Lakewood, NJ -The Lakewood Cheder and Bais Faiga were founded years ago under the auspices of Reb Shneur Kotler, ZT”L as Lakewood’s first school for the yeshivaleit. It has since blossomed into as a major educational force in the greater Lakewood Jewish community.
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The Cheder and Bais Faiga are located in various facilities throughout the area. The Bais Faiga Elementary School has two buildings: the main campus on Courtney Rd. and the Grater building on Park Ave.
For many years, both mosdos have been run by their current administrator and principal.
But because of late payments to teachers and staff, Lakewood’s local rabbinical authority has sided with the teachers’ body in backing them up as they currently strike.
The strike developed after the mehaheless, together with teachers, claimed that they approached the Lakewood Beis Din led by Rabbi Forscheimer for guidance, and that the Beis Din—with the direct guidance of Reb Shmuel Kamenetsky—decided to call the current strike to protest the non-payment of the already-meager salaries to the teachers.
This past Friday, letters were send home by teachers to parents explaining their decision. The letter stated that since the teachers have not been paid recently, and because of a shortage in supplies, they now feel that there is no other option for their part other a cessation of teaching until the matter between the administration and the menahelless is resolved once and for all.
As it stands now, about 1,800 girls from the Bais Faiga Elementary School are staying home until further notice.
The situation in the boys’ school is also tense, but as of now there is no strike there.
Wow! what r all the girs going to do out of school….
This is terrible
does the administration have the money in the bank? if no then we are in really bad shape because all mosdos are struggling
Does the school administrator get his salary? He should do more fundraising
Maybe I’m wrong, but don’t you think the school would pay if they had the money? What is a strike going to accomplish?
How can you keep a school for 1800 students going if no one pays tuition?
Those crazy teachers, actually expecting to get paid. If my job didn’t pay me on time I would not show up the next day.
don’t be fooled by this article. its not about money and supplies or lack of .its about major politics about one or teo specific individuals.The cheder which is under the same umbrella and administration is open and teachers are being paid. this is what happens with a school that has the attide of HOLIER THEN THOU. Oh am I glad that my kids weren’t accepted here because I work for a living
The way to do it. What kind of Chutzpah is it not to pay teachers? Do they not have to pay the same bills, etc., as the administrators?
LIEDER..I’m afraid this is only the tip of the iceberg.
of couse no one has the money to pay teachers. lakewood is a community founded on Tzedakah. Recesession=rich people losing money= lakewood having no money=people learning in kollel or being supported by wife’s whom are secretaries are going to have less than they did before. Maybe they should have learned some sort of trade, just in case a situation like this arises, and they are unable to be supported by others due to the economy.
sounds like a bailout is the solution!
I’m afraid some girls might go off the derech without school. Let’s do tsheuvah now
well this didn’t happen never ever since we know by us yiden that we have our privet mosdes !! i think that the local or or all the Rabbis to get involved this doesn’t make sense that a thing like this to happen , all mosdes r having always problems with financial but if this can happen i think this is a big shame on the local raabis that it got to a situation like this
If you read today’s news you would know that Stocks take a step back , we have to remember that Hashem is testing us, I dont see that we stopped other necessities, why can we support a school??? If its about pure politics, as some have posted, I can say its the biggest Chilul Hashem of our times.
yeshivos don’t like parting with money—of course the administrator is getting a paycheck after all he’s the administrator–this reminds me of wall street ceos bankrupting their companies and then they have the chutzpah to ask for a 10 million dollar bonus and severance pay.
I’ve worked this past summer for a yeshivah camp and when the administrator refused to pay me (succos time!! for the summer) telling me this garbage about no money (when his salary/and or embezzlement is paying for his Lexus LS430) i just went to the yeshiva accountant and said if i don’t get a check NOW i’m going to bais din today. what do you know i got the check, but there are still tens of other bachurim who never got a check from their summer job as well as married rebbeim with families who don’t see their check until shavous no exaggeration.
The root question is are the parents paying tuition and if not why? After all a school is a business. You cannot expect to pay for a product and not get it. If you are paying tuition and the school is closed send your child elsewhere. If you are not paying tuition on what basis do you have a right to expect free schooling for your childred.
