Jerusalem – A haredi high-school in Jerusalem teaching both religious studies and a general education to its pupils currently has no premises at which to teach for the coming academic year.
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A campaign led by haredi activists against the school, and assisted by haredi representatives in the Jerusalem Municipal Council, led to a council decision last week to remove the temporary classrooms and facilities from the site in the haredi neighborhood of Ramot Aleph.
A spokesperson for the Jerusalem Municipal Council said it was helping the school and its principles and that efforts were being made to help find new premises.
The Hachmei Lev school was established by Rabbi Betzalel Cohen, 39, last year with 15 pupils and used premises in the Bayit VeGan neighborhood in Jerusalem.
In video below Rabbi Betzalel Cohen explains why he opened up his Yeshivah Hachmei Lev.
But Hachmei Lev has 55 pupils registered for the beginning of the coming academic year and needed larger premises with an option for sleeping dormitories as well since 30 of the pupils live outside Jerusalem.
According to Cohen, a site in the haredi neighborhood of Ramot Aleph with six cara-villas previously used by a haredi girls Beit Yaakov school were made available by the Jerusalem Municipality to Hachmei Lev.
But haredi representatives on the Jerusalem Municipal Council have made a campaign to prevent the school being located in the Ramot neighborhood. Cohen says opponents to the school objected on religious and ideological grounds to the teaching of secular studies in a religious institution.
The campaigners however said their opposition was based on the broader claims of the haredi community in Ramot that the municipality and the local neighborhood administration ignores their communal requirements and that there are insufficient buildings and structures for the needs of the community.
But Cohen said the campaigners made numerous unfounded claims against him and his school, saying that he was anti-haredi, disobeyed the senior haredi rabbinic leadership which is stridently against teaching general education studies in a yeshiva, and even of receiving money from the Reform movement, which he firmly denies.
“This is a haredi institute,” Cohen told The Jerusalem Post. “The yeshiva high schools are not suitable for everyone,” he continued in reference to the exclusive focus on religious studies of almost all haredi yeshivas for high-school aged children. ‘
“We are specialised for haredim who don’t want the normal yeshiva high school but which does promote Talmud study, religious devotion, and a general education as well. There is a lack of such institutions but there are a lot of people who want this kind of thing,” Cohen said.
“This would strengthen the regular yeshiva high schools since it would allow the pupils not suited to study there to leave which would be to the advantage of the children who do study there, while enabling those who are suited to our system to also succeed.”
Naftali Lorentz, chairman of the haredi Community Administration of Ramot, said however that Ramot is suffering from a severe lack of infrastructure for public institutions like schools and it was opposed for that reason.
The cara-villas are being completely removed however and the property where they stood has not been designated for any purpose.
Lorentz added that the Hachmei Lev yeshiva was a private institution that did not serve the needs of the Ramot community, although he acknowledged that rabbis from the neighborhood had joined the campaign because they believed the school was advancing a certain agenda to promote general studies.
The Jerusalem Municipality said the original proposal to house the school in the cara-villas was not fitting because of the municipality’s promise to remove these structures due to an agreement made several years ago when they were first placed there.
The municipality said however that it is helping and supporting Hachmei Lev, and “appreciates its ground-breaking, positive activities for the needs of haredi pupils.”
“Mayor Nir Barkat knows and is supporting the principles of the yeshiva and has even met with the administration to find an appropriate solution,” the municipality said in response to the issue.
As they should be. The world doesn’t need secular studies just religion.
Institutionalized poverty and institutionalized ignorance are not the path of Torah. Many sages and gedolim knew math, some basic science and were conversant in the languages of their host countries. It is a mega-shondah that in the name of protecting innocence, some Talibani leaders choose to avoid the “al pi darko” mandate of learning that is adapted to a student’s proclivity and ability. Not every student will be a talmid chacham, a Rav, a rebbe, a mechanech. Where will our shomer Torah/mitzvos doctors, lawyers, mechanics and bakers come from? Eem eyn kemach, eyn Torah! I ask the Aibeshter to give bracha and hatzlacha to Rabbi Betzalel Cohen. May he open many such schools in years to come.
