Belgian Jewish Schools Ordered to Teach Evolution
New government regulations are threatening the pedagogical autonomy of Antwerp’s Orthodox Jewish schools and sowing division over whether to bring the community’s school system into conformity with secular educational standards.
Earlier this summer, the Flemish government issued decrees that would force both state-funded and private Jewish schools to teach mandatory curricula that include evolutionary biology, human reproduction and other subjects considered taboo by Antwerp’s 18,000 orthodox Jews.
Beginning this year, schools that refuse to comply stand to lose hundreds of thousands of euros in annual subsidies. Even private Jewish schools that don’t receive such public funding will be forced, beginning in September, to test their children on mandatory subjects. Two failures would lead to enrollment in a state-recognized school.
“For us, the new regulations could mean exile,” said Menachem, a Hasidic father of eight from Antwerp. “I will send my children to England. It’s tough, but it’s better than having their minds polluted.”
For decades, Antwerp’s large Orthodox community could count on Belgian authorities not to interfere with the dozens of Jewish schools that dot the Flemish capital. But motivated in part by disproportionate poverty rates among orthodox Jews in the city, the government is cracking down on an educational system that critics say does not prepare its graduates for economic success.
Figures show that 25 percent of Flemish haredim live below the poverty line, compared to less than 10 percent of the general population. Recent surveys have found that only 8.6 percent of haredi school graduates pursue higher education, compared to the national average of about 50 percent, according to Claude Marinower, Antwerp’s deputy mayor and alderman for education.
“Young haredim find it harder to find work at a time when the economy is declining and as haredi diamond traders face stronger competition from Indian traders on Antwerp’s diamond exchange,” Marinower said. “Thus we see more poverty among haredim.”
For nearly a half-century after World War II, Antwerp Jews mostly did not need to acquire the kind of education that would lead to successful employment. Jobs in the city’s lucrative and insular diamond trade were well paid and relatively easy to come by with minimal training.
Many of the jobs have since been shipped abroad, however, while foreign businessmen have intruded on an industry in which Jews once held a commanding position. Some in Antwerp have been warning for years that the community must adapt to a changed reality. But in haredi schools, little has been done to prepare students for a wider array of potential jobs.
Hilde Wynen, who taught for 11 years in Antwerp’s oldest and largest Jewish school, the state-funded Jesode Hatorah, said she was instructed to avoid any mention of subjects like HIV, prehistoric times or ancient Egypt. Wynen also was required to censor words such as “love” and “boyfriend” from textbooks, which sometimes would lose up to 25 percent of their original content after she had gone through them with a black marker.
Censorship “meant my graduates were simply not prepared to integrate into the Belgian society,” said Wynen, who left Jesode Hatorah in 2011 to work for the Flemish education ministry.
In 2012, government auditors found that Jesode Hatorah, which has 800 students, failed to meet minimum educational standards due in part to its censorship of educational materials. The school was instructed repeatedly to correct the deficiencies, and when it failed to do so, the government began proceedings to strip the school of the subsidies that keep it running.
Jesode Hatorah did not respond to requests for comment.
The problem of religious education is not unique to Belgium. Across crisis-stricken, immigrant-rich Europe, concerns are growing about parochial school systems that fail to prepare students to integrate into the larger society and are feared to be hotbeds of radicalism.
Last month, the education ministry in neighboring Holland announced a plan to forbid home tutoring, which is favored by some very devout Christians, Muslims and Jews. In France, where the principle of public secularism reigns, strict legislation limits state subsidies for religious schools and conditions such subsidies on students’ knowledge of core mandatory subjects that is assessed in yearly state exams.
In Britain, religious schools still enjoy a fair degree of autonomy, but even they are facing “increasing demands by authorities to teach things which are not appropriate,” according to Rabbi Yehuda Brodie, registrar for the Beth Din, or rabbinical court, of Manchester.
Greeks.....
History repeats itself. Non Jews Don’t like when we don’t teach their philosophies
It began in Egypt (“Kol Habas Tchayun”)
Then the Greeks
The Russians….
Now the Democratic Countries.
... Romans
It’s their countries and government with their tax payer citizens money, so if you don’t want interference go private.
awacs
To number 2:
“It’s their countries and government with their tax payer citizens money, so if you don’t want interference go private.”
What part of “Even private Jewish schools that don’t receive such public funding will be forced, beginning in September, to test their children on mandatory subjects. ”
don;t you get?
@ 2
Unfortunately the government interferes into private schools as well.
Private schools must keep the same laws regulations and standards as public schools. You can’t run a Yeshiva out of a Shul anymore.
All these laws and regulations cost a lot of money. That is why private schools must receive government money to exist.
DownSouth
There’s a lady the Hasids of Belgium need to meet. She stands in a big harbor. In her right hand, raised high to G-d, is the flame of liberty. Around her feet have gathered the oppressed, the unwanted, the abused.
