have long argued: that many yeshivas barely teach secular subjects, required under state law. Currently, the schools spend nearly all of their day teaching a traditional Jewish studies curriculum in Yiddish, with a heavy focus on Talmud. Secular studies, according to the letters, occupies only a small portion of the curriculum, with few resources devoted to the teaching of subjects like English and math.
One investigation found that secular studies at a yeshiva was taught by an educator whose prior experience includes one year of serving as a substitute teacher in the city education department as well as working in a public library.
The schools and their defenders maintain that students obtain necessary skills across a wide range of topics, from math to the arts, within their Jewish studies curriculum.
The state determinations follow years of public advocacy and court filings by activists, many with roots in haredi Orthodox communities, to force yeshivas to teach secular studies. They also come after an investigative series in The New York Times examining subpar secular education standards in New York City-area yeshivas, which revealed a similar story to that told by the New York Jewish Week in 2015. And they come during the administration of Mayor Eric Adams, who has received support from Hasidic leaders and, earlier this year, said public schools should “learn what you are doing in the yeshivas to improve education.”
The most prominent of the activist groups, Young Advocates for Fair Education, or YAFFED, said in a statement, “We hope that the completion of this investigation compels the city and Mayor Eric Adams to act on behalf of thousands of students who are being deprived of their right to a sound basic education.”
Haredi groups, meanwhile, have contended that government oversight of secular standards at yeshivas constitutes overreach into a successful system, as well as a violation of their communities’ prerogative to educate their children as they wish. In response to the education department’s letters, Parents for Educational and Religious Liberty in Schools, or PEARLS, a defender of the yeshivas, said in a statement that the investigation was based on “a skewed set of technical requirements.”
“Parents choose yeshiva education for their children because of the religious, moral and educational philosophy and approach of those who lead yeshivas,” the statement said, according to multiple reports. “They will continue to do so, regardless of how many government lawyers try to insist that yeshiva education is best measured by checklists they devise rather than the lives yeshiva graduates lead.”
According to the letters, one of the schools appears to have changed its name in the midst of the investigation — with the education department being told the school had closed. Another school refused requests for followup visits from investigators and did not provide requested materials demonstrating its secular curriculum.
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The post 18 NYC yeshivas do not adequately teach secular studies, investigation finds appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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French Authorities Replant Memorial Olive Tree and Launch Seventh Ilan Halimi Award
A crowd gathers at the Jardin Ilan Halimi in Paris on Feb. 14, 2021, to commemorate the 15th anniversary of Halimi’s kidnapping and murder. Photo: Reuters/Xose Bouzas/Hans Lucas
French authorities planted a new olive tree on Wednesday to honor Ilan Halimi, nearly a decade after the young French Jewish man was tortured to death and two weeks after a previous commemorative tree was cut down.
Hervé Chevreau, mayor of the norther Paris suburb Épinay, announced that several olive trees will be replanted in Halimi’s memory, praising “a remarkable outpouring of solidarity” reflected in the donations.
With a commemorative ceremony on Wednesday, the first olive tree will be planted in Saint-Ouen, a northern suburb of Paris in the Île-de-France region.
“In the context of rising antisemitic acts, the community aims to reaffirm its steadfast commitment against hatred, forgetfulness, and indifference,” Chevreau said in a statement. “This gesture of reflection and resilience responds to the serious act of vandalism in Épinay-sur-Seine, where the commemorative tree was deliberately cut down.”
Halimi was abducted, held captive, and tortured in January 2006 by a gang of about 20 people in a low-income housing estate in the Paris suburb of Bagneux.
Three weeks later, he was found in Essonne, south of Paris, naked, gagged, and handcuffed, with clear signs of torture and burns. The 23-year-old died on the way to the hospital.
In 2011, an olive tree was planted in Halimi’s memory. Earlier this month, the memorial was found felled — probably with a chainsaw — in Epinay-sur-Seine.
Halimi’s memory has faced attacks before, with two other trees planted in his honor vandalized in 2019 in Essonne.
