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New York – It is September, and the outlook for advanced regent diplomas in Yeshivos is a bit grim. Why so? Most Yeshivos do not offer foreign language instruction other than Hebrew. And way back in June, while facing a funding deficit of $11.5 million for P-12 programs, the Board of Regents approved some hefty cost cutting measures. These cuts included the elimination of January regents and all foreign language regents except for French and Spanish, were dependant upon the inclusion in the State budget of the $7 million asked for by the Regents. The Italians got together and saved the Italian Regent, but Hebrew, Latin and German were still eliminated.
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So what does this mean for Yeshivos and Bais Yaakovs? Well, one of three things will have to happen:
1] Either the Jewish community (or Agudath Yisroel) had better get it together and pressure the political powers that be to reinstate Hebrew
2]The Yeshivos and Bais Yaakovs can start offering Spanish for three years
3] The Torah schools can opt to only give a Basic Regent diploma and no longer offer an Advanced Regent diploma.
The downside of the third option is that now there is no incentive to make the students take more years of science and math. There is a basic rule of young people that is in immutable law of nature- if they CAN get away with it – they will. The consequences will be that our graduating classes will be less and less educated and lesser equipped to enter a growingly complex job market.
It is imperative that one of the two earlier options be exercised immediately. All high school parents who care about their children and have children enrolled in Yeshivos should bombard the offices of their Yeshivos and Bais Yaakovs now. Spanish language instruction should be offered immediately.
The sad part of this story is that it’s not only the students who don’t care and try to get away with it. The parents are not willing or able to do anything about it. The yeshivos and Bais Yakovs are having severe financial crunches so when faced with both a student body that doesn’t care and parents who don’t care either, of course they’re happy that the state mandates less. One would think that the wake-up call would be not being able to find decent jobs. Nechtiger tug. The kids don’t seem to be facing reality.
Education has nothing to do with parnasah, the hishtadlus is to work when you need money, not educate a child at a young age for his parnassa many years ahead. Igros Moshe y”d 2. It’s a lack of bitachon
Years ago our yeshiva insisted we take French.
All of the students wanted Spanish as the neighborhood we lived in was very Spanish. They hanhala refused.
To this day I know they did wrong as knowledge of Spanish would have been very advantageous here in New York, on the job, shopping, etc. Many times I’ve had to bring along someone who spoke Spanish to give a hand. French was a waste of time.
Spanish is quickly becoming a second language in the U.S. and be a good idea for the schools to teach it.
Rather than trying to “reinstate hebrew” to circumvent the foreign language requirement, why not have the yeshiva and beis yaakov students learn spanish, french russian chinese or any other foreign language which will prepare them for careers in an global community where foreign language skills are increasingly important. Alternatively, if the priority is to keep these students at a dysfunctional level than focusing on Hebrew instruction (or maybe even yiddish) would be a great idea to assure they cannot get a job or earn a parnassah in many commercial fields.
I note that the Latin regents is also eliminated. Considering the importance that Latin has had in Western learning (it was mandatory for admission to Ivy League schools in the 19th century, and at least until 40 years for admission to Oxford and Cambridge in England) it would appear that the Board of Regents is cutting off a piece of New York’s European heritage. While I shouldn’t be concerned for this, I am. The less the secular world connects with its European history, the vulnerable it becomes to the encroachments of Islam.
Those without an advanced Regents diploma will have much greater difficulty getting accepted to better colleges and universities. In the current economic climate, those with less technical knowledge and skills are at a marked disadvantage.
#2 , you are wrong. Education is directly correlated to income. Yes, there are educated people who make very little, and uneducated people who make a lot. On average, however, a college degree is worth an incredible amount of money over the course of a person’s life. Let me add that your particular way of thinking is behind the dreadful condition of yeshivas today. Ignorance is very expensive, and pushing it is very foolish.
Why is it wrong to learn a foreign language. The Sanhedrin had to know 70 languages.
No. 9 You are wrong. Members of the Sanhedrin did not have to know “70 languages” and there is no proof in the talmud than any did have such language skills. If you are saying that over time there were individual members of the sanhedrin who in aggregate spoke 70 languages, thats also unlikel but plausible.
The school I went to taught French but still took the Hebrew regent. Now the school teaches Spanish for the last 5 years & i’m not sure if they take the Spanish or Hebrew regent
I went to Mirrer Yeshva for high school and the yeshiva offered no languages at all. Instead, they graded the Hebrew regents exam on a ridiculous curve to ensure that no one would fail. I took the Hebrew regents exam without ever taking a single day of dikduk, et al and still passed. And by the way, you simply can’t use loshon kodesh on the Hebrew regents.
