Charedi groups petition government over plans to regulate yeshivot

Strictly Orthodox groups have stepped up efforts to press government to exempt yeshivot from new legislation that they have warned could lead to the closure of the institutions.

Under the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which is currently before Parliament, yeshivot would be compelled to register and treated as independent schools, meaning they would have to teach secular subjects and undergo authorised inspections.

A petition signed by 15,000 people protesting against the registration plan was handed into the Department for Education on Wednesday.

The latest of a series of demonstrations staged in Westminster by the Rabbinical Committee for Traditional Charedi Chinuch, a lobby group to protect yeshivah, took place the same day.

Levi Weiss, of the Committee, described the Bill as “an attack on fundamental rights”.

It follows a day of prayer and fasting called at the end of last month in opposition to the Bill by the main Charedi umbrella body in London, the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations.

Evidence submitted by the Yeshiva Liaison Committee — which was set up by the Union to defend yeshivot — to the Public Bill Committee currently considering the legislation in Parliament said the government plans “unjustly target” Charedi communities.

An estimated 1,500 or more boys from the age of 13 to 16 learn in yeshivot in Stamford Hill rather than registered schools.

The Bill seeks to redefine institutions such as yeshivot as schools, which would bring them under tighter regulation.

It would also compel local authorities to keep registers of children taught at home or otherwise out of school.

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The YLC said the proposals are causing “grave concern” and that “wrongly proposing to define yeshivas as schools will dismantle our communities’ distinct religious and educational framework”.

Yeshivot were “religious spaces” that operated alongside home-schooling, the YLC argued. “It is simply wrong and as a direct result of a deliberate misinformation campaign that yeshivas have been classed as schools. They are not. They provide safe, nurturing environment with strong safeguarding measures, where children can thrive spiritually, emotionally, and socially.”

The measures in the Bill would “force yeshivahs to close, as they do not and cannot function as schools, leaving these children without a viable alternative. This would create a serious safeguarding risk,” it stated.

Arguing that yeshivot should be exempt from the proposed regulation, it said the Bill “must recognise and support alternative educational models, including those rooted in faith and community values”.

There was no one model of yeshivah, it said. “There are different types, with attendees coming together for a certain amount of time each day for inspiration and religious practice, alongside home-schooling arrangements.”

Yeshivah attenders, it attended, “typically leave yeshivah having gained fluency in multiple languages, such as English, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Yiddish, and have developed strong analytical thinking through legal reasoning”.

Day of prayer in Stamford Hill in January to oppose moves to regulate yeshivot (photo: Dudi Braun)[Missing Credit]

Supporting the YLC, Dr Joseph Mintz, associate professor in education at University College London, said in evidence to the Public Bill Committee: “It could be strongly argued that the absenceof phenomenon such as cyberbullying, sexting, and so in in Charedi education, its commitment to unparalleled levels of academic learning in complex areas of study, and its underpinning by ideals of family, society, charity and social compassion, make it something the wider education system could learn a lot from.”

But the chair and vice-chair of Hackney Council’s Children and Young People’s Scrutiny Commission, which has repeatedly expressed concern about yeshivot in the borough, last month wrote to Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson to press the case for more regulation.

“Local authorities are still not able to assure safeguarding practices… undertake health and safety assessments or assess the adequateness of the curriculum being taught in UES [unregistered educational settings], therefore the Commission has little doubt that the risks to children in these settings continue to be both real and significant,” they said.