NY ad campaign seeks to spur Haredi secular studies

A large billboard advertisement faulting Hasidic schools for inadequate secular education has been highlighting divisions in the insular ultra-Orthodox communities of Williamsburg, New York.

Proponents of the commercial, released by Yaffed — an advocacy group that seeks to reform the Haredi education system in New York — say that the advertisement is part of strategy to get members from within the community to demand changes from their rabbis and leaders at a grassroots level.

Yeshivot, or ultra-Orthodox schools, are among New York City’s more than 250 Jewish private schools.

“Most [yeshivot] provide maybe 1.5 hours of English and math at the end of an already tiring day, taught by nonprofessionals,” said Naftali Moster, founder of Yaffed, an acronym for Young Advocates for Fair Education.

“They are just a mess when it comes to providing a proper education,” Moster told the New York Post Sunday.

In two side-by-side panels, the billboard shows the progression of a young Hasidic student who is taught to shun the use of English and his advancement into an illiterate adult unable to cope with and everyday tasks.

The left panel depicts the boy in 1988 pushing away a math textbook and saying in Yiddish that “English is profane.” The right panel, marked “today,” portrays the boy — now an adult — struggling to understand invoices and statements, while muttering, “What was I thinking!?”

The campaign echoes calls in the Jewish state to standardize secular education in the Haredi community and to provide ultra-Orthodox students with the tools to succeed and integrate into Israeli society.

Much like in New York, Yiddish is considered the primary language among ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel.

Yaffed drew condemnation from religious groups for posting a similar advertisement on a busy Brooklyn highway in 2013 which was construed as “airing dirty laundry.”

The current billboard, however, is situated in the heart of the New York’s Hasidic enclave.

One passerby told the New York Post that the advertisement is “disgusting,” while another opined that his family was successful despite lacking any formal secular education.

Another pedestrian offered an opposing view and praised the call for change, but lamented that as an individual he was powerless to fight the prevailing trends in Hasidic society.