Is Targeting Chasidic Schools the New Antisemitism?

Children of Stamford Hill. What will their future look like? (Independent)

‘Tateh, M’Shnad Payis’ - father, they’re cutting off Peyos. I recall this Yiddish comment being made by a survivor in the movie Shoah, the epic 613 minute 1985 documentary by filmmaker Claude Lanzmann about the Holocaust.

As many as 1,000 boys from strictly Orthodox Jewish families may be pupils at a network of between 12 and 20 illegal private schools in east London. 

These schools are not registered with the authorities, which makes them illegal, and they offer a narrow, religious syllabus. 

The Department for Education is working with Ofsted to find and shut them. 

These private schools serve the small so-called Charedi community - a grouping that contains within it a wide variety of strictly Orthodox Jewish traditions. Hackney council estimates there are around 30,000 Charedi Jews in the borough…

Some of the schools and yeshivas are run in contravention of the 2008 Education and Skills Act, which stipulates that "a person must not conduct an independent educational institution unless it is registered".

 An individual convicted of running an unregistered school could face up to a year in prison. Ofsted and the DfE began a crackdown on illegal schools in January. 

One ex-student of illegal Charedi schools, now in his 20s and outside the community, told Newsnight: "I'm starting to study for my GCSEs. I'm maybe like an eight-year-old, nine-year-old. That's my level of education."