Children’s education is often a battleground in Haredi divorces. However, activists hope to change the tug of war between parents over which school their kids attend. If a new bill passes the New York state legislature, family court judges will need to prioritize secular education requirements when deciding which school children can attend. 

The bill, which has been introduced in the state senate but not the assembly, faces a steep uphill battle to become law. If passed, though, state law would show a preference to higher levels of secular education in private schools, including Hasidic yeshivas, many of which drastically limit instruction in English, math, science, social studies, and other non-religious subjects. 

The legislation, which was sponsored by liberal state senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal and would be difficult to enforce, would create a “non-rebuttable presumption that it is in the best interest of a child” to attend a school that provides what the state views as sufficient secular education.

It would ask judges to disregard other potential factors — such as “continuity” of education in a child’s life or the child’s own testimony — when they decide whether children of divorcing parents should continue to attend schools that the state has found offer sub-par secular education.

Julie Kay is a legal strategist for Footsteps, an organization that helps people who leave the formal Haredi community. There she works with parents who have made lifestyle changes and who are fighting for custody with their ex-spouses who are still in the community. “Children can have a religious education and it doesn’t have to come at the expense of their secular education or at the expense of their relationship with their parents,” Kay told Shtetl. Years ago, she worked with Naftuli Moster, then the executive director of the advocacy organization YAFFED, to draft the legislation. Moster is now the editor in chief of Shtetl.

The bill, which was introduced for the first time in January, is named for Beatrice Weber, a divorced mother of 10 children, all of whom attended Hasidic schools. In 2019, Weber filed a complaint against the school her son attended, Yeshiva Mesivta Arugath Habosem. Three years later, New York State determined, partly based on Weber’s testimony, that the school was not compliant with state education standards.

Despite the state’s finding and Weber’s sole custody, a family court judge required Weber’s son, Aron, to continue attending the non-compliant school. Weber was outraged. “How can a family court judge in New York State insist that a child go to a school that is not teaching?” she said in an interview with Shtetl. She attributed the judge’s decision partly to an agreement she made years ago with her ex-husband that the boy would continue attending this school. The new legislation would protect against such agreements which parents often sign under pressure and before realizing all possible future implications.

Weber’s experience isn’t unique. Shaindy Weichman is the divorced mother of a Hasidic son who she says attended schools that were officially judged inadequate. She says that when she proposed alternative education options to the judge in her divorce case, such as a Haredi school in Borough Park that provided secular education, she was met with “crickets.”

At the time, her son first attended a Skver Hasidic school in Borough Park. The judge presiding over the case found this appropriate, despite the shortage of secular education Weichman described, commenting that the boy seemed happy and well-adjusted. 

Weichman, who has been lobbying city and state officials to enforce education standards in her son's schools for nearly a decade, says that had it not been for her supplementing his education outside school, her son, now 18, would still be at a basic level. Indeed, in some subjects, she told Shtetl, “I don’t think my son is on a higher level than second or third grade.”

Those judges’ decisions may reflect how many judges have approached the complicated issue of children’s schooling. For years, courts have emphasized the importance of continuity — or “status quo” — in the lives of children of divorced parents, so that children are not overwhelmed by the change or alienated from the more religious side of their family. Some judges have even instructed parents who left the Hasidic community to continue acting as if they are Hasidic so as not to risk confusing their children. 

More recently, though, judges have become more conscious of parents’ civil liberties, and ruled that the parent’s freedom of expression outweighs the child’s need for continuity. Still, some Haredi activists who have gone “off the derech” or left the community criticize the family court structure and accuse judges of being biased in favor of more religious parents, especially in counties where judges are elected rather than appointed.

Now, two different foci of off-the-derech Haredi activism — family courts and secular education — are coming together. The new legislation hinges on a recent development in which school districts across New York State are now required to report whether the schools in their district are providing the legally required secular education. So far, there have been only a few such reports, but all districts are required to submit them by summer 2025.

For Beatrice and Shaindy, the law, if passed, will no longer benefit them or their kids. Shaindy’s son is now 18 and out of the k-12 Yeshiva system. For Beatrice, she lucked out when her son’s Yeshiva was fed up with her advocacy and kicked out her son, which enabled her to finally enroll him into a mainstream Jewish school with a strong secular studies curriculum.

“He often asks me why I didn’t remove him earlier,” Weber said. “It’s hard when he asks me that. How do you explain that to a child?”

Weber — who was executive director of YAFFED for nearly two years — found herself at a loss for words.

“I’m like, ‘I tried. I promise you. I wanted to. I tried.’”