YBR Colleges – Enough is Enough

It pains me to have to write this post but, after all the comments on this blog and the discussions I have had with Anash over the last 10-15 years, the time has come for the chinuch problem at Yeshivah and Beth Rivkah to be addressed. The tragic situation of our children having less of a commitment to frumkeit than we would like and even leaving yiddishkeit altogether is touching many, many families in our community. Not just the less committed families but even those families genuinely frum and chassidish. It is an epidemic that is effecting everyone and we, and our leaders, cannot just sit back and blame the families of these children. We send our children to a school that is under the name of the Rebbe and we have a right to expect a certain basic standard of Jewish education.

Obviously the schools cannot take 100% of the blame. We cannot blame the administration and say “I pay my school fees now you educate my children correctly” - if we ourselves do not live in a chassidish manner.

I am going to list all the problems as I see them and some possible fixes and solutions. I admit that I am not an educator or rabbi but feel that many of the issues can be addressed by applying some plain common sense.

Judging from the comments made about the education at YBR I expect there to be many comments here. There is no necessity to name particular people who you feel are to blame – despite being loshon hora it will not contribute to the solution. If names are mentioned I will delete the comment.
Another request I would like to make is that you read your comment before publishing it. Spelling and grammatical mistakes make the comment difficult to understand and sometimes even changes the meaning.

I would like to make a request of the Yeshivah Executive and administration. If you are reading this I welcome your input in this matter – the best input would be to explain how you will rectify the faults. If you email me at aussieecho@gmail.com I will publish your reply.

As I see it these are the problems at YBR (in no particular order of importance):

· How is the money received spent? Fees are high, especially if one has more than 2 children in the school, but there does not seem to be accountablilty. Every organisation and business has to produce at least a balance sheet or profit and loss statement. For countless years money has been asked (demanded) from the communtity but there is no accounting for how this money is spent. This leaves the school and executive open to accusations of financial mismanagement.
· In contrast there are people who are not paying full fees but who can take their families on overseas holidays, drive new cars, have expensive and ostentatious simchas etc. This problem, which will certainly be pointed out by the administration. How does the school get people to pay equitably - this is a difficult problem wih no easy solution.
· The influence of non-frum children in the school seems to be out of proportion to their numbers. In the 60s and 70s there were more children from non religious families but many of them became frum or at least respectful towards yiddishkeit. Today it seems that kids from frum familes are leading others astray.
· Teachers, particularly in Yeshivah, do not have appropriate qualifications. Men coming out of Kollel are given jobs as teachers and, despite some of them being good teachers, have never studied educational principles. Even in 770 there are organised programs for Kollel men who want to go into chinuch.
· There is too much of an emphasis on secular studies -especially at year 11 and 12 level. What appears to be important to the administration is results in external exams. It is well known that in the past students who were not academically proficient were encouraged to leave before year 11 so that the results would look good. I do not know if this still happens. As Chabad schools the emphasis should be on learning Torah and keeping Mitzvos.
· It appears to me that there is a general embarrassment among some in the administration that the schools are Chabad schools. This is more prevalent in Beth Rivkah which at times appears to be a sister school to Yavneh.
· I agree with many of the comments here that Yiddish should be taught more extensively in both schools. Modern Hebrew is emphasised at Beth Rivkah (see point above).
· This brings us to the problem at Beth Rivkah with Hebrew pronunciation. I believe that BR in Melbourne is the only BR in the world that teaches the children sefardic hebrew pronunciation. I understand that a few years ago they started teaching the kids in ashkenasic hebrew but this was stopped after a few months. This is another way that the Beth Rivkah administration distances itself from Chabad.
· While on the topic of Beth Rivkah the issue of tzniyus must be mentioned. For some reason there is very little emphasis on tzniyus for girls in the Melbourne community. This is not just the school's fault but mothers, who are into the latest fashions, do not seem to care how their girls dress. Even so the school should be at the forefront and encourage the girls to dress in a Jewish way.
· At Yeshivah in particular only children who fit into certain parameters are catered for. If children are too smart, not so academic, have problems at home etc they are encouraged to leave. We are losing too many kids because the administration is unable and unwilling to work with parents and educational professionals to ensure that "problem" kids can remain in school. The saddest thing to me is to see is children from frum families being forced to attend other Jewish schools or even secular schools.
· The father and son learning programs organised separately from the school should be expanded as part of the schools. I would like to see father-daughter learning programs as well.
· The nepotism in our schools and community is becoming ridiculous. Guests who were here for recent weddings even mentioned their observations about this to me. There are extremely talented teachers, rabbis etc who are not related to the "families" who are passed over because of this.
· There has been a recent attempt by some young parents to open an alternate school where they could ensure that their children were educated in a frum, chassidish way. Nothing came of this as the organisers were shouted at and threatened.
· The one person who did manage to start a school to help children who had problems in Yeshivah has also been threatened. While the school has started there were many behind the scenes actions by the Yeshivah executive which caused them much hardship.

There are also issues that we as parents must also address seriously:

· We cannot abdicate our responsibility of showing our kids a living example of frumkeit and chassidishkeit. While the schools have their responsibility to provide a decent education we must follow through at home by learning with our kids and just showing them how a frum, chassidish person should behave.
· I have heard too many parents criticise the teachers and school in front of their children. How can we blame the teachers for not controlling the class when the children know that their parents do not respect the teachers and will always side with their children over the teacher?
· These days I see so few kids sitting and davening with their parents in shul. How can they learn how to daven and have a feeling for yiddishkeit if they see their parents talking all thru davening and “knocking off” davening in a few minutes.
· There are lots of other common sense things that all parents, Jewish or not, should do – know where your children are and who they are with, do not let them view videos, the internet or read books without your approval, etc etc

This has been a very long post and it has taken me a long time to write. No doubt I have missed some points and I encourage you to submit your ideas in a respectful way. I know that this is a sensitive and emotional issue for some but the only way we can make a difference is presenting our ideas in a clear and thoughtful way.