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We are pleased that our campaign for facts in public discourse, and against the New York Times' vendetta targeting Orthodox Jewish and Hasidic private schools, has been noted by journalists around the country. Here are a selection of articles on the campaign and on the New York Times' reprehensible obsessiveness.
“...The New York Times also weakens its case by leaning into tropes, including those about Jewish power..."
“...as the court made clear, it is the parents’ prerogative—and duty—to keep their children in the nonpublic school of their choosing, even where it fails to meet the criteria, and supplement their education through other resources, including homeschooling."
"The current burst of aggressive reporting regarding Hasidic Jews could be seen as a revival of a campaign that began during the COVID-19 pandemic, or even earlier, to hold to account—or to malign, depending on your view—this strange community."
“Asked about the Times’ reporting on Jews in the context of poisoning wells, Waldman said that “history repeats itself. It’s shocking today, where we have access to so much information to research. People fall into the same traps and the same nonsense.”"
“...The evidence appears relatively conclusive. The assertions of the activists are baseless. This is not surprising, as their worries are obviously outlandish..."
"These students have grown into a culture that says, “In order to get closer to the truth, at least as best as humans can approximate it, it’s important to hear multiple perspectives.”
“Left-leaning publications are generally reluctant to attack minority communities as culturally alien; if anything, they tend to condemn such attacks. Yet for the Times, Orthodox Jews seem to be an exception. Why?"
“We actually have very little clear or systematic data about how and why Haredim responded to COVID—or how the virus responded in turn."
"In fact, from the beginning, experts have pointed out that the articles were filled with inaccuracies. One representative article was “rife with half-truths and distortions”
“...it soon became apparent that the Times was interested in more than just that narrow question."
“Any constructive, legitimate issues these articles may have sought to raise were buried by misleading statistics; an unethical lack of transparency of the Times' sources; lack of balance; omission of critical context; questionable credit-taking for subsequent events; and repeated engagement in negative association fallacy"
"The letter noted that The Times quoted Yaffed board members without disclosing their involvement with the group, and ignored input from community members who went against the series’ narrative.”
“Our Orthodox brothers and sisters are constantly under threat...it is one that needs solidarity and support from everyone – Jewish and non-Jewish alike."
“The case rests on two personal anecdotes presented by sources who were anonymized in violation of the Times’ code of ethics, a school that isn’t Orthodox, and two schools that credibly dispute the figures provided by the Times..."
"...Whatever the outcome in New York, the “substantial equivalency” conflict between those advocating for the rights of parents and those opposing public investment in private education is sure to repeat itself in states like Arizona, West Virginia, Florida, and Arkansas...”
"...According to Judge Ryba, the constitutional challenges were premature: the new regulations did not add substantive educational requirements...”
"It’s just not the education the state wants, because yeshivas aim for something different: a Jewish life in service of God and the community."
“We are proud of the thriving Orthodox Jewish communities in New York and the values they hold. They have maintained Jewish continuity in a way others have not."
"...the state will have to turn to other methods to enforce those standards, such as choosing to “tie particular requirements to the way in which schools receive funding.”
"A Times series on Jewish day schools turns out to be crosswise with what a court has determined is state education law."
“The elements the letter claims as misleading range from statistical information about how the poverty line is calculated to the Times’ failure to disclose the associations of quoted sources with activist groups assisting people in leaving Orthodox communities"
“While not the complete victory many were praying for, Agudath Israel is grateful that the court recognized the egregious overreach the Regulations sought,” the Agudah said in its statement."
"...the state will have to turn to other methods to enforce those standards, such as choosing to “tie particular requirements to the way in which schools receive funding.”
"New York policymakers put themselves in a difficult spot with the September regulations. They stand on even shakier terrain after the recent court ruling."
"The religious-liberty argument will eventually have to be decided in the federal courts, where nothing can be taken for granted. The state has waded into a conflict with a community that is unique in ways that their critics do not acknowledge."
"...the facts speak for themselves: thousands upon thousands of yeshiva students graduate with skills and degrees that allow them to become successful in a wide variety of professions and businesses, productive members of society."
"Blaming yeshivas for corporal punishment certainly doesn’t help repair the few remaining shreds of the Gray Lady’s mantle of credibility."
"Critics are quick to point out that even though yeshivas are private schools, they receive government funding. What you may not know is that yeshivas are saving New York taxpayers money. The Orthodox families who send their children to yeshivas are largely self-funding the education system to the tune of $2 billion a year. "
"I got the vibe that he was sent on a mission, and that mission was not to present a fair picture of the community or of the school district," Joel Petlin said about Times investigative reporter Jay Root. "I spent literally hours and hours with the reporter explaining things, discussing issues, reviewing material, explaining how things work."
Joel Petlin, Superintendent of the Kiryas Joel school district, and a vocal defender of the orthodox community, tweeted: “The Hasidic obsession by the @nytimes is not limited to a single reporter. It’s a team mission to attack a group of Orthodox Jews that would never be tolerated by any other minority community.”
Jason Bedrick joins Mark Bauerlein of First Things: America's Most Influential Journal of Religion and Public Life, to break down New York’s substantial equivalence regulations, yeshivas, and the New York Time’s inaccurate coverage of them, and why all this imperils religious freedom and parental rights everywhere.
"The Times has complained about public funding for special education services and nutrition programs at Jewish schools, as if Jewish schoolchildren deserve to starve, or those with special needs deserve to be deprived of services that are received by other students."
"We have the right to voice our outrage at this coverage," said Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of ADL, which was founded in 1913 to combat antisemitism and defamation of Jews in America. "We have an obligation to a community that is under siege to state clearly and consistently that this is not acceptable and to demand that the paper that serves the largest urban Jewish community in the world endeavor to do better when addressing the issues facing that community."
"We resent that the Times are engaged in what appears to be a crusade," said Rabbi David Zwiebel, the executive vice president of Agudath Israel — an organization founded in 1922 that represents various Orthodox Jewish communities. "A crusade to get people to consider Hasidic Jews in a negative light."
“It deeply disturbs me these days that my community seems under siege — not only by antisemites — but from the media as well. Our educational system has been repeatedly misrepresented and maligned, with misinformation spread about children of divorce, like me."
"The Times tells JNS it is “confident in the accuracy” of its reporting, but not confident enough to answer any questions."
"Here are some of the ways in which the Times coverage fails to meet the highest standards of journalism..."
"The New York Times seems to be on a journalistic crusade to discredit New York’s Orthodox Jewish communities, particularly Hasidic ones. The centerpiece of the NYT campaign is its “investigation” of wrongdoing in and by Hasidic schools..."
“'Publishing inaccurate, offensive articles against a minority group is always wrong. Churning such articles out in today’s climate, when Jews are being beaten in the streets of Brooklyn, is like chain-smoking in a gas station,' Avrohom Weinstock, associate director of education affairs at Agudath Israel, told The Daily Signal on Thursday."
"The billboards — one near the Lincoln Tunnel, another in Times Square, and on a building next to the paper’s Eighth Avenue skyscraper — ask the paper to 'please stop attacking our community.'"
"The campaign from Agudath Israel of America, an umbrella group, aims to provide an alternative narrative on the Orthodox community to the general public."
"The organization says it needs to get the truth out about its communities and the damage it says the Times is doing through its series of articles about New York’s Hasidic yeshivas, in the wake of rising hate crimes against visibly-practicing Jews in the region."
