Cantor's Blog

As I arrived in Southampton, the departure site for a cruise along the North Sea, I entered a coffee shop and purchased the London Times.  To my utter dismay, the headline announced “Unsafe Schools Where Jewish Boys Can Barely Read English.”

The investigation described thousands of Jewish boys enrolled in Hassidic institutions, boys, in their mid teens, who were unable to read English, who had acquired minimal, if any, math or science education, and who had gained no secular qualifications for living outside the insular Orthodox Jewish world. In the United Kingdom this is permitted due to a loophole which allows the boys to be defined as home-schooled, as well as by a fear by outsiders as being labeled antisemitic.

This tragedy continues to unfold in the north London area known as Stamford Hill. Inspectors found the sites of the institutions to be in an appalling state of disrepair: loose tiles on the walls and floors, broken windows, exposed bare electrical cables, and unclean surfaces. Numerous inspectors described the pupils’ health and welfare to be at risk.

In response to these accusations, vocal defenders of the Hassidic institutions declared that any official attempt at change would equate to an “ edict of expulsion for Orthodox Jews of the United Kingdom.”

My friends, these behaviors must be described as “busha”, an embarrassment, and as a Hillul Hashem, a desecration of G-d’s name.  (Please note that recent reports have described similar conditions in numerous, certainly not all, American Ultra-Orthodox institutions of learning.)  Far from fulfilling, the mitzvah of serving as an Or L’Goyim, a light unto the nations, these actions represent the exact opposite, a Choshesh L’Goyim a darkness before the nations of the world.  While the secular community remains timidly silent in fear of being labeled antisemitic, the image of the Jew and their G-d lies in shambles.

These actions are antithetical to the hopes expressed by the concluding words of Aleinu: “On that day the Lord shall be One and His name One.”