Yeshiva Students Gone Wild?

By Yaffi Spodek

A yeshiva classroom in Jerusalem sits empty. Parents of yeshiva students dispute charges that their children are partying instead of studying. (eytonz/Flickr)

The article, entitled “Fast Times at ‘Gap Year’ High,” analyzed the experiences of boys and girls from the Orthodox Jewish community, where common practice is to spend a post-high school year studying at a yeshiva or seminary in Israel. The author, Michele Chabin, the Jewish Week’s Israel correspondent, described yeshiva boys getting drunk near “Crack Square,” a downtown Jerusalem hangout, and girls suffering from eating disorders and other problems, many of which were attributed to inadequate school supervision. She also quoted students who said that smoking pot and taking drugs in yeshiva dormitories was not uncommon.

Letters to the editor poured in from parents who felt that the story highlighted only a small minority of rebellious teens, and was not representative of the 2,000 to 3,000 men and women who go for a spiritual year of Torah study and religious growth. Many insist that they return with a stronger connection to Israel and a renewed commitment to Judaism. But experts said the fall-out from the article was short-lived; any long-term effects seem unlikely, given that most parents and school administrators know that the wayward students portrayed in the piece were exceptions, not the norm.

“I think the Jewish Week article was not timely, nor was it based on a news story,” said Dr. Hillel Davis, Vice President for University Life at Yeshiva University. “As far as I know there was no event that drove the publication of this article. As a result I have not seen much parental reaction.”

Davis noted that there is always an undertone of concern surrounding these issues, but that it manifests itself more in questions posed to individual schools.

As part of its S. Daniel Abraham Israel program, Yeshiva has an arrangement with over 45 yeshivot and seminaries, where students are eligible to receive academic credit counting toward the fulfillment of their undergraduate degrees.

Close to 600 students enrolled in Yeshiva’s Israel Program in recent years, and the number has remained stable. “The issues raised in the article are occurrences that come up time and time again,” said Stephanie Strauss, the assistant director of the university’s Israel Program. “I have not heard any reaction from anyone.”

Davis confirmed that there was not a significant decrease in the number of students going to Israel. “If there is a bit of a drop, it is unclear whether that can be attributed to these, or other concerns, or the economy,” he said. “The accreditation process,” he added, “goes beyond the academics… We do not base accreditation on the reputation a school may have ‘on the street.’”

Some schools are known to have negative reputations, but it’s ultimately up to the parents to decide what environment is best for their child. And it’s also unrealistic to expect that a yeshiva or seminary experience will reform a child’s behavior.

“A parent has to know their own kid,” said Fran Mermelstein of Great Neck.

Mermelstein’s youngest son, Alex, will be attending Yeshivat Hakotel, a learning program in Jerusalem, next year.  “I don’t send a child to Israel to change or to stop doing what they’re doing,” she says. “I want them to come back the same, but with a love for Israel and the experience of living there.”

Mermelstein said the Jewish Week’s depiction of the gap year did not reflect the positive experiences she generally associates with it. She compared the Israel experience to a college student studying abroad. “The kids do have a certain level of independence,” she acknowledged. “It’s very hard to monitor, but I guess I don’t expect the schools in Israel to be a watchdog, except for security, like any college campus would have.”

But beyond security concerns, she feels confident sending Alex away. He is her third child to spend the year in Israel, and the second to attend Yeshivat HaKotel. “A lot of parents send their kids and don’t know what goes on there,” she said, “but I know my kids and I know the school, so I never worried about that.”

Though some schools enforce curfews and other protective policies, there is only so much that can be done to prevent drinking, drugs, and other vices. This is particularly true in cases where students had problems prior to their arrival in Israel.

“I think it’s definitely true that some yeshivas don’t supervise kids very well,” says a Brooklyn father of five, who spoke on condition of anonymity. His youngest son, 16, had been studying at a yeshiva in Jerusalem, but returned to America last month after his Canadian roommate, 19, was arrested for smuggling drugs into Israel.

Would better school supervision have prevented this? “Probably not,” the father admitted. “This was a problem that existed before he even came to yeshiva.”

The incident, unfortunate though it was, is still an anomaly and is not representative of the typical “year in Israel” experience.

“It’s a shame, because he was really enjoying himself and learning well,” said the father. “He just felt betrayed when this happened and felt it was the right time to come back. But if I had another kid, I would send them also, because I know this was an unusual situation.”

This entry was posted on Monday, March 1st, 2010 at 10:50 am and is filed under Featured, Judaism and tagged with Jerusalem, Yaffi Spodek, yeshiva. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.