Rabbi Dovid Nojowitz of Torah Umesorah fortifies yeshivahs for battles past and present

Photos: Naftoli Goldgrab

Torah schools today don’t have it easy.

They’re suffering from teacher shortages, money shortages, greater expectations from parents, children with cognitive or emotional challenges and lessened attention spans. Complicating the picture, at least in New York, is the threat Torah schools are facing from the New York State Education Department (NYSED) to compromise the independence of yeshivos and impose a curriculum antithetical to Torah.

But the Education Department doesn’t know who it’s up against. Rabbi Dovid Nojowitz, a soft-spoken man — the type who tends to listen more than talk and has no affection for the limelight — has, as head of Torah Umesorah, emerged as an unapologetic fighter for the hundreds of institutions under his purview.

“I’ve always known Reb Dovid to be a leader,” says Rabbi Chaim David Zweibel, executive vice president of Agudath Israel of America. “But now, in the face of the NYSED challenges, I know him as a front-line soldier.”

Torah Umesorah is known for its solution-oriented approach to a wide range of chinuch issues, but now it’s found itself in the thick of a new fight.

Chinuch under Siege  

This past October, New York State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa declared that a boys’ yeshivah in Williamsburg was violating the law by not providing its students with sufficient secular education, and required the yeshivah to work with the NYSED to come up with a plan to fix these lapses (with final approval dependent on the NYSED). This determination was provoked by a 2019 lawsuit brought by a disgruntled parent (who has since left the community) against the school. The New York Times and other media then began their own alleged investigations of chassidic schools, charging that they accept government money but do not use it for its intended purpose, namely secular education, and that students from these Yiddish-speaking yeshivos score abysmally low on standardized tests. Mayor Eric Adams promised to conduct an investigation. Governor Hochul, in the middle of a race for governor, did her best to stay out of the fray.

The NYSED gives the public 30 days to respond to its proposed regulations. Three years ago, when the state sought to interfere in curricula for all parochial schools, 140,000 opposing letters were submitted by the Jewish community. At that time, the authorities backed off. This time, the target is Jewish schools. A coalition of Torah Umesorah, Agudath Israel, and PEARLS (Parents for Educational and Religious Liberty in Schools) led a campaign resulting in the submission of a whopping 300,000 letters, all of which were waved aside by NYSED without consideration. Torah Umesorah took responsibility for the bulk of the massive letter-writing campaign, reaching out to its vast network of schools and their parent bodies, including ex-New Yorkers who now live out of state.

“The NYSED is required by law to read the letters,” Rabbi Nojowitz says with evident exasperation. “It is extremely upsetting that out of 300,000 letters, there was not a single idea that they considered in their equation.”