(I am not speaking of someone who is recently unemployed.) That is a tragedy and we must seek to help thru this problem.
Where is the “dedication” of the teachers? Did Rebb. Sara Schneir ZT”L open Bais Yaakov to get a salary??!! Don’t these teachers care enough about the students to work l’shem shomayim? If they want ed money, they should go into better paying proffessions! This is chinuch ha’bonos, educating the future akeres ha’bayis of the Yeshivish world. Oy, the lesson these teachers are teaching by example to these girls, oy oy.
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LETS BE REALITIC THE KOLLEL DAYS ARE OVER
Maybe, just maybe, could it be that Rav Forsheimer and Rav Kaminetsky know what they are doing better than any of the groisser sheesers commenting here?
time to address thsi to Obama together with GM.
Sounds like a good fund raising tactic to me.
Where is the tuition money going? The books should be audited to see if any of the office staff is misappropriating (pocketing) money. These things do happen, even in heimish enviroments.
For the next week grades 6-8 will be held in the ocean county mall next to macys
here are the facts as they stand
bais faiga despite the current economic situation is not in the red the problem is that the current Administrator is diverting funds from bais faiga to the lakewood cheder boys school ,thus denying much needed funds and resources to bais faiga.this jas been going on for a while and it was just discovered that the lakewood cheder has a deficit of over ten million dollars there is no fundraising at all and this administrator is the only one in control ,The problem is that there is a core group of parents that support him because he dosent take wvreyone in to the school which gives them a holier than though attitude.
he refused to pay for much needed staff for bais faiga which the current principle and the roshei yeshivos have took upon themselves to pay these salaries.
this is not just a strike its a demonstration of Kavod hatorah for the roshei yeshiva and for the ziknei hador in whose leadership we follow.
I heard from family in Lakewood that the teachers are still owed salary from LAST year. If that’s the case, this strike is long overdue. The teachers have families to support too, and it’s not fair to them. Are they slaves that they should show up to work every day without pay?
Perhaps someone should start actually working, rather than just ‘fundraising’.
I smell a RAT. A major auding firm (non heimish) should be brought in to check the books. Any monkey business on the part of the muckity-mucky should be brought to light and criminal charges should be filed.
Do those teachers have any jobs ?………Back to work again!
Your comment is an exellent example of how messed-up the mentality is in lakewood! END KOLLEL FOR AVERAGE YUNGERLIET NOW!!! Kollel is only for someone who wants to learn for life, become a dayan, become a magid shiur, etc.
If some men are capable of learning in kolel, they should be capable of home scho
oling their children. What greater mitzvah is there than teaching your children.Then they wouldnt have to pay tuition and would not over tax the school system.
There aren’t many people that are rodef shalom as Reb shmuel kamenetsky. Obviously, if he felt that there was a need to strike then all these comments are worthless.
The Kolel system is the problem. We teach these men to avoid responsibilities for years and expect everything to be done for them. This here is the result of the system. 1800 girls are out of school and its not their problem.
Did you hear of one Kolel Yungerman volunteering to teach the classes during the strike. I think not. Its below their dignity. Better to let the girls run wild. Shame on youy.
Whoa! It didn’t take much to bring out the anti-kollel, anti-lakewood crowd today!
Does anyone know this administrator?
Are they aware that him, his spouse & children sit up through the nights working for the mosdos, from their kitchen table?
Do you know how many parents [especially of dysfunctional homes & marriages] have paid nothing for years?
Do you know how they have given their lives litterally to the mosdos, that disgruntful parents cross the road when they see him?
Have any of you parents ever thought of showing some hakoras hatov, some respect, decentcy to someoone who has put himself out years to run a mosod of such magnitude sole handed & hearted?
You may not hold of his method, but have you dipped a finger in cold water for the mosod other than loshon Hora?
How about instead of a strike, making a dinner on behalf of the mosod & presenting him with a hakoras Hatov award? wouldn’t that feel & work better?
Obviously it is much easier to critisize from an armchair than to praise on a platform.
Of course no to minds think alike, and differences will occur, but come on so much critisism, for such good service & no praise?