Breeding illiterates unfortunately
Don’t get excited when you read #1 ’s comment. He just put out the bait.
what people dont get is, he calls himself a yeshiva while allmost all day they learn seculer studies,we would have no problem if he calls himself a frum collige that studies a little bit of torah
another example of the talbanization of the chreidi lifestyle being imposed on frum enlightened people when will these ignoramuses realize they do not control judaism in israel or anywhere else
I own an employment agency and have been trying to place my Frum candidates in the tri state area. Unfortunately, not ONE of them speak proper English or can do basic math. It’s a sad situation what we have done to our kinder. They aren’t even capable of answering phones since their English is so restricted.
I live in Ramot. The Beis Yaakov school for Girls whose spot the municipality has removed is an elementary school with 7 classes for the three younger grades and a few classes for the upper grades. Every class has between 30-40 students. Thus, this school, which serves Ramot girls exclusively, a school population of over 1000 students, which also teaches general studies by the way, has now nowhere to go, and instead should lose its spot to a school, that may have a right to a spot, that will serve 55 students from elsewhere in the city?! That does not make sense.
Last year, the municipality tried to give their spot to the quasi-religious Rappaport school, which was moved from Talpiot to Ramot. Also, their students do not live in Ramot, but the girls of Ramot were to lose their school to the Rappaport school. The Ramot girls staged a protest on the street, and conducted classes in the street, because their school was taken from them. Fortunately, pressure like that and other pressures forced the municipality to send Rappaport back to Talpiot.
These moves are nothing short of harassment of Chareidim by the secular Jerusalem mayor and city council.
Rav Schach z”l said no to general studies in Israel.
Kol hakvod to rabbi cohen who should be matzleach as he strives to work with young men to be true bani torah who will be kovaha and still be able to support a family as well as torah and chesed institutions
Read the Brochure.
It’s impressive.
this is an old problem which needs creative imput without going against Haredi solutions which means without going against rabbinic guidelines. there is a large group of young charedi children who are “pulling” and don’t fit into the standard chedar systems. we have an obligation to save these children. as a seasoned grandmother, i am sorry to say that i have seen many children start to slip in “the system” and there is nothing to catch them.th both boys and girls. today, these children are young adults. they are angry and many remove the kippa. if by giving them some creative outlets-[i am not defining what that could be] outside of the regular curriculum of Torah studies, this will maintain their self-esteem as Jews and they will see themselves as having a meaningful future and to have what to contribute when they get older, i think this may save a steady trickle which is rapidly turning into a stream of drop-outs, misfits, unhappy and rejected members of our charedi society.
I learned in good yeshivos but ain’t naive. When I say common sense, I mean literally just like you don’t ask a gadol if you should go to the bathroom now or eat supper. Certain things are just intuitive.
This whole notion of das torah is a new made up mishagas that the yeshiva world invented towards the end of R Moshe’s life when he was too shvach to fight this nonsense. Ask your zaidis if when they were young ;where they so busy every second with what das torah says? Most of them did their own thing and asked shalios only when necessary.
Bottom line gedolim are gedolim true. But one has to use discretion when to take their psak with a grain of salt.
P.S. I won’t get into the R Shach/ Chabad fight now. But I think most people would walk into chabad if they were stranded in Bangkok despite the fact that R Shach said no way.
To ex-Kollel Guy”: Daas Torah existed 450 years ago, even if it wasn’t called that. When Donna Gracia Mendes wanted to boycott the Papal port of Ancona, Italy, because of the Pope’s anti-Semitic decrees, both sides of the dispute obtained piskei halacha from rabbonim – about a political question. If that isn’t Daas Torah, I don’t know what is.
Otherwise, I might agree with you about how we take piskei halacha, kol koreiim, and the like.