Starting about 40 years ago, Hasidic yeshivas in New York made a small but crucial change in their secular education. After decades of hiring non-Jewish or non-Haredi teachers with proper teaching experience, teaching credentials, and knowledge of the various secular subjects, they began phasing them out in favor of hiring Haredi teachers, many of whom didn’t have teaching certification, college education, or even a basic knowledge of the subject matter.

Although counter-intuitive, the logic of this initiative to improve the teaching was clear. For years leading up to it, boys in most Hasidic yeshivas treated secular studies and the “Ainglish” teachers with contempt. In this they followed the schools' lead. Schools made a whole slew of choices about secular studies that signaled their institutional disregard of the subjects: the timing of classes, the scant number of hours (minutes really) dedicated to even math and English, the lax discipline, and the removal of secular subjects from the schedule entirely after middle school.

The yeshivas reasoned that replacing non-Jewish and non-Orthodox teachers with Haredi ones would command respect from the students. At very least the boys could no longer mock the teachers in Yiddish without them understanding. So, while the quality of the teaching might go down, the kids would at least pay attention and not be as disruptive.

Based on my own experience as well as on conversations I have had with people who lived through this transition, this change was effective. Though it remains far from complying with the state standards, bringing in Haredi teachers resulted in a modest improvement to the little secular education provided to Hasidic boys.

This is what came to mind as I was thinking about the Haredi leaders' approach to the recent elections.

For many decades, Haredi communities reliably voted for Democrats, especially on a local level in New York where Dems have largely controlled every branch of city and state government. The thought process was rather simple: Haredi leaders recognized that their support won social welfare programs for their communities as well as win bonuses from victorious candidates and their parties in the form of financial benefits or favorable policies.

This meant that, for many years, the leaders would endorse certain candidates, and the community would vote as a bloc for those candidates. Haredim mostly registered as Democrats, so — given close primary or general election races — they felt they could sway the party, or at least their local Democratic representatives, slightly to the right.

Average Haredim were not actively involved in politics. They would not ordinarily attend rallies outside Haredi auspices, nor would they make campaign contributions unless directed by certain political operatives. All strategic decisions about how the bloc should vote would come from the top.

The problem is, that for all those same years, Haredi leaders lambasted secular society, particularly the liberal values pushed by the left, and warned of the dangers they pose to the Haredi way of life. Of course in recent years, the issue of secular education was added to that list of grievances and the leaders portrayed the community as under siege by the leftists in government.

Then came Trump. His particular brand of showmanship ignited a whole new level of enthusiasm that drew many Haredim to actively engage in politics, including by attending rallies, making campaign contributions, even organizing traveling rallies and loudspeakers on trucks urging people to vote for Trump. The situation got so out of hand, that Satmar Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum, who himself supported Trump, had to remind his followers not to get sucked into the unholy world of politics.

The exposure Haredim have gained from engaging with the Trump supporters has brought Haredim into politics, exposing them to conservative literature and policies they didn’t previously closely examine or discuss. In fact, many of the issues that now preoccupied them, such as LGBT rights or abortion, had been taboo in the Haredi world — even to complain about them. In recent years, these have become acceptable, even regular, topics at shul kipkas, in the mikvah, at the kiddush, and even at the Shabbos table, though euphemisms are used to shield the younger kids from understanding.

Armed with this newfound understanding of their political beliefs, grassroots Haredim staged a rebellion. “Why should we keep voting for Democrats and go against our values?” they asked. “Maybe if our leaders had cut the cord with Democrats sooner, we wouldn’t have empowered them to implement these detrimental policies in the first place.”

And so began a growing rift between the leadership, which tries to be practical and strategic, and the grassroots, which wants to vote according to their values even if it means burning bridges and potentially hurting their institutions. To be clear, Haredi leaders still have sway with large portions of their constituents, but their control is diminishing. Despite rabbinic bans on smartphones, increasing numbers of grassroots Haredim use them to read non-Haredi media, and are less swayed by the leadership on political issues.

This phenomenon — average Haredim developing their own political opinions — has greatly threatened the leadership’s power. How are they to make deals with politicians if they can no longer guarantee them bloc votes?

Haredi leaders have grasped the nettle of this new reality. For them, the larger goals are to appear unified, with the leadership in control, and to be able to deliver a bloc vote. To do this, Haredi leaders have, in some cases, gone along with their followers' choices, but they also had another trick up their sleeve: the Haredi Ainglish teacher trick.

This is where Aron Wieder in Rockland, and before him Avi Schnall in Lakewood, and before him Simcha Eichenstein in Boro Park come in. Their years of advocacy on Haredi issues having gained the trust of the community, those Haredi politicians could still earn the community’s vote — even as Democrats. The community understands and trusts they are not liberals in moderate clothing, as some of the leadership’s prior choices were. If anything, they are conservatives in Democratic clothing, elected for the very practical purpose of wielding power in the Democratic-controlled legislature.

But to show how wary Haredim are of Democrats these days, even Aron Wieder was not sure he would get the support of Haredim on the ground in his run for State Assembly. Initial fears of a possible defeat turned into full-blown panic when, in the immediate days leading up to election day, video began spreading through the Haredi community of Wieder strongly affirming his support for Proposition 1 during a candidates’ debate. Wieder said he supported the proposition because “there’s never, never ever, enough protection for equal rights; the more the merrier.”. This video began spreading like wildfire in Haredi WhatsApp and Telegram groups just as ads from Agudah and the Republican party were plastered all over Haredi media urging them to “Vote No on Prop 1” because the proposition enshrines a number of rights the Haredi community finds anathema.

Wieder began fielding questions about his position, and he frantically tried to clarify it. He put out public statements in Yiddish and English, and sent out a robocall clarifying that it was all a misunderstanding and encouraging the community to “vote no on prop 1.” He also did multiple interviews to Haredi media, especially Kol Mevaser, where he explained that he actually hadn’t known about Prop 1 until the debate, and being put on the spot during the debate, he quickly looked it up and thought it was just about equal rights in general, so he said he supported it. In the Kol Mevaser interview, he lamented the fact that his 16 years of advocacy for the community was called into question. His co-interviewee, the mayor of New Square Izzy Spitzer, relayed how when he called Aron Wieder earlier in the day, Wieder had told him “my blood is spilling in the streets.”

Compare Wieder to Elijah Reichlin-Melnick, a fellow Democrat running for State Senate in an overlapping constituency. Unlike Wieder, whose record of advocating for the community was impeccable, Reichlin-Melnick was viewed as a liberal in moderate clothing. Although some in the Hasidic leadership endorsed Reichlin-Melnick — and the Skverer bloc in New Square was able to deliver over 90% of its votes to him — they were not able to secure his victory. This failure came despite his persuasive messaging in Yiddish ads that his Republican opponent, Bill Weber, would not be able to get much done in an Albany controlled by Democrats. Meanwhile Weber had proven his bona fides to the community over the prior two years in office, and cemented his victory with support from Hasidim who increasingly see themselves as Republicans. His retort to the Reichlin-Melnick ad spoke directly to the grassroots: “Vote your values.”

What does this mean for the Haredi vote moving forward? Chances are we will see a continuing shift to the Republicans, making it ever harder to sell a strategic Democrat to the community. Perhaps more Haredi electeds — political “Ainglish teachers” — will be drafted to run in local races to head off the grassroots rebellion, but perhaps there will come a time when even that will not even work anymore.