America is the home of exiles. Americans came from England because they didn’t want to go to a government church. They came from France because they wanted to be Protestant. The Amish and Mennonites came because they were being exterminated–there is not a living Amish in Europe today. They either came to America or burned. It’s obvious the Belgium wishes to destroy Hasidism; this time the chosen method is “education”. What will it be next time?
If you believe your beliefs are true and that G-d commands you to follow them regardless of what an evil government says, pack your bags and come where we still have religious freedom. Where many of us are willing to fight again to keep it.
it's coming
That’s why my parents came here. I’m first generation and they told me time and again that all the benefits of America are wonderful and we should take advantage of privileges few people in other countries can even dream about, but the only real reason they came here was because we could practice our religion without fear and with the backing of the constitution, but It’s starting to happen here too. Equality laws, diversity laws, “good for the children” arguments, etc. There are laws now that take away our right to practice our religion as we please or even express our opinions without condemnation. Slowly every aspect of society is being forced to act in social things as the government wants us to. How many schools demand that all mention of a higher power be silenced. I’m sure you can come up with more examples of the circumscription of thought and action already pervading our country in almost every area of life.
Sociology
The schools could teach it as a sociology course, of the sillyness that the unfaithful neighbors believe.
it's coming
don’t forget government testing to see if the schools are conforming
Andrea Schonberger
If schools accept any kind of government/state subsidies they’re probably bound to follow a mandated curriculum–after all it is tax payer money and fair is fair. Private schools should be treated differently–they take no government/state funding so they ought to be able to teach the courses they want without interference.
to Andrea
As usual, you dont get it. This has nothing to do with education, and everything to do with social engineering i.e. polluting jewish minds
Who ever doesn't see a pattern is blind
This a worldwide uber elitist atheist agenda,
Now Belgium will have no budget for jewish schools that don’t even count for a 1% of society but for millions of Muslims immigrants their happy to provide welfare benefits, sodom.
Citizen Berel
This is very good.
Who is it what doesn’t know that passing tests on monkeys and babies and people what are happy happy happy — Job!!!
The talking point memo is one:
Connecting poverty to education Belgium israel, as If the connection is there, how does learning evolution help someone with making a living.
Why ate there millions of Americans that went thru us public school system learnt it all & are on welfare?.
Citizen Berel
I regret the sarcastic tone of my previous comment. There is simply nothing unserious about this. It’s nothing less than tragic.
It’s actually the most tragic thing I remember reading on the internet; it just took some time for the gravity to sink in.
The government is saying to the Yidden that they will either provide yiddishe kinderlach mastery over disastrously harmful nonsense or else suffer forced ” enrollment in a state-recognized school”.
This public-fast worthy.
What?!
What does teaching evolution have to do with economic success?!?!
subjects
You can still teach some of evolution but emphasize that we do not believe it.How do you think Christians accomplsh this? Even in public school they talk about it as theory but they also have the chsistian version (is it called intelligent design)as the model for their veliefs.You don’t have to freak out.Present as they believe this but we believe thus. No reason to get hysterical.Just find a smart way to get around it.
declasse' intelelctual
It is strange that so many people get upset about Darwin without either having red his works or really trying to understand what he said. Yes, there is evolution and no, man did not emerge from some sea creature, but in G-d’s infinite wisdom which is beyond our understanding, there is change or evolution in the world according to His Plan. One of the knowable charateristics is the :Survival of the Fitists”(competition) which by all means is not the only explanation or guiding theory to why we are what we are; it is just one aspect. Yes, this subject can be tought; the challenge is to teach it in the right way. The spiritual as a guide to the physical.
Teach it our way
Read the Rebbe’s words on evolution and study them well. Then teach the theory showing it’s fallacies. You will accomplish two things: conforming to government standards and, more importantly, arming your kids with valuable knowledge known as “dah mah she’toshiv.”
Citizen Berel
You don’t get it.
The government will be writing the tests, not the tiferes yisroel.
Vashti's Tail
18. The Rebbe’s words are from 50 years ago and there has been quite a headway made with science. He doesn’t show its fallacies but writes around the topic quite a bit. Yes, he studied some in college but he wasn’t an expert, didn’t hold a doctorate, and didn’t specialize in those subjects.
The Chabad article is grossly simplistic about what evolution is.
Evolution isn’t something that simply happened ages ago. There are various forms of evolution, it’s an ongoing process. To dismiss it as a silly concept for the unfaithful because you think it’s only about monkeys turning into humans, you might as well walk around with a stick in one eye.
To understand how the planet and the universe operate shows that one seeks to understand G-d’s work. The only “corruption” of Jewish minds would be encouraging and maintaining ignorance of that work.
According to other Orthodox rabbis and even Maimonides, Torah and evolution do not have to be independent of one other:
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/jewsevolution.html
You can quote ancient texts until you’re blue in the face but the fact is, they were written by humans who only understood so much about the world and the universe. Maybe they understood much for their time but still, only for their time.