Is this the result?

I agree with you 100%. I must say, tho, that I can tell you some equally horrific stories about people who were classmates to children who “should have” been thrown out but weren’t. Though I DO agree with you, it needs to be discussed with the reality of both sides.

I wonder if he was ever told that he doesn’t have to stay jewish if he doesn’t want to.

Yup, they ask at bar/bas mitzva age. I believe it’s a whole ritual in beis din. I know someone who went through that too.

And forget about kicking out of schools, how about the kids who don’t even get in to school because the hanhala believes it’s pointless cuz anyways s/he will be kicked out in a few weeks??? Oh, so they’re giving off the message that the streets are a better place for people like you. Much better.

Syag – What you’re saying is true, but I was actually referring to a specific case that I know. This was seriously the intent. You’re not good enough for any of us.

If a school feels they need a student to leave the least they can do is help them find a better school for the child.

I hate to tell you people but the hanhalas motives in a lot of cases are not so pure. I heard a shiur on the radio once which crystallized this point. After the bochur is thrown out of a yeshiva and it is no longer a cheshbon of him against the yeshiva does the hanhala keep up with him, help him find him a new yeshiva, inquire about his chavrusas etc.? usually not. tzei ulemad from avraham and yishmael. vhamiavin yavin.

@golfer

Those are unfortunately are a very small minority. I have seen plenty of cases where the rebbeim/menahalim held grudges years later and refused to go over to those bochurim by simchas even to see how they were doing. I guess it is tough for the rabbonim/manhegai hador to speak about it without stepping on peoples (and yeshivas) toes but in my humble opinion it is an issue which needs to be addressed.

DaMoshe,

I think it is great that you and your wife were friendly with this gentleman and his friend, and that you invited them for Shabbos. The fact that he approached you after seeing you unwrapping kosher food indicates that he still feels a connection to Judaism, even if there is a lot of hurt.

I disagree, however, with the blanket judgement you passed on the Yeshivos after hearing his story. I do not see how you could have gleaned sufficient information from restaurant chatter to be able to pass such judgement with “after 120 years” type language.

He then named 5 or 6 well-known yeshivos in Brooklyn. He continued, “I went to all of those, and got thrown out of all of them, because they decided they couldn’t handle me, and the difficult background I came from.”

To get thrown out of 5 or 6 schools, plus an “away” yeshiva, is quite a feat. Couldn’t handle me? At what point do we move beyond your stereotype of kid victim and heartless hanhalas, and consider the possibility that sometimes a young person’s behavior can be dangerous to himself or others, and that expulsion may be a necessary, albeit highly unfortunate, course of action? When do we stop blaming our circumstances on others, and start taking personal responsibility for our actions?

But this is the result of throwing kids out of yeshiva!

Or maybe, just maybe, it was the result of his bad choices and his bad behavior.

I heard from my Rosh Yeshiva, R’ Bender, how his Rebbe, R’ Shmuel Berenbaum, reacted when someone suggested a kid should be thrown out – he yelled at the guy! He said you don’t know the harm that can be caused by doing that!

That is a nice story, and I’m sure that R’ Berenbaum’s reaction was totally appropriate given the specific situation. I’m not sure that it is appropriate to project one situation into another, however. Sometimes a rock should be struck, and sometimes it should be spoken to.

I was saddened by this guy’s story. I don’t envy the responsibility that the schools who threw him out have on their shoulders. When the hanhalah are judged after 120 years, this will be part of what is brought up.

Would you be sad if a yeshiva expelled a student who repeatedly beat up your child? What about a child who brought a gun to school? Or pressured your child to use drugs? Should he be allowed to stay and sit next to your child every day, because cv’s he might go OTD if he’s expelled?

@Avram in MD

I agree that it may have been warranted in that situation. However the fact is that yeshivos tend to be very trigger happy with problem kids and do not tend to follow up afterwards (as I stated before). The yeshivos do share a large part of the blame – running a yeshiva requires a sense of achrayus which unfortunately many menahalim do not have. Whether the yeshivos were right in this case or not was not (I dont think) damoshe’s point. I fear that many rabbonim/menahalim will be in for a very rude awakening after 120 for the poor decisions they have made. Olam Hafuch Raeisi comes to mind.

DaMoshe,

Thanks for your response.

I do know, however, that the kid wasn’t just tossed out. The school found an appropriate place for him, and worked with the new school to get him settled in. That is how it should be handled.

I agree.

Are you sure that the yeshivos mentioned in your OP didn’t do anything similar?

I hope that this child you mentioned thrives in his new environment, but suppose as a thought experiment he became violent again at the new school and needed to get moved to a third school, and then a fourth, and a fifth, and a sixth, and then to a Yeshiva in a different town? And some years later, that child with a violent past, now a man managing a business, tells a frum man in a resort dining hall that he was kicked out of 7 yeshivos that couldn’t handle him, and he will never be Orthodox because of that. Should that frum man imply that your school’s hanhala will face hellfire for the way he handled the violent kid?

I do want to add that a “bad” kid 20 years ago or even 10 is no comparison to today. If you have a bad kid in a high school or even 7th 8th grade today often means the kid has unfiltered internet devices with who knows what on them and he shows it to other boys. You want to tell me that you cant throw out such a boy? He is killing other kids mamish killing because we know what that shmutz does. It wrecks lives. So what should we do exactly? It would be great if we could put this boy in isolation and try to work with him but in a yeshivah that is not possible. Such a boy can’t be allowed to stay.