In recent years, the main issue for Haredi leaders, and by extension their followers, has been the independence of yeshivas to determine what education they provide to their students. The priority of the community has always been religious education and, for decades, that has come at the expense of the basic secular education mandated by state law.

After a hard-fought battle over how, or even whether, the state should mandate “substantial equivalency,” New York State implemented a new system for overseeing non-public schools to ensure they are in compliance with the law.

Yeshivas have resorted to every tool in the box to prevent this oversight: legal, PR, and electoral. And of course prayer. One challenge faced by Yeshiva leaders has been that the New York State legislature is controlled by Democrats, and they tend to favor government oversight and de-emphasize parental control when it comes to child welfare policies.

But, like all politicians, one thing that Democrats value more than principles is winning elections. And in recent years, Haredi leaders have managed to use their electoral power to threaten Democrats if they don’t let up on the Yeshivas. They elected several Republicans for state senate and assembly, and they supported the longshot Republican candidate for governor, Lee Zeldin, greatly elevating his profile and helping to bring him within just 5% points of his Democrat rival Kathy Hochul. Most crucially, in a very tight Congress, they ratcheted the pressure up a notch when they elected Republican Mike Lawler to a seat that had been long held by Democrats.

Although until now this has largely been a state matter, community leaders have sought to elevate it to the national arena where they could tie it to the Republican push for parental control, and where they could threaten the Democratic control of the house and thus use their leverage to pressure local democrats to give them control of the content of their children’s education.

And it’s working.

In the past year, there have been several reports of Democratic congressional representatives meddling and applying pressure on New York government officials to find a way to delay enforcement of education standards or allow for greater latitude for the yeshivas. Many of those reports were based on rumors or anonymous leaks from New York officials who opposed the push to delay enforcement of state standards.

But now it’s all out in the open.

Earlier this week, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer visited the grand rabbi of New Square, taking along House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries as well as former congressman — and current candidate — Mondaire Jones. Together they hoped to convince Skver and other local leaders to back Jones’ comeback against Lawler.

At that meeting, the Skver rabbi and his aides brought up the issue of yeshivas, and Jeffries promised that next session they would bring a “resolution” to the issue. Echoing Jeffries, Schumer brilliantly used a line that Haredim have used for many years to try to convince the world to leave them alone. Speaking as one Jew to another, Schumer asked rhetorically, “our shuls, our Yeshivas, our Shtieblach are such good places, you don’t have criminals coming out of it, and you don’t have anything else, and it works! So why try and change it?” The rabbi, hearing the music to his ears, nodded along, and added “no crime, no drugs…”

In the videos making the rounds in Haredi groups, Jones is barely seen or heard, and, unlike his opponents and fellow candidates for other races who have placed multiple full page ads in Haredi magazines in recent weeks, he’s nowhere to be found. But it’s safe to say he got the message that in order to win and then retain this seat, he’ll need to hold his nose and support efforts to give yeshivas a carve-out when it comes to compliance with secular education standards.

His opponent, Mike Lawler, has already put in the work to ingratiate himself to the Haredi community, especially on education. He worked to pass federal legislation to allow Haredi parents to skip secular education, and he facilitated introductions and meetings between Haredi leaders and congressional leaders, including Speaker Johnson, to push the case for yeshivas. Indeed, Lawler’s popularity in the Haredi community is unprecedented. As one conservative Haredi political operative, Yossi Gestetner, commented to the Times: “I’ve seen Lawler more times than I’ve seen my rabbi.”

Pat Ryan, the Democratic incumbent up in Kiryas Joel has been openly pushing the same thing. In an all-Yiddish ad in local magazines, he lists various ways he’s helped the community, such as fighting antisemitism, securing grants, and working to make health insurance cover fertility treatment. All these are literally dwarfed by the issue he lists in large letters:

And most important of all, a dedicated defender of our religious education system
He stood up without fear to defend our holy education system of our tradition, and despite exposing himself to regular hateful attacks, he stands firmly in that position.
It is clear that we must bring out each and every vote for Pat Ryan.

Another ad is all about the Yeshiva education battle:

Pat Ryan for Education. Our holy education comes under repeated attacks from all directions. The future of our generations hangs in the balance.
Pat Ryan stands up each time to fight our enemies and protect our lifestyle.
Vote for the Jew lover Pat Ryan - a brave fighter for our education.

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Back to the local races, Elijah Reichlin-Melnick, a once-progressive who held the state senate seat for just two years before losing to Republican Bill Weber, has now come out full-throatedly supporting yeshivas’ independence.

In ads, he discusses “the education decree” against them and promises to defend the yeshivas. In one ad he openly boasts that he told a rabbi that he’d be their voice in the Senate to ensure that the state has no right to meddle in the yeshiva education system. Just a few years ago, he was lambasted in Haredi papers for suggesting that the state has the right to enforce education standards the same way it has the right to enforce speed limits.

Up north in Kiryas Joel, too, Senator James Skoufis, once considered a Haredi hater by local leaders has come around and earned the community’s endorsement this time around. One ad posted by Kiryas Joel’s “bloc vote” elections committee describes him as a “lion” fighting for Yeshiva independence.

It appears that between a Republican party already predisposed to defend yeshivas in the name of religious freedom, school choice, and parental control and the Democratic party’s willingness to compromise on this issue in order to win, that advocates still have an uphill battle, despite some recent wins.