Family & Education
Protest against UK yeshivah regulation staged in New York
Proposals to register children being taught outside school settings are due to be debated in Parliament on Wednesday
January 8, 2025 11:23
Proposals to register children being taught outside school settings are due to be debated in Parliament on Wednesday
January 8, 2025 11:23Protests against the compulsory registration of yeshivah students in the UK have spread overseas as dozens of Charedi rabbis demonstrated against the proposed legislation outside the British Consulate in New York on Tuesday.
It came ahead of today’s scheduled second reading of the government’s Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which contains proposal for local authority registers of children who are being home-schooled or taught in out-of-school settings such as yeshivot.
A demonstration against the Bill is being planned to take place in Westminster as MPs deliberate.
Some of the New York protesters donned striped tunics to mimic prison uniforms, declaring that they would rather go to jail than compromise over their traditional education.
The registers will allow local authorities to keep track of the whereabouts of young people but Charedi campaigners fear it will lead to interference with the yeshivah system and an attempt to force the introduction of secular subjects.
Rabbi Asher Gratt, a leading activist from Stamford Hill, called the Bill “ a dangerous overreach by the state” when he addressed the American protest by telephone link.
“This isn’t about education quality; it’s about control,” he said. “Once the state assumes control of our children’s education, the loss of parental autonomy is inevitable. This is something you expect in authoritarian regimes, not in a democratic society.”
Hackney Council recently reported that it was aware of 1,582 children and young people in unregistered educational settings in the borough. The “vast majority” were thought to be teenage Orthodox boys studying in yeshivot providing “only religious instruction,” the council said.