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What’s happening right now around secular studies in Israeli yeshivas is remarkable

(JTA) — The irony of history is that we can understand and assess the full meaning of current events only in retrospect. Only looking back can we know for certain whether an incident that seems historic really is a turning point, or whether it was really the quiet and hard-to-detect processes bubbling under the surface that were shaping the future.

Either way, in recent weeks it seems that something notable is happening in the Israeli haredi, or ultra-Orthodox, community when it comes to teaching math, English and science in schools almost exclusively devoted to religious instruction.

The realization is slowly sinking in that more and more ultra-Orthodox families want to send their sons to haredi Orthodox schools that teach core curriculum subjects and are under government supervision. In order to avoid losing control over these schools, the rabbis are considering offering them a “kosher” alternative — schools that teach core curriculum subjects but are under haredi supervision. 

A few days ago, Israeli media reported on a meeting of prominent leaders of the pious “Lithuanian” haredi sector, known as “Yeshivish” in the United States. According to one account, the leaders, including two rabbis who are among the favorites in the race to be crowned the next “rabbinical giant of the generation,” met to discuss the “state ultra-Orthodox school system, with the objective of considering the challenges in education and the best way to proceed.” The teaching of secular subjects was clearly the context of their meeting. 

This comes on top of last month’s report that the Belzer Hasidic movement, one of Israel’s largest, wants to revert to a plan, devised in the previous Knesset by legislator Moshe TurPaz, whereby their schools would receive full state funding contingent on their incorporation of core curriculum subjects under government supervision. (The sect had dropped the plan under pressure from Rabbi Gershon Edelstein, the last rabbinical giant, who died in May at 100.) Whether these reports are true or just a gun placed on the table by haredi members of the Knesset as part of budget negotiations, the mere threat would seem to indicate that the core curriculum is gaining increased legitimacy in ultra-Orthodox society.

The truly shocking news, however, came on a different front: higher education. David Leibel, a well known rabbi who is also a businessman and social entrepreneur with a long record of success, announced the opening of an advanced yeshiva (for students ages 16 through marriage) that would also teach academic subjects. 

The announcement was preceded by a heavily promoted speech that garnered major coverage inside and outside the haredi sector. Currently, most haredi men continue to study Torah full-time and do not work for a living. The rabbi proclaimed, in short, that there is more than one way to be an ultra-Orthodox Jew. Devoting one’s life to Torah study is a stellar virtue, Leibel said, but acquiring a vocation and going out to earn a livelihood is equally legitimate. 

The attacks were swift and brutal. The Orthodox weekly Yated Ne’eman declared it totally out of the question to discuss the idea and condemned Leibel as the spiritual murderer of the greatest rabbi of the next generation, who instead of devoting himself entirely to Torah will choose to focus on secular studies. 

Despite the fierce public opposition to Leibel’s move, leaders associated with several ultra-Orthodox yeshiva high schools and others have just announced their intention to open a post-secondary institution that would allow its students to combine Torah studies with vocational programs and academic courses. 

According to the manifesto they wrote, which has circulated within the community but not been formally published, the yeshiva will offer “studies in a range of disciplines and occupations offered both by universities and other quality institutions that pave the student’s way to professionalism and excellence toward a dignified life and honorable livelihood, while sharing and accepting responsibility both in the economy, society, and community, and in the State of Israel as a whole.”

Can the ultra-Orthodox in Israel really incorporate a secular education or is the haredi DNA dedicated solely to religious studies for boys?

In the American context, the opposition by Hasidic leaders to calls that they improve their secular studies would suggest the latter. An investigation by the New York City Department of Education recently found that 18 Hasidic schools do not uphold the requirements to teach secular subjects. (It also concluded that some yeshivas do meet the state’s standards.) Hasidic yeshivas in New York, and their political supporters, have so far resisted heavy pressure from activists and the media to teach secular subjects in a way that is “substantially equivalent” with non-Orthodox schools. 

But the situation among the “Yeshivish,” non-Hasidic yeshivas in the United States is quite different. Their yeshivas, in places like the burgeoning Orthodox enclave of Lakewood, New Jersey, are teaching secular studies even in high schools, and most of their graduates are earning high school and often post-high school diplomas. This stems from parents’ desire to provide their children with the life skills required in modern society. In research we conducted on Haredi boys’ education in the United States, a principal of a Lithuanian institution told us that removing secular studies would lead 90% of parents to remove their sons from the yeshiva.

No wonder that more than 25% percent of the Yeshivish stream hold academic degrees, and the annual average earning of a Yeshivish household is 60% more than a Hasidic one. 

The haredi experience in the United States shows that it is possible to combine religious and secular studies for high-school aged boys. Can this latter model be replicated in Israel?

Only time will tell whether the current changes in Israel are viable or whether they prove premature and wither away. 

