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Video: Rechnitz Slams Jewish School Leaders

In a fiery speech at a recent event in Lakewood, businessman and noted philanthropist Shlomo Yehuda Rechnitz derided a phenomenon which he called “a man-made and self-made problem” regarding education. He called out the schools and asked “do you think these children are stupid?”

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19 Comments

  • SLAMS???

    I AGREE WITH NUMBER ONE. HE’S BEGGING FROM HIS NESHAMA THAT THE CURRENT SITUATION MUST CHANGE… HE WASN’T OUT TO BLAME, BUT MERELY THAT THE TZIBBUR DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS TERRIBLE MATZAV.
    HE’S A TRUE MENSCH AND BA’AL CHESSED

  • suggestion

    this problem, as well as the tuition crisis, could be solved by funding a strictly limudei kodesh Kahn academy for all ages.

  • An out of towner

    he’s worth his weight in diamonds!!!!!!!!

    MB

    one who knows it first hand the “selection” (AKA: selektzia) as well as for financial reasons. (AND I have great kids)

  • rechnitz a leader

    is a true mensch and leader
    even though he was screwed over by a head shliach he still helps the schools and the families

    he is a classic leader
    unafraid because he has the checkbook to back it up

  • KKV

    kol hakovod. yes, he has the money and the will to back himself up. I hope he makes a difference. We can’t afford one more second of 2nd class teachers and administrators. I hope he addresses more issues as well. Hope he is behind JCW for one thing.
    Thankyou Mr. Rechnitz. Your music is lively, but we see that you have higher aspirations. Kol hakovod.

  • rechnitz a leader

    jcw needs to have an across the board policy of exposing molesters not picking and choosing cases

    then they would have universal support

    rechnitz helps many victims and doesn’t need jew to tell him how to do it

    • blablabla

      what a random comment.

      You have no basis nor proof of such a thing, you are anonymous hater who is either a child molester looking to cause JCW damage or someone who doesn’t care about liabilities of which their process needs to follow.

      Which ever you are, they are both just as dangerous.

  • finally someone who stands up for what's right

    ואתה תחזה מכל העם אנשי חיל ירא אלקים אנשי אמת שונאי בצע וכו
    רש”י
    אנשי חיל- עשירים, שאין צריכים להחניף ולהכיר פנים
    אנשי אמת- אלו בעלי הבטחה שהם כדאי לסמוך על דבריהם וכו

  • appreciated one

    i know Shlomo personally!!

    He has a heart of gold, and says it like it is, I never saw anywhere, not in CH, not in Willie, BK, Flatbush or anywhere in the continental USA or the world,,,,,
    where a man a Baal Haboss a businessman should get up in from of Rabbonim Rosh Hayeshivas Community leader and activists, and talk that way,

    He is speaking from the heart Tzum Zach and without fear of any repercussions, he says things that matter and bother him, I know he gets 10’s of phone calls a week, pleading to financially help, because yeshivos dont let their child in school. its disgusting outrages and as he says a pure Shande whats going on,
    He speaks in Lakewood and Lakewood but everything he says is applicable to CH and Chabad Schools.
    what a shame and travesty that its true,

    Any commenter can say what they want, look whats going on in BR in ULY tell me its not true and ill show you a liar…

    BH he said that and all sites are publicizing this and for a good reason,,,,
    Kol Hakavod Shlomo for your talk for your stand and ability to say this

  • Crown Heightser

    Every word he said applies equally to some schools in CH.

    My daughter was not accepted to Bnos Menachem because my sheitel is a bit longer than shoulder length. Therefore, my daughter is the psoles of CH. All her fiends can go to BM, but she needs to stay home and cry.

    I hope the admin of BM listen to his speech and internalize it!

    Amod amod!!!

  • Yiddish - Lover

    B”H

    Here’s the 800 pound gorilla in the room Rabbi Rechnitz did not touch: My kid attends a local Chabad-Lubavitch Mosdos. He is sweet, from and innocent. We don’t have computer, internet-ready telephone nor television…

    He comes home and asks Tatty—
    Another kid in the class ( this is a class of 11-year old boys) explained to the other boys that the Television program he watched at his house about “The Birds and The Bees!”

    So maybe some fellow Lubavitcher’s can help me out over here…….

    • Elitist

      He’s not crying for their the kid with the tuma – he has no problem since his father is a real estate tycoon and pillar of the school.

      Rather, his voice is for your child, the eidel gentle soul who may not get an admission card like the other boys because his father is a mere office worker who has no answer for his upcoming appointment with the school’s financial office.

      This father is worried sick at the thought of seeing his timid 11 year old stand at the entrance with no instruction or guidance what he should do or where he should go while he watches the 9am stream of kids flow past, with the coolest Trapper-Keepers of Bat-Man and Spider-Man, Birdies and Beezts, as each waves a paper he didn’t get, as they continue on into the building on their way to where they have to go.

      But Your kid – the quiet boy from the eidel home – is just standing there, in front of the school’s main entrance, with his loaded, hand-me-down briefcase, its zipper torn, lost.

      And I can assure you haven’t seen nothing yet. Soon you’ll find out that the parents of the bully who picks on your child complained to the principal that the torn pants your child wears is directly responsible for provoking her boy into hitting, and is demanding that either you compensate her for the therapy costs her boy needs to correct his “inferiority complex” your son has caused, or else your son must walk over to her boy and apologize, for provoking her boy into making other kids cry, because your sons pants’ year at the left knee has solicited her boys bad manners. Now she will be coming over to the school and about to threaten her husband would cease all funding unless the principal takes that rag-pants child of yours and must move him to another class.

      I can assure you a lot of pain in your child’s next few years as he tries his best to adapt his lone voice to an unfamiliar new class, where he’s the new kid on the block.

      It’s this timid child and his simple parents for who Rechnitz is crying out.

      Not the TV bully.

  • Toshov Hashchuna

    To Crown Heightser –

    I agree!!! The speech applies to our mosdos chinuch too!!

    How many pillows are wet with tears when seminaries turn down girls because they aren’t “good enough”???

    How dare they???

    How many girls did these seminaries SHECHT???

  • Moshe G.

    I remember as a child how I had to wait a month or two until a school accepted me. One year I didn’t start school until chanukah. Then as a teenager I stopped getting accepted at all. I went two years doing absolutely nothing.

    I wanted to be a rabbi and go on shlichus like everyone else and make the Rebbe proud.

    I wasn’t accepted to schools due to a combination of overcrowding , nepotism, and my family’s lack of financial or lubavitch hierarchy status.

    What bothered me more than not being accepted, was seeing acquaintances of mine who were clearly not religious anymore and were only attending school as a facade to fool their parents get accepted to school because their family was rich or their grandfather swallowed papers to help the frierdiker rebbe escape the kgb.

    I thought that chair would be better served with someone like me who actually wanted to learn.

    I even tried to emulate the stories of hillel who couldn’t afford tuition so he climbed on roof and put his ear to the skylight to hear some words of torah.I snuck into yeshiva and Sat in on classes only to have the principal remove me and say you are not a student here. Sometimes I would look in the Windows and see and hear for a few minutes until I was noticed and asked to leave.

    After a few years of not being accepted, I got friendly with others who also did nothing all day… Then my attitude changed and I started to despise religion …Then I fell in with the druggie crowd and started heavily abusing drugs. Then my family kicked me out (because I would hurt my siblings chances of a shidduch) and I spent a few years homeless.

    If only a brave man like rechnitz would have made this speech 25 years ago, perhaps my life would not have been wasted. And there are hundreds of boys like me.

    At least do something now, to prevent this from happening to others.