While Albany’s leaders performed New York’s version of the chainsaw massacre on public services, they scrounged up $18 million to allot tuition aid to students attending some private religious schools.
Most of the beneficiaries are likely to be 5,000 men who apply to attend Orthodox rabbinical schools.
One can argue that this measure breaches the separation wall of church and state, but the larger concern is whether rabbinical students should be cut a break while public schools and public colleges and universities are being hammered by state funding reductions.
We would never conclude that tuition aid was a political deal. We cannot bring ourselves to suggest that Gov. Andrew Cuomo along with Democratic and Republican lawmakers are trying to cement election help from the large, active bloc of Orthodox Jewish voters in Brooklyn and suburbs like Monsey in Rockland County and the Five Towns area on Long Island.
The New York Times explains that the money “would be available to any theological student who met a new set of criteria for the state’s so-called Tuition Assistance Program grants.” Brooklyn Democratic Assemblyman Dov Hikind, whose district in Boro Park is home to a large Orthodox population, has for 10 years sought to amend the TAP laws by gutting a ban on state tuition aid for undergraduate students who attend yeshivas and other religious schools that the state Board of Regents has not chartered.
This time, Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos was praised by Orthodox figures for pressing for inclusion of the new rules in the 2011-12 budget. Skelos, a Republican, represents Cedarhurst, Lawrence and other Orthodox communities in what is known as the Five Towns in Nassau County.
New York Jewish Week cited a report in City Hall News that Skelos reportedly discussed with Orthodox Jewish leaders a potential special Senate election in Brooklyn where the district has been represented by a Democrat. Orthodox leaders denied this, and Hikind said Skelos supported the rule change in the past.
Last October, Cuomo told an Orthodox leader during his campaign for governor that he favors the grants.
Most galling about this funding is that state leaders cry poverty and yet have money for a program that carries political dividends.
The Times specifies that the new budget slashes 10 percent of aid to public colleges and universities.
Fortunately, a legal challenge is being considered by Americans United for Separation of Church and State in Washington, D.C., on church-state grounds, according to Jewish Week.
Advocates for the grants point out that the money is allocated to the students, not the schools. However, their money will be spent on the schools once they are accepted and attend the schools.
Of course, certain Supreme Court justices may not see it that way.
Only Orthodox schools will benefit because seminaries for Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist students are graduate schools.
The grants also have gender and political implications. The Forward, a weekly Jewish newspaper, correctly notes in an April 15 editorial that this program comprises “a built-in gender bias.” It is traditionally men who train to become rabbis at Orthodox schools.
Many members of the cloth tend to become involved in political issues. Rabbis of all Jewish denominations regularly take positions on Israel. While almost all rabbis are supportive of Israel, Orthodox rabbis are more likely to take extreme positions opposed by many non-Orthodox Jews.
In other words, New York taxpayers will fund the education of rabbis who will probably stake out positions in conflict with American foreign policy interests, such as settlements.
Most Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist rabbis take positions that support both Israeli needs and American foreign policy interests. True, some rabbis and other Jews may go as far as to side with Israel’s detractors. None of this precludes legitimate criticism of Israel.
These grants also provide ammunition for anti-Semitism. Critics of the state’s budget cuts might accuse Jews of receiving special treatment. It is hard evidence to them that the Jews run the state of New York.
A segment of Jews is receiving special treatment and a segment of the Jewish community is flexing its political muscles.
Unfortunately, some people might think this way of all Jews.
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