Education activists who believe yeshivas are short-changing their students are accusing New York City of needlessly dragging out a seven-year investigation into the Jewish academies. 

The most prominent advocacy group for state oversight of yeshivas, Young Advocates for Fair Education, called it a “crime” to withhold the results of the investigation.

“The city has refused to turn over these documents while hiding behind a claim that they’re still investigating,” the group’s executive director, Naftuli Moster, said, adding that he sees “no evidence that the investigation is taking place.”

Mr. Moster’s organization, known as Yaffed, is responsible for much of the increased pressure to bring yeshivas under oversight by state education officials. Its members include yeshiva graduates who say their schools denied them a basic education.

Yaffed rose to prominence seven years ago after filing a complaint to the New York City Department of Education against 39 yeshivas. The group claimed these schools were failing to meet state legal standards.

According to state law, non-public schools must provide an education that is “substantially equivalent” to what students would receive in local public schools. 

According to Yaffed, many right-wing yeshivas fail to meet the standard because they do not teach the same subjects as public schools. Instead, yeshiva students spend most of their days studying biblical and talmudic passages with study partners — speaking primarily a mixture of Hebrew, Yiddish, and Aramaic. 

Yeshiva advocates, however, claim that such studies provide “critical thinking” skills that are substantially equivalent to those gained in public schools. 

Furthermore, they charge that compulsory curricular requirements violate their First Amendment rights, by mandating instruction of topics antithetical to their religious principles.

The city began an investigation into the yeshivas in August 2015. An interim report in December 2019 found that 26 of the yeshivas were not compliant with standard equivalency laws, but a full report was never issued. 

Yaffed filed another formal complaint earlier this month urging the state education commissioner “to compel New York City and its school chancellor to end the charade and acknowledge that the investigation is indeed over.”

The complaint seeks a public update on the status of the investigation — and requests that the probe conclude within 30 days if it is ongoing, with a plan for “remediation.”

“Seven years later, the city inexplicably claims its investigation is ongoing while neglecting to provide details and a remediation plan,” Yaffed said in a statement.

The city’s Department of Education said it was unable to comment on ongoing investigations or litigation.

Meanwhile, the Board of Regents, which oversees the state’s education department, is considering new regulations that would task local school districts with evaluating non-public schools’ compliance with substantial equivalence laws — which Yaffed has championed.

Under these regulations, yeshivas would be evaluated every seven years.