(VIDEO IN EXTENDED ARTICLE)
The BBC has aired concerning footage of what appears to be Rabbeim hitting children at “a suspected unregistered ultra-orthodox Jewish school in Essex, [UK].”
The videos were part of a widespread investigation into abuses at 350 suspected unregistered schools known to Ofsted, the governments education watchdog agency.
The report comes at a particularly bad time for Yeshivas in Britian, with communities already on edge about unwanted government interference in education. Just last week, YWN reported the Chief Rabbi of Gateshead, HaRav Shraga Feivel Zimmerman stated “Jews will have to leave England before long,” over the interference.
Schools in England are required to register with the government if they teach five or more children for 18 hours a week or more.
The Synagogue in Westcliff-on-Sea housing the ultra-orthodox Jewish school at which the alleged abuse was filmed denied there was an unregistered school operating on the site. It also said “home schooling” was provided within the 18 hours limit. However, the BBC claims to have observed it operating for longer hours.
The footage of a teacher appearing to strike a boy and manhandle a distressed child showed “huge safeguarding issues”, said Anne Longfield, the Children’s Commissioner for England.
“When the adult turns round, the child steps back and the adult clearly strikes the child”, she said, observing the footage.
The synagogue, on whose grounds the school is based, said it was not aware of any incidents, but asked for more information.
The BBC report did not specify the number of the reported 350 unregistered schools in England that are religious. However, half of the religious schools are reportedly Muslim.
The report says only 38 of the unregistered schools had ceased to operate since 2016. This despite more than 50 safeguarding alerts – concerns of abuse or neglect – were raised at unregistered schools since 2014.
In a statement, the Department for Education said: “The secretary of state has to consent to a prosecution, but this happens at the end of the process, after the director of public prosecution has made a decision to charge.
“So far no case has reached that stage,” it said.
“No child should be placed at risk and where a school is operating illegally action must be taken.”
(Nat Golden – YWN)
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27 Responses
Oh great.
Obviously, they are going after the yeshivas. Are they going after the Medrassasas?
That “rebbi” should be arrested immediately
I suspect there is some truth on both sides….the British educational bureaucracy has long standing anti-Semitic bias. At the same time, there are multiple small Chareidi “yeshivos” (more like small cheders) operating on a minimal budget and virtually no oversight from professionals in chinuch. The parents really don’t care as much about the school’s facilities or cleanliness as they do about the hashkafah of the rabbonim. Some level of “corporal punishment” is accepted within this segment of the tzibur so these videos will likely serve to reinforce an anti-Semitic narrative the BBC is anxious to promote.
Seems that the writer is more worried about the damage done to the yeshivas rather than the physical or emotional damage done to a child that is hit by his rebbe.
Here comes the debate about whether chinuch should use the potch as a form of discipline. Aside from the position that I have written on this site many times, which is based on extensive review of the greatest writings on chinuch, I wonder about the qualifications of the rebbe. Precisely what training did this rebbe receive and master prior to being given the authority and responsibility for a class? The task of managing a classroom of 20-some kids is certainly not easy. The odds that any classroom will contain one or more difficult children is quite high. Every rebbe faces such challenge in his class every day. Without training, the rebbe will resort to discipline, rules and consequences every time. The controlled classroom just might be achieved. But the willingness to be there won’t. Nor will the goal of chinuch be accomplished
I am no happier than anybody else that there is meddling by the government into yeshivos. They do not belong there. But should they peek into our classrooms, they should find a stellar performance of kids loving to learn from rebbeim that make the experience enjoyable, full of Ahavas Hashem and Ahavas Torah.
As for the children depicted in this clip, I ask only whether they emerged from those experiences with a renewed love for Torah, or with a negative feeling towards the rebbe.
The seforim on chinuch address the use of punishment and the potch. Did the rebbeim who employed these strategies study what these seforim say?
It’s a very sorry situation of what this video shows. Truthfully, there are many rebbes that should not be in a classroom at all. They aren’t qualified for any other kind of work and, obviously, not qualified to teach either. They must learn a trade other than just falling into the “rebbe” trade. If they want to be in a classroom, they must take courses on how to teach children and how to discipline them….NEVER, EVER should a hand be put on ANY child. These people should be put into jail….what if a slap across the face causes irreparable damage to the child? How would this person live with that? If the child has problems in or out of the classroom, call the parents….let them handle the situation appropriately.
