Dangerously Cloistered Religion-Obsessed Minds

"[In order to] prevent future generations from having to suffer what they suffered [Yohanan and Shifra Lowen await a judgement against the Province of Quebec and Boisbriand Hasidic schools]."
"These illegal schools still exist and several hundred students attend them, in full view of government authorities."
"The plaintiffs finished their high school education without knowing about the St. Lawrence River of the theory of evolution."
Court motion

"When he left the community, he [Yohanan Lowen] could not speak French and could not speak English very well."
"They [the former Hasidic couple are not seeking damages but a declaratory judgement; they] don’t want this to be the case for children in Hasidic schools today, even in Montreal."
Lawyer Bruce Johnston

Clara Wasserstein and Yochonon Lowen arrive at the Montreal courthouse Monday. The former Hasidic Jews claim they completed their secondary education without knowing what the St. Lawrence River is or ever hearing about the theory of evolution. Graham Hughes / THE CANADIAN PRESS

Like any other people who leave a cult, finding its strictures and aversion to the greater society around them stifling and incompatible with a larger social contract, diminishing their pride in their ethnic and religious roots as a result of the severity of the constraints, and ultimately finding themselves unable to fit into the larger community in which they live and work; finding above all that the education they received as children ill-prepared them for life anywhere outside the community, a couple in Montreal who decided to leave an Orthodox Hasidic community has launched a court case.

Clearly the education they describe and which had undergone examination by provincial education authorities for its results in adequately preparing children to embark into the world as adults found the curriculum beyond wanting; inadequate and painfully close-minded. The children who graduated alongside the now-adult married couple were barely functional in either English or French, were almost, on graduation, illiterate and innumerate. They knew nothing about their immediate geography, much less world history past and present.

The couple appeared in Quebec Superior Court to seek a judgement against the Province of Quebec, accusing it of failing to ensure they and other Hasidic children taught in private parochial schools entirely in Yiddish, with no secular subjects on the curriculum whatever, were adequately prepared for responsible independence. The schools, moreover, had no license to recognition as educational institutes. The children attending them had no exposure to subjects in history, geography, science or art, much less the official languages of the country.

The couple was unprepared on graduation to integrate into Quebec society, despite being born in the province. Since leaving the Hasidic community in 2010 they have found it a struggle without possessing recognized high school diplomas, and equipped with the utterly lacking education they received at one of the Hasidic community's Boisbriand Hasidic schools in Montreal to qualify for employment anywhere. The kind of parochial school they attended should have been an after-hours addition to attending a regular public school where approved curricula would have formed the basis of their education.

Perhaps a good question to be put to this pair of rightly disaffected people is where lies the responsibility of parents within the Hasidic community who obviously felt their obligations to their children had been met when they received a distinctly sub-par education through this kind of schooling? Only fundamentalist fanatics might consider that as parents they have provided their children with the opportunity through a thorough, basic education to take their place in adult society when they have in fact, failed so spectacularly.

An educational assessment of 320 boys of the community found 280 among them acutely lacking in math and reading and writing in English. A youth protection agency was called in 2014 to assess a girls' school operated by the Hasidic community, discovering the students could speak English and received secular education at a somewhat lower level of difficulty than in comparison to other schools. A subsequent assessment of the boys' school found another situation altogether.

Of the boys, many among them educated in Yiddish only, were unable to speak or understand enough English to take tests without the help of an interpreter; in addition, speaking virtually no French whatever. Many of the boys were products of educational neglect; their knowledge identified as "below the minimum of what's needed to be functional and autonomous in Quebec society".

Once the families entered into an agreement with the school board to regularize education, the situation saw a marked improvement and by 2017 fewer than 100 of the boys were considered educationally "compromised", even while their education level was still below that of other students of their age group. By shielding children of the Lowy Hasidic community from 'contamination' by the social mores and values of the greater society, the community endowed their children with academic ignorance ill-preparing them for life in the modern world of today.

In order to protect the community from what he perceived as the moral decay of the outside community, Rebbe Lowy put together a set of by-laws "to govern the behavior of all the residents" of Kiryas Tosh.^[7] To live in this community, residents need to abide by these by-laws.^[7]

1. No book, newspaper, or magazine is permitted in the buildings of the community, unless their content is in conformity to strictly Orthodox Judaism.
2. All male members of the community must attend religious services, three times per day, at the synagogue.
3. No radio, television, record, or cassette is allowed in the buildings of the community.
4. No members of the community may attend the cinema or be present at any theatrical performance under the penalty of immediate expulsion.
5. All women residing in the community must dress in accordance with the Orthodox laws of modesty, as follows:
6. All dresses must be at least four inches below the knees, no trousers or panty-hose may be worn by women and girls 3 years of age or older.
7. Married women's hair must be completely covered in public, by a scarf or by a wig.
8. It is forbidden for unrelated men and women to walk together in the street.
9. Men and women must be separated by a wall (at least 7 feet high), when attending any gathering of a social or religious nature.
10. All food consumed in the buildings of the community must conform to the dietary laws of the Code of Laws and be approved by the chief Rabbi or his second in command.
11. No car may be driven by an unmarried man.
12. The members must submit any interpersonal conflict to the arbitration of a rabbinical court.
13. The Sabbath must be observed in strict conformity to Jewish law.
14. Male members of the community must study the Torah and other religious texts for at least two hours a day.

Teachers of secular subjects who come into the community must follow guidelines of their own:

1. All textbooks and literature to be used by the students in class or at home... must first be approved by the principal.
2. No stencil or photo-copy of any other book may be used without approval.
3. Students are not permitted to go to the public library nor is the teacher permitted to bring into the school, for the students, any such books.
4. No newspaper or magazine may be read in school or hung up. Students are not permitted to read the above at home either.
5. No records or tape may be used in the classroom without approval.
6. No extra subjects, books, magazine supplement or other information which is not on the required curriculum of the school may be taught.
7. For extra credit work or for class projects, students should not be told to write away for such material. The teacher should supply them with the material with approval.
8. No discussion on boyfriends.
9. No discussions of reproduction.
10. No discussion about radio, television or movies.
11. No discussion on religion.
12. No discussion about Women's Liberation
13. No homework on Thursdays.