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Of Making Many Books

And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end (Ecclesiastes 12:12) A pdf version of this essay  can be downloaded here [*] Years in brackets refer to an individual’s or book author’s year of birth Thought experiment for the day: Anyone born 1945 would be pushing towards 80 and mostly past their prime. So name any Charedi sefer written by someone born post war that has or is likely to enter the canon, be it haloche, lomdus, al hatorah or mussar. Single one will do for now — IfYouTickleUs (@ifyoutickleus) July 27, 2022 A tweet in the summer which gained some traction asked for a book by an author born from 1945 onwards that has entered the Torah and rabbinic canon or is heading in that direction. I didn't exactly phrase it this way and some quibbled about 'canonisation'. The word does indeed have a precise meaning though in its popular use it has no narrow definition. Canonisation, or ‘entering the canon’ is generally understood to

Panning the PANs: On Yesodey Hatorah’s proposed ‘Middle School’ – Part 1


As first reported on the linked Twitter account, the state funded Yesodey Hatorah Senior Girls School (YHS) is consulting on 'annexing' a Year 5 and Year 6 to its existing school and creating a Middle School for those classes.

As it currently stands YHS consists of Years 7-11 which is the norm for secondary schools. It also has a notional 6th form (known locally as a 'sem') on its premises called Be'er Miriam Seminary with two years which are the equivalent of Years 12-13. This is a private fee-paying institution of which Abraham Pinter is a trustee. Its charitable income in its last financial report was £362,052. It pays no rent to YHS for its use of the school premises.

YHS has now published a consultation document on this annexation but to understand the issues and the possible motives for YHS's proposals it is important to set out the background of girls' schools in Stamford Hill's Chareidi community.

Just one disclaimer before I proceed. I must apologise in advance for using terms, in inverted comas where I remember, that are often judgemental in origin and intent and particularly cringe-inducing when used for self-serving purposes. As unpleasant as they are, I did not coin them and nor have I formed the community and sub-communities that often define themselves within by those terms. This, however, is the reality of the situation and which I cannot escape try as I may. So irrespective of my own views I have to resort to such terms if I am to provide a frank summary of the situation.

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The Stamford Hill community has a number of girls’ schools ranging from Lubavitch on the 'left' and which draws its intake from beyond the broader community to B'nos Yerushalayim on the 'right' which serves the extreme right of Satmar and similarly minded fringes. In the middle is a range of schools generally controlled by the Chasidic powerhouses like Satmar and Belz and more recently joined by Vizhnitz and Bobov. There is then an unaffiliated sector which consists of Beis Chinuch for the frummer end, Beis Yaakov for the moderate end and Yesodey Hatorah somewhere in the middle.

All the local girls schools, with one exception, run from nursery through to the end of secondary school. Round here nursery is often referred to as reception or infants, primary school is predominantly known as juniors and secondary school as seniors. In most cases nursery, primary and secondary schools are not separate schools and often not even different departments but simply a single school where you are enrolled at one end and emerge at the other at 16 years old and almost ready for a shidduch after a year or two in 'sem'. Sem, short for seminary, is our equivalent of 6th form and when a new round of applications and selections take place.

The single exception to this is Beis Yaakov (BY), which has only a primary school. BY was founded 6 years ago and its first cohort will graduate in the summer of this year. This class, as well as the classes below them every year henceforth, will need to find a new school to continue their secondary school education. And it is in light of the 'problem' of BY girls joining YHS that the current proposals and consultation must be considered.

Before moving on to the consultation itself it is also important to understand how parents round here generally choose a school for their children. Since most schools are affiliated to a Chasidic movement most parents belonging to the movement will enrol their children in that movement's schools. Where a movement does not have its own schools parents will typically choose (or 'send' as it’s referred to here) the movement closest to their affiliation. 'Close' in this sense may mean in origin and custom to wherever they are affiliated or with historical ties between the different movements. Another factor is also the parents' own level of observance and piety and so they might choose a school that is closest to their own worldview. Or shtetl-view if you like.

But overall, the selection of a school before primary school and then secondary school does not exist here in most cases because most parents 'belong' to this or that movement and so their choice is made up for them. And not only is the child likely to remain at that school for the entire duration of her school but it’s also where her siblings are likely to attend (and it may well influence where these children enrol their own children in generations to come). This is not only due to the way the schools are structured but also because of the manner and the reasoning behind the 'choice' in the first place. Similarly, there is relatively little movement between the schools of the different Chasidic sects as whatever motivated the parents to select a particular school in the first place it likely to remain in place for them for the rest of their lives.

That said, there is still a fair number of transfers between schools either between years or from primary to secondary. This is for a variety of reasons whether because a child does not settle well in to a school or issues arise whether from the school, the pupil or the parents' end and a transfer becomes necessary. In other cases parents may become disappointed with a school and they decide they want something different. It could be they consider the school too strict, too lax, too frum, too much homework or whatever. These parents may still belong to the movement but yet want something different for their child. This is more common amongst girls as affiliation is predominantly a patriarchal issue and so fathers will typically be more particular about their boys' affiliation and upbringing than mothers about their daughters.

