Family & Education
Charedi education protesters back on the streets in London
Fear that new legislation will interfere with yeshivah education is prompting a new wave of opposition
October 22, 2024 10:41
Fear that new legislation will interfere with yeshivah education is prompting a new wave of opposition
October 22, 2024 10:41Charedi campaigners returned to the streets of Westminster on Monday to protest against attempts to regulate the yeshivah system through new legislation.
They are mobilising against the forthcoming Children’s Wellbeing Bill, which was announced by the government in the King’s Speech.
One of the Bill’s proposals will be for local authorities to compile a register of children who are being educated in out-of-school settings such as yeshivot.
Around 1,500 teenage boys in Hackney from 13 to 16 are thought to be taught in yeshivot where they receive little or no secular education. But their whereabouts are currently unknown to local authorities.
Charedi leaders fear that the register would only be a first step towards subjecting yeshivot to more educational requirements from the state.
Demonstrators gathered in Parliament Square before marching on to Downing Street and then the Department for Education.
Rabbi Elyakim Schlesinger, the 103-year-old president of the Rabbinical Committee of the Traditional Charedi Chinuch, which has been lobbying against change, said, “The Department for Education is not merely seeking regulation, they are attempting to fundamentally reshape who we are. If they receive the unequivocal message that we will never change, they will have no choice but to abandon this persecution.”
Rabbi Herschel Gluck — a well-known Stamford Hill figure who is president of the local defence group, Shomrim — told the protest: “We are being attacked not only because of our Jewishness but because of our commitment to maintaining a distinct Jewish way of life. This bill is a direct attack on our faith.”
Similar proposals supported by the previous Conservative government led to a series of protests but they eventually ran out of parliamentary time. The then government had planned to redraft the definition of a school to include yeshivot.
The demonstrations have tended to be organised by the more conservative groups within the Charedi community but opposition to yeshivah regulation enjoys broader support.
Around a hundred rabbis from London, Gateshead and Manchester called for a special day of prayer earlier this month to protect “the pure education of our children”.
While the Children’s Wellbeing Bill is yet to be published, Liberal Democrat education spokesperson Lord Storey last month tabled a private Bill to start a register for out-of-school children.