Last week Torah U’mesorah and others ran an awareness campaign to alert the public of the dangers the Jewish community of New York State is facing as the State is determined to change the course of Jewish Education.
The Lehovin newspaper wrote:
For the last few years many in our community either totally ignored the goings on in this equivalency saga, besides for writing one of the 140,000 petitions 2 years ago. However, now, even the Agudah and PEARLS are sounding the alarm, even louder, warning that this is turning into a gezeira the likes of which American Jewry have never faced before. It affects every single mosad whether they have Regent’s accreditation or not, as with the smallest grievance or comment during a custody battle, or complaint by literally anyone to the state; even the Yeshiva or Bais Yaakov that is fully accredited will feel the full weight of government inspectors in their mosdos to insure their compliance, which to date no mosad has achieved. Are we waiting for that to happen r”l to then decide if we are going to be moser nefesh or will we then capitulate to their demands to keep our mosdos open and our parents out of jail even if it will r”l bring shmad to our future doros?
The Shtadlonim elaborated how over these past few years, numerous mosdos under scrutiny have tried their utmost to satisfy the inspectors to become compliant, but upon re-inspection the list of deficiencies only grew to mandate more and more changes from the mosad to attain compliance, which they would never achieve. With each inspection, the noose got tighter and the demands more severe and intolerable.
Do we understand that it will never end and they will not be satisfied until they shmad our children completely r”l? Are we planning to follow that road until we can maybe bentch licht on Leil Shabbos in our basements like marranos so many years ago in Spain, or are we ready to rise and fight for our lives and way of life now? The proposed guidelines clearly state the punishment for those who are non-compliant, but does not finalize the requirements for equivalency. The regulations leave the requirements open-ended, leaving them room to constantly revise them, tighten them and update them, making our lives as Yidden more and more unbearable. They are quite straightforward with their plans of how they expect to implement their new guidelines. They write how after an inspection a mosad will be given 60 days to submit a plan as to the changes that they will make to become compliant, which the government has to approve, and then they will even be given time to implement the changes, after which time there will be a reinspection. If the mosad is still not compliant, which to date, not even one inspected mosad has been declared, letters will be sent out to the parents instructing them to immediately transfer their children within 30 days to a compliant school or face 10 days in jail for their negligence. If they still don’t comply to transfer their children to the compliant mosad or Public school, they will r”l face 60 days in jail.
Do you think child services will not consider this at best neglect, and at worst, criminal neglect, giving the state the right to take the children away to insure that they get the quality liberal, inclusive, disgusting, destructive education that they so desperately want them to receive, and claim is so vital for their success in life. If they r”l take the children away in one mosad, while jailing the parents, will the next mosad become compliant and complicit in the shmad of our children r”l or fight and risk the same in their mosad? Will we have the strength then to fight when the pressure is so intense or will we leave everything behind and run away to some other state or country to save our lives and start anew? What then, really are we waiting for? Isn’t it best to fight the war now?