Its precisely because the government was not on top of them until now is why this problem mushroomed into what it is today.Sorry ,but the chadarim brought this on themselves. Btw its not only jews its also arabs and others and all are being dealt with.
The BBC report did not specify the number of the reported 350 unregistered schools in England that are religious. However, half of the religious schools are reportedly Muslim.
I wish Religious Jews would stop giving the world reasons to be anti-Semitic. whether on not hitting children is okay halachically is irrelevant. What does matter is that chareidi people have to stop pretending like they don’t have to follow the laws of the countries in which they live. This problem is also contributing to the issue we’re having in meah shearim and other chareidi communities where chareidim act zealously without caring how it looks in the eyes of other Jews or the world
Its almost like people think that beating children is bad. Crazy.
Hopefully the police and child protective services in the UK will be able to use these videos to identify and prosecute these few rabbonim who assaulted these kids (assuming they are even rabbonim) and send them away to prison for a long time. However, this is clearly not the norm for yeshivos in the UK and should not be allowed to provide a pretext for intervention in the many great educational mosdos that provide great chinuch and have never physically abuse their students. The Yidden of the UK will be much better off to see this small number of abusers dragged off to prison.
Tanach tells us and Shulchan Aruch paskens that children must be potched when necessary.
I was beaten daily with a stick in a chaidishe chaider in the 80’s. It made me scared of adults, made me hate Torah ( the chol teachers wernt sadists and managed to give a lesson without inflicting bodily harm and permanent psycological damage ) and made me a very unstable teenager. I have never endured so much pain and fear as this years in ‘number 11’ as that chaider was called and I will never ever forgive those chasidish fully grown animal rebbes for the daily toture that they provided to defenseless and vulnerable kids.
It os many years later and I cannot accept or forgive.
The first rebbe looks like he’s just wiping the boy’s nose. Many kids don’t cooperate with wiping their noses. It looks like the rebbe gave him a tissue and the boy didn’t use it right so the rebbe did it for him. I may be wrong but that’s just my impression. The second rebbe isn’t even shown touching the boy at all. And seriously if you would have secret cameras in public schools I’m sure you would find many teachers that have little or no regard for their students an act accordingly.
[email protected],
thats not the point. the point is that this is disgusting, immoral, and a chillul Hashem, and aside from the physical trauma these children will be scarred with psychological trauma as well.
Protect the children and protect the yiddeshe Mosdos in the UK. The best way to avoid government intervention is to avoid deliberately handing the anti-semites in the UK bureaucracy apparent evidence of child abuse. It a parent wants to “potch” their kid (as one mindless poster above noted”) that MAY arguably be their right under UK law (something I cannot opine on) but certainly you don’t delegate corporal punishment to some rebbe and expect in this day and age where everything gets exposed, you could keep such outrageous conduct out of public view.
For Joseph, who says “children must be potched when necessary”. I guess it’s time for all of us to line up and give you a few petch. It appalls me that you can condone this in this day and age. BH, my kids are grown, but if any rebbie ever hit one of them, you can be sure that the rebbe would have answered to me.
> Joseph
While agree with Gamanit that the video is not at all clear that there even was anything that deserved to be called hitting, your remark is just plain ignorance in any case. You may as well state that “Tanach tells us and Shulchan Aruch paskens that” medical operations should be performed when necessary. That does not mean anyone goes around with a chainsaw to do brain surgery, not even medical doctors themselves if they are not certified specifically. Even the artscroll series on R. Yaakov Kamenetzky relates a story that when he was in heder he got a slap and R. Kamenetzky throughout his adulthood still suffered from it, stating (which I paraphrase for clarity) that even then (pre-war Europe) even when there was a hypothetical heter to hit the child, the rebbe has to know what he is doing. Today I doubt there is hardly anyone who actually qualifies as knowing what they are doing.
So NOW we are learning Chinuch from the goyim, because they have a great track record?
This is insane!!!!
We don’t know what went on in the class…
A Potch is sometimes very necessary for the benefit of the child!!!!! Yes you do have to know when to potch and how to potch and what to do while pothching and after potching…
A potch is NOT chinuch! It’s a pre requisite to a good chinuch. It may not be needed in some cases, but the children must know that it is available for use. That may be enough for most kids to keep them in check.
A potch is a tool to hold one back from doing something bad to himself, like being chutzpadik or Developing a hobby of doing something bad.