The administration of Mirrer Yeshiva in those days didn’t really care about the regents because they didn’t care about issuing a regents diploma, since they actively tried to dissuade students from going to college.
The sad part is that for many chareidi yeshivot, the quality of English langauge instruction is mediocre at best. Many bochurim who “graduate” cannot read/write/communicate at a high level even in English and that is a much greater impediment to employment than foreign language skills. As a starter, why do they still waste time on teaching talmud in yiddish when they could do so in English or Hebrew with no loss of lamdus. Learning gemorah introduces many complex themes and technical terms where the students would benefit if all the instruction was in English. Where is is written that instruction should continue in yiddish??
I wish I knew Spanish or Chinese. The Hebrew I learnt in school was basically a waste of time, I knew more from davening, learning, relatives & visiting Israel. Learning Spanish would mean that yidden could effectively communicate with many businesses & the majority of laborers they will come across.
To #11 : בימים ההם ומרדכי ישב בשער המלך קצף בגתן ותרש … ויודע הדבר למרדכי (2:21-22)
שהיו מספרים דבריהם לפניו בלשון טרסי ואין יודעים שהיה מרדכי מכיר בשבעים לשונות (רש”י)
#2 i have never read such non sense as yours useing your logic we’d all be sitting on our behinds waiting for dasddy or daay-in-law to send us money as you do
perhaps thats we our yeshivahs are in such dire straights because no one has an education sorry it is incombint upon us to teach and train our sons and daughters to be able to make a living support our yeshiva’s and various other institutions
The MO high school in my neighborhood teaches English, Hebrew, Spanish, French, Latin, and Arabic.
No. 18. You confirm my point. NO single member of the sanhedrin ever spoke 70 different languages. Perhaps you count the pronunciation and accents of every different chassidius as a differnet language (and indeed they might as well be) but even that doesn’t come to 70. Perhaps you need a refresher course in lamdus.
You only need Spanish if you plan to work serving spanish customers on the local street store. The likelihood of you needing to know Spanish for a high paying job is very small. I bet that more than 97% of good paying jobs out there do not require Spanish. I myself am fluent in Portuguese, but in the past 20 years I only worked with English speaking positions in the field of finance because this is where the best opportunity was. Maybe Spanish would have provided a few more interviews, but usually, for good pay, these companies want someone to be very fluent, like native fluent and therefore, for most people, their high-school Spanish would not do much.
To #21 : Mordechai understood 70 languages. It is unfortunate that even before Rosh Hashana you are incapable of having a civilized debate without resorting to childish behaviour.
I would like to add that if schools are to put anything more into the English curriculum, it should be better math and ENGLISH, to give our children better scores on their SAT tests. Learning Spanish for a parnassa is really going beyong what hishtadlus demands.
I looked into it, and I would have to call Albany to confirm, but I think you can take the SAT II in Hebrew instead of the Regents. You need to score more than a 490. I looked on line and it didn’t look too bad.
To #15 : Many chareidi yeshivas outside Eretz Yisroel will not teach in Hebrew because the administrations consider modern Hebrew, a.k.a Ivrit, to be a bastardization of Loshen Kodesh and therefore cannot be spoken. They will also not teach in Loshon Kodesh because (1) that language is reserved for the Bais Hamikdosh and (2) nobody today really knows what Loshon Kodesh is supposed to sound like because of all of the changes that Hebrew has gone through since the destruction of the 2nd Bais Hamikdosh. At least that’s what I was told by my rebbes growing up. Fortunately, my parents raised me with Yiddish as well as English.
#21 - His point is people in the Sanharden knew different languages, but knowing 70 languages was never a requirement. If Bigson VSeresh knew that all the Sanhadren knew all the languages, they would now have spoken in front of mordichai, since everyone knew mordichai.
R’ Moshe Sherer would cry.
lying, cheating, and cutting corners has caused this
I am a graduate of a Yeshiva, where we took all of the Regents courses (40 years ago). Although I would have loved to be able to read Aeschylus, Homer, (or Josephus for that matter) in the original, my four years of Spanish served me just fine. Unfortunately, the Yeshivish schools, offer an abysmal secular education. Many people with whom I deal, cannot read simple contracts, compute basic arithmetical problems, have no knowledge of history, geography, or any of the sciences. A simple glance at the posts here, boldly displays the paucity of spelling, grammar, syntax, etc., of people who are often third generation Americans. Even the school that I attended, now offers a secular education worthy of Bangladesh! It IS possible to be a “Yodaiya Sefer” and an educated person at the same time. Tragically, many “educators” are afraid of education!