A prominent Torah scholar is warning New York that his community members fear incarceration in a dispute over their rights to carry out their religious obligations.

Rabbi Nosson Scherman, the general editor of Artscroll, has penned a letter to the Board of Regents and the education commissioner opposing proposed regulations on yeshivas across the state.

In particular, Rabbi Scherman raises concern about a potential enforcement mechanism: jail time for parents, what he calls a potential “gulag for Jews who cling to their religious values.”

“Parents will be subjected to prison,” Rabbi Scherman says in an interview with the Sun. “They’ll be considered keeping their children for a truant, unless they switch them out of the schools that the state disapproves of.”

Under the proposed regulations, local school districts would determine whether non-public schools are meeting the standards of “substantial equivalence” to public schools. Children attending non-compliant schools would be deemed truant, and their parents would be punishable under state truancy laws.

An advocate for the proposed regulations, Naftuli Moster, says the new regulations are merely enforcing laws that are more than 100 years old — those of truancy and substantial equivalence. Truancy laws in New York begin with a $10 fine on the parents or 10 days’ imprisonment, and can escalate to up to 30 days’ imprisonment for repeat offenders. 

“No one has ever questioned … that if parents don’t send their kids to schools that it’s considered truancy right? So it’s the same thing as simply not sending your kid to school,” Mr. Moster says. Schools that are not providing a basic education, he says, “are not really schools” in the eyes of the state.

Mr. Moster is a yeshiva graduate and the executive director of a group — Young Advocates for Fair Education — seeking to enforce New York substantial equivalence regulations in yeshivas. 

“I wasn’t taught English, math, science, and social studies,” Mr. Moster says of his chasidic yeshiva education. “We’re talking about kids not being taught the basics.”

Rabbi Scherman and other opponents of the regulations say that they would allow the state to impose curricular requirements that may be at odds with the learning objectives and cultural values of these yeshivas and the communities that they serve.

“Elementary fairness, not to mention the First Amendment, gives parents the right to choose the culture and values they wish to impart to their children,” Rabbi Scherman writes in the letter. “Especially onerous is the threat to imprison parents who cling to their age-old educational and moral code.”

“I guarantee you thousands of parents will be willing to go to jail if they have to,” Rabbi Scherman says. 

In his letter, Rabbi Scherman acknowledges some yeshivas are not meeting the substantial equivalence standard but claims that most are. He argues that the typical yeshiva curriculum aligns with the goals of public education by teaching “textual analysis, questioning, and debate” through Talmudic and biblical studies. 

The “proposed cookie-cutter standards” do not consider the value of this type of learning, he writes, “evidencing the fashionable disdain for religion.”

“Religion is not given the kind of priority that it was when I was younger,” Rabbi Scherman says, criticizing the “woke society” that sees Orthodox Judaism as “old-fashioned.” 

“The [Supreme] Court ruled that parents cannot be compelled to educate their children in a different way than they wish,” he says, citing the Wisconsin v. Yoder decision of 1971, when the court ruled that the state could not compel Amish children to attend public schools against their parents’ will. “That doesn’t exist anymore. If you look at these regulations, it’s almost as if the children are wards of the state.”

Mr. Moster sees the regulations as basic rules to uphold the wellbeing of children. He hopes the regulations will compel chasidic boys’ yeshivas in particular to provide more secular education without infringing on religious liberties, citing the examples of chasidic girls’ schools and non-chasidic Orthodox yeshivas. In these schools, time is devoted both to religious studies and secular studies.

“Just because the state has rules doesn’t mean the state is out to get you,” Mr. Moster argues, comparing these regulations to state efforts to prevent “drunk driving or other types of abuse of children.”

Both proponents and opponents of the regulations have until May 30 to submit comments to the Board of Regents. A 2019 attempt to impose standards of substantial equivalence was struck down by New York’s Supreme Court on procedural grounds.