Once a person is not in danger, you can start chinuch, which is a life long mission to elevate one self and their middos…
Answer This Please!
If you saw your little child chasing his into the street, and you see a truck is coming down the street. What should you do?
The correct answer is:
DO WHAT EVER IT TAKES TO GET HIM OUT OF DANGER!!!!
For many kids the mother can scream for him to come back to the sidewalk, for others they may be into the ball that they could care less about anything around them. Yet there are a few small stubborn children who won’t stop playing in the street even after the mother tried bribes, threats etc.
what is the mother supposed to do?
The answer is simple, whatever it takes!!!!
Even if it means pulling him by his ear, he may be in a lot of pain at the moment, but he won’t be a HUMAN PANCAKE, flatten by a 5000lbs truck!
The mother pulling him from the street is NOT DOING CHINUCH! She is preventing a tragedy!!!
Chinuch starts afterwards, teaching a child to play safely and teaching a child about the danger of running into the street. This takes time, some develops faster than others..
A potch should be used to prevent tragedy, it’s NOT CHINUCH its the PRE-REQUISITE for Chinuch!!!
Joseph:
You wrote: “Tanach tells us and Shulchan Aruch paskens that children must be potched when necessary.” I am certain you wrote this for the effect. Well, here is some of it.
There is no general instruction that a child needs to receive a potch. You seem to recognize “when necessary”. But precisely what does that mean. Does it mean when the rebbe’s anger cannot be otherwise contained? Does it mean when the infraction is really annoying? Maybe, just maybe, it refers to a situation in which the child enters the state in which he needs control, not teaching. Well, I will state, with quite a bit of experience and study, that the latter is true. The rebbe’s emotional state cannot be involved, as it is a frank violation of חנוך לנער על פי דרכו, clearly contingent on the derech of the child, not the teacher/parent. If a potch serves to reject the child, not teach, it is not permissible at all. This is clearly stated in countless seforim on chinuch from the Gedolei Hadoros (I can provide bibliography upon request). It is common that a rebbe delivers more than one potch. The Brisker Rov ZT”L addressed this, stating that the first potch might be permissible, providing there are several criteria met. But the second one is an aveiroh of חובל בחבירו, not a mitzvah at all.
Absolutely everything a rebbe does in a classroom must be part of chinuch, not part of control and exacting compliance. The discipline must be teaching, not controlling, or beating the subject into line. This is the approach that one finds when reviewing the seforim on chinuch, not the chatter that we tend to do as baalei batim. Peruse your favorite seforim stores. There is now a sizable array of reputable seforim on chinuch, including such greats as the Chasam Sofer, Rav Shach, Chazon Ish, Nesivos Sholom, Admur Pinsk Karlin, Maran Ovadia Yosef, Rav Wolbe, Piaseczne Rebbe, (all ZT”L), and Rav Gamliel Rabinovich shlit”a. I only named a fraction of what is available. Now tell me just how important it is to deliver a potch.
Lastly, one absolutely must know the effect of the potch. If it does not teach, it becomes an aveiroh. This is a matter that distinguishes today’s generation from those of our ancestors. The halacha did not change, but the ability to implement it is no longer the same. The “old school” tactics are not effective, even though they are not “wrong”. When the metziyus changes, we must adapt.
y2r:
You wrote: “A potch is NOT chinuch! It’s a pre requisite to a good chinuch. It may not be needed in some cases, but the children must know that it is available for use. That may be enough for most kids to keep them in check.”
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Where did you glean that idea from? Certainly not from a Torah source. It is blasphemous to cram your idea into חושך שבטו שונא בנו. A potch is not a pre-requisite to anything. Yes, children must know there is such a thing as discipline. A good rebbe, one with the natural bend for it, and with good training will rarely if ever resort to a potch, or other forms of discipline. True, these great ones are not the norm. Sadly, there are too few of them, but the field must be given credit for having come a long way in the past several decades.
You make it sound as if every child needs a potch, to know who is boss. Chas veshalom. We are the children of HKB”H. Should he potch us, too? What are you saying?
We are not learning chinuch from goyim. I ask you to open the seforim on chinuch, and learn from our gedolim of yesteryear, whose knowledge came from strictly Torah sources. What did they say about the potch? No one called it a pre-requisite to chinuch.
