Some chareidi camps are advertising that they are teaching campers English. Is this an effort to satisfy demands that yeshivos teach ‘core subjects’, albeit via a back door?
The Avnei Shlomo chareidi talmid torah is advertising such a camp in Yerushalayim. The talmid torah is named after HaGaon HaRav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach ZT”L. The camp season begins after Tisha B’Av. It appears by teaching campers English entitles the talmud torah to funding from Jerusalem City Hall.
Kikar Shabbos reports that Rav Eliezer Ruchberger, who heads the Har Nof Minhelet Local Council, was offered a budget from city hall as well. Chareidi camp directors visited HaGaon HaRav Aaron Yehuda Leib Shteinman Shlita to consult with the Gadol Hador, who reportedly told them to turn it down and not to introduce English language studies in the camps.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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10 Responses
They’ll teach it as well as they teach zionist/Israeli history. Which is just as well.
It seems that a summer camp is a great place for non-academic (albeit useful) subjects, such as foreign languages, swimming, arts and crafts, first aid etc. What better a place to do something useful so it won’t take time for school (i.e. from learning Torah).
Marvelous idea.
Hareidim in fact demonstrate linguistic and business skills that suggest they are learning all sorts of secular skills – only not in school, and not instead of learning Torah. Remember the “core” curriculum is a code word for giving up on learning Torah – it has nothing to do with developing vocational skills. Looking at the big picture, today and over the last few centuries (i.e. ever since the hilonim started going off the derech), is that Hareidi are quite capable of picking up whatever skills they need – only that’s not what yeshiva is for. To compare the situation to the goyim, almost all goyim in the US know how to ride bikes (not to mention all sorts of “skills” we don’t talk about here), yet never learned these subjects in school. Indeed, if you read the lives of gedolim, it appears that what distinguished them is not the time they spent in sitting in classes, but that fact they learned more (on their own, with their fathers, etc.).
They are teaching them English so they could move to Brooklyn and mooch off the system here.
Sounds like a swell idea. Maybe they should try the same thing in Brooklyn.
They are teaching them English so they could move to Brooklyn and mooch off the system here.
by Left Brooklyn on 2013-07-11 at 9:24 am
omg. how dare you?!? are you better than they are? more privileged? mooch off the system. really.
I’m shocked.
Akuperman you mean goyim skills how to scam, and cheat and lie to get him government money.
Oops that is bidding skills we do not like talking about.
Yes the areas like kj are doing fine. Kj the place with the highest poverty rate in the US .
Either they are not doing well or they are commuting massive fraud.
By robbing their talmidim of the skills needed to earn a living – even speaking and writing in proper English – the rabbonim seek to maintain their control and dominance.
Commenter no. 2 writes, in the first sentence of his third paragraph: “Hareidim in fact demonstrate linguistic and business skills ….” Anti-Semites have been saying for years – make that centuries – that all Jews (not just Hareidim) are naturally good at business. Are you sure that is what you mean?
Re commenter no. 6: Does anyone have any idea what he/she meant?
Remember the “core” curriculum is a code word for giving up on learning Torah – A POINT OF VIEW, not a FACT.
Summer camps is a marvelous time to expand horizons: learn swimming, woodshop, athletic & physical ed programs, CPR and First Aid training and English language skills. During leisure, children pick up these skills with ease.
#8 – according to the hilonim and their websites, Hareidim are incapable of even simple math, functional illiterates and can’t even speak any known civilized language, and probably don’t know how to tie their shoes – and of course are incapable of any employment other than receiving welfare checks from the government