This exclusionary attitude is contrary to what transcendent Torah leaders taught and practiced in this country a generation or more ago. Thirty years ago, in response to my question whether the Rabbi Jacob Joseph School should admit students from marginally observant homes, Rav Yitzchak Hutner, zt”l, the great rosh yeshiva of Chaim Berlin and a genius in understanding students, responded that he had encouraged such students to go to the movies and even take their parents along because this approach would benefit them and make their transition to fully observant Jews more likely.
Yeshivas must get back into the business of kiruv rechokim and out of the business of richuk kerovim. The place to start is to abandon the exclusionary mindset, the notion that throwing out or rejecting a Jewish child is of minor consequence. They’re gone and the yeshiva world continues in its self-congratulatory mold, even as our losses mount.
I suspect the Lakewood announcement is mainly rhetoric, that children will not be expelled, no more than they were several years ago when a similar pronouncement was made about a minor league baseball stadium. There are serious admission/retention issues that the Lakewood community must address and there is unfortunately an at-risk problem in this sacred Torah center. Whatever the situation in Lakewood, the message that is being sent is that expelling Jewish children is an appropriate course. This message will have a collateral effect elsewhere in justifying the already wrongful policy of closing the doors on marginal children who have the capacity to grow in Yiddishkeit.
There is a Brooklyn-based program that raises funds to take Jewish children out of public schools and place them in our schools. Some time ago, the program announced that public school students would not be sent to Orthodox coeducational day schools, irrespective of whether there were other religious schools available for these children to attend. They are now going a step further by cutting off support to the leading yeshiva for students from families who came here from the former Soviet Union because this respected institution has separate boys and girls divisions operating under a single roof – and that isn’t kosher. As a result, the school is experiencing substantial hardship.
I have spoken out for years against our exclusionary tendencies, admittedly to little avail. The situation continues to worsen. Aren’t there any yeshiva deans and rabbis who are willing to take the risk by protesting against policies that put our children at risk?