Lastly, the definitions of danger are not so clear as in the instance of a truck heading at a child playing in the street. No, chutzpah is not danger. It is misbehavior, and the child needs to be taught wrong from right. Bad habits are also misbehavior. You know that. You would be justifiably enraged if the victim was your own child. A child that does not behave properly needs to be taught and guided, not punished. Yes, there is an extreme point at which consequences are needed, and I do not exclude the potch (following the halachic guidelines that many here in the CR simply don’t know). All instances in which a potch is administered deserve scrutiny, much as a policeman firing his gun needing to make a report and document it. I am scared to say that a huge proportion of these petch should not have been given, and were used as a substitute of true chinuch. This is typical for the untrained rebbe, and for those who believe that compliance is the goal. The truly great rebbe makes a class interesting enough to capture the interest of every talmid. The truly great rebbe has an individual connection to each talmid, and can use that to bring about true chinuch. Yes, there is a place for a potch, but you overrate it as if it is an ikar of chinuch. That it is not, and never was. Once again, review the seforim on chinuch, and then revisit your comment.
To: The Little I know
I don’t disagree with you that before one gives a potch one must be in a pure state of mind, and only do it, truly, for the benefit of the child. But the problem today, as I heard from many good mechanchim, is that children know that the rebbe’s has very little leverage when it comes to consequences, and therefore are more chutzpadic. THIS IS A FACT!
Kids today are growing up much more chitzpadik and it does end only with the elders, it is with Hashem too.
20 years ago you didn’t hear about the spread of Mechalilei shabbos B’farhesia with a L’haches.
It has been the “new” chinuch, (what people here refer to, better chinuch) that produced it.
This idea of no petch has brought a churbon.
The problem is people don’t know when or how to potch, or what love has to be shown after the potch….. it’s a be conversation..
BTW: aggressive Chutzpah is very dangerous!!!!!
Discipline is from the word Disciple. If it doesn’t teach, it’s not discipline.
A person who hits a child (or an adult), is simply someone without basic self control and has no place in a classroom.
We’ve (I’m 42) all had teachers that hit and teachers that didn’t need to ever. That is one of the ways to differentiate the good from the bad ones.
I grew up going to school in Stamford Hill, I’m so pleased they got this footage, maybe, just maybe, this will help the kids.
First of all I agree that it looks like the Rebbe is wiping the child’s nose and that the child was resisting if you look closely you will see that there’s a white panel of the window blocking so it’s not even for certain what the Rebbe was doing.
Looks like the person videoing was out to give the impression of the Rebbe smacking which might not have happened.
In the other film you don’t actually see the Rebbe even touching the child.
Not that I’m trying to right a wrong here but these videos are not actual proof of anything.
On another note, as I read this my heart raced and jumped a few times, since this isn’t a new concept to me at all.
I live in Stamford Hill and if BBC want any evidence of physical abuse taking place in the chadorim, I don’t see why they have to trek out all the way to Westcliff which has a fairly new cheder there in the new yishuv.
They can come to Stamford Hill and see it taking place here in a number of the chadorim, halevai they would video it and put a stop to it. Because unfortunately when this concern was raised to local Rabanim they picked up their hands in defeat and said what should we do? So if we can’t sort out these issues from within, we need to unfortunately rely on the law to do it for us.
My son was in a cheder where he WITNESSED physical abuse (Rebbe kicking boys under his desk) potching, pushing, shoving to name just a few, and he was so traumatized that he had to go to EMDR therapy and it’s now nearly 2 years that he’s out of that Cheder and we can say he’s getting better.
This is besides for the verbal and emotional abuse which he’s personally experienced, constantly told how bad he…
It’s not an excuse to say that the chadorim don’t have money… because the attitude when we raised concerns to the cheder was; you’re not happy here, go somewhere else that’s not chinuch!
And to those that say potching is part of Chinuch- you’re all in denial, pothing is a way for you to express your anger and does nothing else!!!! So don’t convince yourself otherwise.
My hope is that the government will finally do something about this.
Even though the therapist informed them of the abuse going on in this cheder they DID NOT RESPOND so I don’t see a point in bringing out these issues in the BBC and then the govt will do nothing about it.
Any suggestions??
Wow an “unregistered” school. While defending the bureaucratic state, did the BBC go to any other schools? I got some bus stops, malls, and even supermarkets in the United States the BBC can go to and scope out kids getting beat too.