Jewish High School Closed For Being Too Strict? October 29, 2008

This story from Hamercaz and Jewish Breaking News doesn’t need too much commentary. Lakewood, NJ’s Mesivta Beis Yisro’el, named after the Ba’al Shem Tov (the founder of the Hasidic movement) has been forced to shut its doors due to an unfortunate combination of demographics and stringency:

A Mesivta in Lakewood that had opened amidst hopes of successfully serving the town’s growing Chasidish population has closed down.

Mesivta Beis Yisroel, named after the Ba’al Shem Tov, was opened three years ago by R’ Shlomo Meyer, a local activist instrumental in the founding of many businesses and Mosdos in Lakewood. The Mesivta was geared towards encouraging the students to focus on what the administration considered important Chasidish practices in addition to providing an intense schedule of learning.

The enrollment growth at the Mesivta did not live up to the founders’ expectations. Recently, several Magidei Shiur left the institution and student enrollment, which was already down, fell even further as more students left throughout the past few months.

Some students blamed what they considered to be overly strict rules for the Mesivta’s downfall. They maintain that Lakewood does not have a clientele interested in what they consider to be such a militantly Chasidish environment. They offer such examples as punishments for speaking English instead of Yiddish or for being seen outdoors without a hat or jacket as regulations that ultimately drove students away.

I hope all of these Chassidish kids have another school to attend and I hope that they go on to yeshiva gedolah ultimately.

Who wins in these situations? The Chassidish school did not compromise on its standards one iota — and now, as a result, enrollment has fallen to the point that the school has had to close. Is this a growing trend? And if it is, is it better to have 500 kids in white shirts learning Torah in English (or, most likely, Yinglish) or 25 kids in hats and jackets (over those same white shirts) learning Torah in Yiddish?