My daughter is in a Bais Yaakov (not in Lakewood) staffed by many such noshim tzidkoni’os who commute for over an hour (in car pools) to work for pitifully small compensation and do it with such simcha and z’rizus I am convinced that they are one of the great zechusim of klal yisroel in this generation.
Had klal yisroel had such teachers in the first half of this century we would not have lost 1% of the children who went off the derech.
To malign them is mamash throwing stones at the mekor of kedushah bizman hazeh.
Don’t be fooled……………..It’s a fundraising gimmick they are trying to pull, let them get their heads out of their a$$e$ and they will be fine. Just a little while ago they fired the BEST damn fundraiser in the industry and said thanks for all your contacts NOW GO TO HELL!!!!! So when word got out most of the “contacts” returned the favor and told them where to go! Don’t get me wrong Lakewood may be a wonderful place but when you crowd too many egos in one room and each one thinks he is better than god then you end up with results like this. Stop worrying about the damn barcodes and freezers and start worrying about more importantissues, and most important don’t ever slap the hand that feeds you it will always come back to slap you in the a$$.
I, too, was not accepted into Bais Faiga because I work. Looking at what is happening now, I can only thank Hashem that my child was placed into a school which is not being brought down by the Admin.
I highly doubt the people in charge learns more than I do, either. But hey, I work, and therefore my children are evil and deserving of shame.
Thankfully, my integrity would never allow me to act in such a vile and menuveldike manner. The culprit responsible for this will have a great deal to explain in shomayim for the bitul torah he brought upon the people of Lakewood today. But then again, seeing the glib manner with which these people (or person) has regarded roshei teshiva for decades, one can hardly assume he cares.
Shame on those responsible.
As a Teacher in Heimishe Mosad, We are also not getting paid, it is now exactly 6 months, How long will it take you think that we too will go out in a strike, its not the only school its now almost every other school in boro park and Monsey, some schools will close down very soon, there is no solution as I have heard, administrators will squeeze out teachers with Low/No Pay as much as they can, eventually they will leave with no place to go but better not to work then get paid nothing. The consequences is horrible for the teachers and students, can you imagine hundreds or thousands of girls on the street with no school? and very soon after that the situation will spill over to the Cheders and Yeshivas HASHEM YAZOR
wow this is excellent chinuch for the girls! my niece came home saying that she has no school because the teachers are fighting. why can’t the teachers act like adults and resolve the issue without getting the children involved?????
PEOPLE WAKE UP GET JOBS, START COMPANIES, MAKE KESSEF, ITS NOT A INYAN TO SIT IN KOLEL ALL DAY. IF YOU WANT TO LEARN, WAKE UP 5:30AM (LIKE I DO) LEARN A DAF AND WHEN YOU COME HOME YOU CAN LEARN. THIS KOLEL IS NOT FOR EVERYONE THEY SHOULD HAVE A MINYAN OF KOLLEL PEOPLE AND THATS ALL. WHEN I GOT MARRIED MY WIFE WANTED ME TO GOTO KOLLEL, LIKE SHE WAS TAUGHT IN BAIS YAAKOV. I PROTESTED THAT ITS NOT THE RIGHT WAY. TODAY MY WIFES IS SO GRATFUL I WAS STUBORN, B”H MY WIFE BUYS A NEW SHAITEL EVERY YEAR, (LOL) AND WE HAVE ALL BESHEFA. AND BTW I WAS AND I AM KOLEL MATERIAL.
This comment made me wonder
I, too, was not accepted into Bais Faiga because I work. Looking at what is happening now, I can only thank Hashem that my child was placed into a school which is not being brought down by the Admin.
Who do they accept? Kollel people? If so how do they get paid? I would think a regular school would want a mixture of both so the balie batim can pay and maybe a little more then their child costs so the kollel people can get a break on the tuition. So how is this institution running?
“Meager salaries” How offensive! Where’s the syate dishmaye?! Don’t the teachers know that the “meager salaries” come from they same Hashem that they indoctrinate? What kind of message does this send the children? The hanhala should do as President Reagan did with the air traffic controllers strike in 1981. They should all be fired and their kids should be banished from all schools in shame. New yoirei shomayim teachers should be hired in their place. Shame on them.
how did they plan to pay for the mosdos when they only accepted kollel yungerlet with no saleries??