Of this last lot there are then the parents who become 'enlightened', or 'modern' as it would be phrased here. Meaning, that as new parents when they were barely out of their teens they may have opted for a certain school because that is where they 'belonged', that is where his and her parents dictated, whether expressly or implicitly, the child must attend and that is the school where it was as natural to send their child as it was natural for him to attend the shul to which the school is affiliated. In most cases it probably did not even occur to the parents that they had a choice and even if they did give it some though they may well have believed the propaganda pumped out by each movement on the superiority of their schools and the 'dangers' of venturing elsewhere.

However, as they mature and acquire their own identities they may realise that they want something more 'loose' or unaffiliated for their children and for themselves. In other cases it may be the pupil herself who has moved on and either wants to move to a new school or, in more 'extreme' cases, the school where she was first enrolled no longer wishes to keep her. When we say 'extreme' we're not talking anything as radical as an ear-helix piercing or a thumb ring but merely her hairstyle, her dress style, having the misfortune of being more assertive, prettier or more feminine than her classmates or any other nuance that brings her to the attention of the powers that be.

The above all rests on the premise that the child actually has a school to go to in the first place. Unfortunately, this is not always the case as many parents have come to learn to their anguish when they struggle to find a school for their nursery or primary school age child. There is a difference in this between the Chasidic schools and the unaffiliated. In general, each Chasidic movement will provide a place for the children of its adherents and so Chasidic parents will usually not struggle for a place provided they wish to enrol their child in the movement's schools. This is because 'belonging' to a Chasidus generally involves to a greater or lesser degree conforming to their mores and adhering to their rules and so those within are usually 'kosher' enough to get their kids in to the school. Chasidim also tend to look after their own and so even parents of a slightly more 'liberal' bent will still be well aware of the limits and the price they must pay to 'belong'. By contrast, those who are unaffiliated or whose movements do not run schools must live by different rules. So long that the parents are conformist, don't ruffle any feathers and don't stand out from the crowd they too will find a place with either one of the Chasidic or unaffiliated schools.

Where the problems arise is when parents of a Chasidic background veer too far from their own movement or where they decide that their movement's schools are not suitable for them. In the case of the unaffiliated it is a similar picture though the threshold tends to be higher as they have no movement they can turn to as of 'right' (provided they conform to some degree) that may choose to overlook their relatively minor indiscretions. The Chasidic schools outside their movement will say you don't 'belong' to us and we don't want other people's 'garbage' (yes, it's often put as crudely as that) while unaffiliated schools like Beis Chinuch or YHS also turn them down on similar grounds, that if they are not 'kosher' for their own they’re definitely not kosher enough for these unaffiliated schools. The unaffiliated schools have the added excuse with Chasidic parents, that these parents have schools ready to accept them and if the parents are unwilling to conform to their own movement’s schools, well then that is their problem.

Such parents are thus left without a school and the kids must languish at home because no school will accept them. True, Lubavitch remains open to such parents and many children do indeed end up there as a very last resort. But for a multitude of reasons, and rightly or wrongly, Lubavitch is not considered locally as a core communal school despite its location in the area. Lubavitch pupil base is also from a far wider spectrum and these parents still feel very much part of the community where their family and friends are and want their children reared within the same community.

As mentioned above, children round here generally stick with the school where they started their school life and so the aforementioned problems with admissions are more common in nursery or primary school because once accepted the child will tend to remain there and if they do decide to change it is more often than not difficult to do so with without a fight. Problems do arise where a child is 'kicked out' of a school or where the parents are desperate to change schools but these are relatively few and far between.

In considering the above it is easy to forget that this is only how things are and not how they ought to be. However, since all the local schools but one (Lubavitch aside) are private schools they do not have to account to anyone for their decisions on admissions and on how they run their schools. It is futile arguing on how things could and should be different since they raise their own budgets and set their own rules.

The one exception to this is Yesodey Hatorah Seniors which is the first and at the moment only Chareidi voluntary-aided school in Stamford Hill. (There used to be Avigdor primary school but that was even further away to the 'left' than Lubavitch.) Since YH Seniors is, notionally at least, subject to the laws on school admissions it might have been expexted that things would be run rather differently there but then that would be without taking into account that the Yesodey Hatorah Schools are run as the personal fiefdom of the Pinter family with the girls schools 'belonging' to the Abraham Pinter branch.

True, they publish a prospectus and admissions criteria, as they must, applications are submitted to the local authority, decisions are taken (again, notionally) by a sub-committee of school governors and rejections can be appealed. But then Russia also has a constitution and courts but we still know how the place is run. And it is in how YH Seniors is run in practice that we come to the crux of the 'problem' as YHS sees it and to the 'consultation' it is now holding.

In case it needs to be stated, this series of posts takes it as a given that Pinter is Yesodey Hatorah and Yesodey Hatorah is Pinter, in particular relating to the girls' schools and even more so in reference to admissions, and that the two are virtually interchangeable no matter how many boards, governors and trustees he hides behind.

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