But if there is a lesson to be learned from all that’s happening, it is that change takes place only when alternatives are made available. If these and similar yeshivas gain momentum, the decision-makers will have no choice. Just as they are now considering the establishment of ultra-Orthodox schools that teach core curriculum subjects under rabbinic supervision, in the future we may see Israeli yeshivas that include secular studies as an integral part of the haredi world.


The post What’s happening right now around secular studies in Israeli yeshivas is remarkable appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

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Iran Says Eight Arrested for Suspected Links to Israel’s Mossad Spy Agency

The Mossad recruitment ad. Photo: Screenshot.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday they had arrested eight people suspected of trying to transmit the coordinates of sensitive sites and details about senior military figures to Israel’s Mossad, Iranian state media reported.

They are accused of having provided the information to the Mossad spy agency during Israel’s air war on Iran in June, when it attacked Iranian nuclear facilities and killed top military commanders as well as civilians in the worst blow to the Islamic Republic since the 1980s war with Iraq.

Iran retaliated with barrages of missiles on Israeli military sites, infrastructure and cities. The United States entered the war on June 22 with strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.

A Guards statement alleged that the suspects had received specialized training from Mossad via online platforms. It said they were apprehended in northeastern Iran before carrying out their plans, and that materials for making launchers, bombs, explosives and booby traps had been seized.

State media reported earlier this month that Iranian police had arrested as many as 21,000 “suspects” during the 12-day war with Israel, though they did not say what these people had been suspected of doing.

Security forces conducted a campaign of widespread arrests and also stepped up their street presence during the brief war that ended in a US-brokered ceasefire.

Iran has executed at least eight people in recent months, including nuclear scientist Rouzbeh Vadi, hanged on August 9 for passing information to Israel about another scientist killed in Israeli airstrikes.

Human rights groups say Iran uses espionage charges and fast-tracked executions as tools for broader political repression.

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Body of Idan Shtivi, Murdered on Oct. 7, Retrieved from Gaza in Special IDF Operation

Idan Shtivi. Photo: Courtesy of the family

i24 NewsThe body of Idan Shtivi, a 28-year-old murdered by Palestinian jihadists at the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, was recovered in a joint operation by the IDF and Shin Bet in central Gaza, it was cleared for publication on Saturday.

Shtivi’s remains were returned to Israel alongside the body of Ilan Weiss, another hostage killed during the October 7 massacre.

“Idan Shtivi was abducted from the Tel Gama area and brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists after acting to rescue and evacuate others from the Nova music festival on October 7th, 2023. He was 28 years old at the time of his death,” read an IDF press release.

“Following an identification process conducted at the National Center for Forensic Medicine, along with the Israel Police and the Military Rabbinate, the Hostages and Missing Persons Headquarters notified his family.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Shviti “was a gifted student of sustainability and governance, and a courageous individual” who acted heroically on October 7, helping others flee.

“He was killed in the process and his body was abducted to Gaza by Hamas. My wife and I send our heartfelt condolences to the Shtivi family. So far, 207 hostages have been returned, 148 of them alive. We will continue to act tirelessly and decisively to bring back all our hostages—living and deceased.”

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Woman Stabbed at Ottawa Grocery Store in Latest Antisemitic Attack

A social media post by the alleged attacker, Joseph Rooke of Cornwall, Ontario. Photo: Screenshot via i24

i24 NewsThe stabbing of a Jewish woman at an Ottawa grocery by a man with a long history of antisemitic posts on social media, the latest antisemitic hate crime in Canada, sparked outrage and prompted condemnation from officials including the prime minister.

Both the victim and the attacker are in their 70s. The woman is reportedly in serious condition.

The suspect was identified as Joseph Rooke, who has authored a series of lengthy rambling screeds on social media, ranting against Israel and Jews.

“Judaism is the world’s oldest cult,” he writes in one post, going on to say “over time jews have become insidious in governments, businesses, media conglomerates, and educational institutions in order to do what they do better than anyone else. Jews are the world’s masters of propaganda, gaslighting, demonization, demagoguery, and outright lying. Using their collective wealth they have become masters of reprisal.”

“I am under no obligation whatsoever, legal, moral, or otherwise, to like jews and I do not. If that means I meet the jewish definition of an anti-semite, so be it.”

Canada has seen a steep spike in antisemitic attacks over the past two years, including a recent incident in Montreal where a Hasidic Jew was beaten in front on his children.

After Prime Minister Mark Carney condemned the incident, many, including former Israel’s ambassador the US Michael Oren, pointed out that Carney’s rhetoric and policies contribute to the increasing insecurity of Canada’s Jewish community through uncritical embrace of outrageous and easily disprovable allegations that Israel and its supporters were guilty of the worst crimes against humanity.

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