In the last great financial meltdown klal yisroel was tested on shemiras shabbos and b”h many of us can point to parents and grandparents who passed the test even when it meant missing meals and stooping to the lowest jobs to put one meal a day in thier children’s mouth.
Perhaps this is the test of our times. A time we can show how much we value torah & chinuch.
some people here better hope that is not the case because they are proudly failing the test.
Lakewood Bais Din led by Rabbi Forcheimer does not exist Rabbi Forcheimer is a highly respected “top lefel” Rabbi but has nothing to do with Bais Din issues
Good. Let both Bais Faiga and the Cheder suffer.
They wanted to be the most “exclusive” school in Lakewood and give an extremely hard time to people to get their kids in (I’m not talking about Brooklyn people who moved here a few years ago, I’m talking about sincere, ehrliche, Lakewood baale batim who’ve been here for quite a while). Well, let their “cream of the crop” take care of them NOW.
YOU MAY ALL COME TO CROWN HEIGHTS AND SEND YOUR KIDS TO A GOOD SCHOOL THAT HAS BEEN PAYING VERY NICE SALARIES ON TIME FOR YEARS!!!!!!! The school has over 2000 kinderlach that learn and there parents dont sit in a kolel all day smoking and talking bad about others…….. 6 days a week we toil and then shabbos comes… Shaises Yamim Taavod ….
Go Bais Rivkah!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am not one of his cronys, I am unfortunatly childless,Yes I have seen his kitchen table.
As for the million did you see the contract, & the cash to back it? You know the answer to that.
As for listening to the Roshei Yeshiva & mashgiach, for one how do you know if he listens or not?
For two he knows a lot more about the moisod & ho wto run it successfully for so many years than they will ever know, ask they will all agree.
From my knowledge one of R’ Malkiel’s drivers asked him about the situation,his answer was I am not involved, and don’t want to get involved.
There is a lot of Loshon Hora & motzei shem ra on the streets, & a great lack of menschlichkeit, and hakoras hatov out there.
Do I like all of M’s way? no, but one thing I do know, I could never of done half as good as him,and all the rabonim & roshei Yeshiva feel the same, even if they don’t say it.
As a total outsider being childless, and watching, I agree he has made mistakes, and is far from perfect, he will continue to make mistakes, but no one will do better.
Don’t aggrevate & antagonize, show hakoras hatov, & then if you feel, it is time for a replacement, don’t fight & pull the rug out from under his feet, thank him deal with him, & part nicely.
Make a dinner award him, & place a thank you plaque in all buildings for him, and compensate him as he deserves.
If you just want to put another person in, because of his anncesstory, & for that you kill & damn someone else, who has given his & his family’s lives away for the Mosod then think twice.
#52 (Loshon Hora): “Disgruntful” is one of the best words I’ve heard in a while; thanks for a good laugh on a rough day.
WELL WELL, MAYBE SITTING & SUPPORT BY SHVER IS ABOUT TO END. WHAT HASHGACHA, TEACHERS TO SUPPORT HUSBANDS WHO SUPPORT BABYSITTERS WHO SUPPORT THE SYSTEM.
THE SYSTEM STINKS STINKS & WHEN IT STINKS IT STINKS FROM THE TOP. EVERYONE NEEDS TO GET PAID. LIFE IS VERY VERY EXPENSIVE, IT IS TIME TO ABOLISH KOLLE. GET A JOB GO TO WORK. DO WHAT THE PREVIOUS GENERATION DID. WORK GO TO A SHIUR, LIFE THE LIFE OF TORAH ALL DAY. BE EHRLICH, COMPROMISE ON LUXURIES.
WE HAVE BEEN LIVING ON TOO HIGH STANDARD. THERE SHOULD BE NO LUXURY CARS, NO FANCY HOMES. MOTHERS SHOULD BRING UP THE CHILDREN NO GOYTES. JUST GO BACK TO SIMPLE LIFE. TEACHERS WILL BE PAID ,THE HANHALA SHOULD MEET & EXPEL ANY STUDENT WHOSE PARENTS DRIVE A MERCEDES, ETC