During Wednesday’s ceremony, numerous prominent figures attended, including France’s Chief Rabbi Haim Korsia, Yonathan Arfi, President of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF), Labor Minister Astrid Panosyan-Bouvet, and Minister for Gender Equality and the Fight Against Discrimination Aurore Bergé.
At the event, Bergé announced the launch of the seventh edition of the Ilan Halimi Award, marking 20 years since his disappearance.
Established in 2018, the award seeks to fight racism and antisemitism by inspiring young people to take action.
Since then, French authorities have annually recognized projects led by young people aged 13 to 25 from schools, universities, associations, and civic or integration programs.
“The launch of the 2026 edition of the Ilan Halimi Award in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois is more than an act of remembrance — it is a pledge to the future,” Bergé said during the ceremony.
Ils peuvent tronçonner un arbre, nous replanterons.
Ils peuvent abattre un arbre, nous ferons vivre la mémoire.Nous ne laisserons pas Ilan Halimi disparaître une nouvelle fois.
Le Prix Ilan Halimi 2026 est lancé. pic.twitter.com/Tn9SxlARJA
— Aurore Bergé (@auroreberge) September 2, 2025
Last week, two 19-year-old Tunisian twin brothers, undocumented and with prior convictions for theft and violence, were arrested in France for allegedly vandalizing and cutting down Halimi’s memorial.
Both brothers appeared in criminal court and were remanded in custody pending their trial, scheduled for Oct. 22.
They will face trial on charges of “aggravated destruction of property” and “desecration of a monument dedicated to the memory of the dead on the basis of race, ethnicity, nationality, or religion,” offenses that, according to prosecutors, carry a sentence of up to two years in prison.
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After Deadly Firebombing, Boulder Jews Forced to Hide Weekly Hostage March Due to Escalating Harassment
Boulder attack suspect Mohamed Sabry Soliman poses for a jail booking photograph after his arrest in Boulder, Colorado, US, June 2, 2025. Photo: Boulder Police Department/Handout via REUTERS
A group of Jewish activists advocating for the Israeli hostages still held captive by Hamas terrorists in Gaza has announced plans to cease publicizing planned demonstrations and increase security in response to continued community intimidation in the months following a June 1 Molotov cocktail attack that left one person dead and 13 injured.
The group Run for Their Lives includes more than 230 chapters globally, and the one based in Boulder will now take extra measures to protect participants since the attack, for which authorities have charged alleged assailant Mohamed Sabry Soliman, which has in turn provoked further opposition.
Videos reviewed by the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) show anti-Israel demonstrators calling event attendees “Nazi,” “racist,” and “genocidal c**t.”
A local politician running for city council has also demonized the hostage supporters.
CBS Colorado reported that Aaron Stone allegedly called Rachel Amaru, the chapter’s Jewish founder, a “Nazi,” a slur he defended as “a very strong word to use.” He further said that in looking at Amaru he was “not seeing a Jewish person” but rather “someone who is walking down the street talking about 20 hostages and ignoring the two million Palestinian hostages that are being kept in Gaza.”
Brandon Rattiner, senior director of the local Jewish Community Relations Council, said in a statement that “participants are facing a level of harassment that makes it impossible to continue safely in public view.”
Stefanie Clarke, who serves as co-executive director of Stop Antisemitism Colorado, added in a statement that “it is unacceptable that less than three months after a deadly antisemitic attack, Jews in Boulder are once again being forced into hiding.”
Clarke stated that “we will not be intimidated, and we will not be driven out of public spaces where we should feel safe. The fact that someone seeking a seat on City Council is at the center of this harassment should be cause for alarm. Boulder cannot claim to be a city of inclusion and justice while giving a platform to Jew hate.”
The mountain states regional branch of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) released its own statement in support of the pro-Israel activists.
“We stand in firm solidarity with the Boulder chapter of Run for Their Lives following their difficult decision to no longer publicly disclose the location of their events,” the organization said. “It is deeply unfortunate that after enduring the horrific June 1 firebomb attack that resulted in the death of a community member, participants now face such persistent harassment that they must keep their gatherings secret to simply stay safe.”
