Posted on 09/10/22
| News Source: Hamodia
A lawyer for an Orthodox Jewish organization is warning The New York Times against publishing a “false and defamatory” investigative report critical of Hasidic yeshivas, set to hit newsstands days before the state Board of Regents will vote on new regulations on secular-studies curricula in private schools.
“There appears to be a high likelihood that your story will contain defamatory statements and implications about the Hasidic schools, including … statements that single out and stereotype the Hasidic community without providing proper contextual data, and implications that the Hasidic schools are engaged in illegal activities,” writes attorney Erik Connolly of the Benesch law firm in Chicago, in a letter to the Times dated Thursday, written on behalf of the Tzedek Association and obtained by Hamodia. “In addition, we understand from emails you have sent to individual schools, that the article will also include statements of fact that are simply not true. The publication of such an article would not only be defamatory, it would also cause irreparable harm to the Hasidic community and further stigmatize its members.”
The Times article, by reporters Eliza Shapiro and Brian Rosenthal, will focus on Hasidic yeshivas in Brooklyn and the Lower Hudson Valley, serving about 50,000 students.
According to a summary of the article emailed by the Times reporters to the yeshivas and obtained by Hamodia, the article will allege that “students in these schools are deprived of [secular] education unlike students anywhere else in New York,” that students are these yeshivas perform poorly on standardized tests, the schools receive “enormous sums of public money,” and that “many religion teachers use severe corporal punishment.”