On July 15, Soliman, who pleaded not guilty, waved his right to a preliminary hearing in a case where the 150 state charges and 12 federal charges include murder and attempted murder. He will see a judge on Tuesday for a scheduled arraignment and faces life imprisonment if convicted.
Prosecutors say that Soliman, an Egyptian who came to the United States on a B-2 Tourist Visa in August 2022, told police that “he wanted to kill all Zionist people” and that he sought to murder 20 of the demonstrators. A note found in his car read “Zionism is our enemies untill [sic] Jerusalem is liberated and they are expelled from our land.”
Soliman also reportedly said that he had planned the attack for a year and planned it for after his daughter’s graduation. Federal officials sought to deport Soliman’s family; however, a judge blocked that effort.
“This is a proper end to an absurd legal effort on the plaintiff’s part. Just like her terrorist husband, she and her children are here illegally and are rightfully in ICE [US Immigration and Customs Enforcement] custody for removal as a result,” Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement. “This terrorist will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. We are investigating to what extent his family knew about this heinous attack, if they had knowledge of it, or if they provided support to it.”
In August, the ADL released a report ranking Colorado — which contains approximately 110,400 Jewish residents, accounting for 1.9 percent of the population — as eighth in the country for combating antisemitism.
“I am thrilled that the Anti-Defamation League has recognized Colorado as a national leader in fighting antisemitism, but there is much more to do,” the state’s governor Jared Polis said at the time. “Such hate and violence have no place in our Colorado for All, and that is why Colorado is leading the way to combat these trends and protect Coloradans’ right to worship how you want, making Colorado safer.”
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Lead Writer of Upcoming DC Comics Series Celebrated Oct. 7 Massacre in Resurfaced Social Media Posts
Gretchen Felker-Martin joins a virtual discussion from home. Photo: Screenshot
Gretchen Felker-Martin, an author and film critic who was recently announced as lead writer of the upcoming DC Comics series “Red Hood,” has an extensive history of endorsing terrorist acts and defending the murder of Jews and Israelis, according to a review of the writer’s social media posts.
In the posts — screenshots of which circulated on X/Twitter and other platforms this week — Felker-Martin appeared to praise Osama bin Laden for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the US and expressed support for Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel.
During the Oct. 7 onslaught, as Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists murdered 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages in the deadliest single-day slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, Felker-Martin argued that Israeli civilians are “settlers” and an “occupying force whose daily lives serve to grind out the hope, culture, and memory of those they oppress.” She also seemingly defended Hamas’s murdering of Israeli babies, saying that Israel is an “imperialist nightmare” and that Hamas is trying to “survive their rule by any means necessary.”
Hamas is designated by several countries as a terrorist organization.
“You cannot subject human beings to brutal conditions under which no hope for a meaningful future exists and then blame them for violent action taken to correct this state. Free Palestine,” she wrote on Oct. 7.
Later that month, Felker-Martin wrote that “Zionism is full-fledged Nazism and has accrued mainstream support throughout the west because of that, not in spite of it.”
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As the ensuing war in Gaza continued in the months ahead, Felker-Martin sharpened her criticisms of Israel, condemning Zionists as “crazy” and comparing them to “slime.” The writer also lambasted Neil Druckmann, the Israeli creator of the popular “The Last of Us” video game series, for being a “Zionist.” She encouraged fellow progressives not to support then-US Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, condemning Harris for not “moving an inch on the genocide.” She also falsely accused Israel of inflicting a “famine” in Gaza and repudiated actress Hailee Steinfeld as a “Zionist piece of s**t.” Steinfeld has seemingly not made public statements about Israel but came under fire from leftists after she visited the Jewish state with family in 2019 for a party.
Felker-Martin separately defended Osama bin Laden’s role in the Sept. 11 terror attacks, writing that “blowing up the World Trade Center is probably the most principled and defensible thing he ever did.”
Jewish organizations and antisemitism watchdog groups quickly condemned the remarks. StandWithUs, a nonpartisan pro-Israel organization, urged DC Comics to reconsider hiring Felker-Martin, citing her inflammatory and offensive commentary.