On a recent visit to a thriving all-girls’ high school in Brooklyn, I was reminded of how institutions like this have long made New York a place where families can live, grow, and educate their children. Such schools must remain central to the city’s future.
Though Beth Rivkah High School in Crown Heights serves the Chabad community, it offers lessons for both public and private schools serving other populations. The school combines academic rigor with a deep commitment to the values and religious beliefs of the community that it serves. Many parents look for schools that reflect their own religious—or secular—convictions. A city as diverse as New York should encourage the creation of new schools that marry strong academics with family-aligned values.
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Until the mid-twentieth century, single-gender high schools were common. Since then, many girls’ schools have closed, and some boys’ schools have gone coed. Today, just five independent prep schools and 16 Catholic girls’ high schools remain in the city, with enrollment in those two sectors down by half over the past decade.
Jewish girls’ high schools, by contrast, have grown—enrollment rose 26 percent over the same period, and 50 such schools now operate in New York. Many, like Beth Rivkah, serve Hasidic families. Yet these schools are often overlooked in debates about state regulation of academics in Haredi boys’ schools. At Beth Rivkah, all students take a full schedule of New York State Regents exams and earn what was once called a Regents Diploma—now known as a Regents Diploma with Advanced Designation.
According to state education department data, Beth Rivkah High School is the third-largest girls’ high school in New York City, with just under 700 students. Two other Brooklyn schools serving Orthodox girls are even larger. Beth Rivkah is part of a broader educational complex that enrolls 1,358 girls in kindergarten through eighth grade. It also runs a one- to two-year post–high school teacher-training seminary, serving 250 young women and preparing them to teach in Orthodox Jewish schools.
Founded in 1941 by the sixth Lubavitcher rebbe, Yosef Y. Schneerson, Beth Rivkah was the first school in the world created specifically for Hasidic girls. Schneerson named it after his grandmother. After his death, the K–8 school expanded under the leadership of his son-in-law and successor, the seventh Lubavitcher rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson. The high school was established in 1955. Beyond its Crown Heights campus, Beth Rivkah schools now serve families in Canada, France, Australia, Morocco, and Israel.
The Crown Heights campus identifies three core values. The first stipulates: “Torah education is essential for girls and young women as a transformative preparation and training to make Jewish life stronger and empower each student as a future mother and educator.” The second holds that “every person possesses a crucial role in the world, serving as an ambassador of light”; students should “look for opportunities to create an impact and make a meaningful difference.” The third urges students to “respect and uplift all you come in contact with. Welcome and embrace every Jew and share with them the beauty of our heritage. Each one is worth the whole world.”
I heard these values reflected in conversations with staff and students. Administrators see their mission as preparing leaders for the Chabad community. “We train them to be leaders, not followers,” one told me. To lead effectively, young people need a deep understanding of the principles, texts, and traditions that underlie Jewish law and religious practice. I mentioned to students that their religious training struck me as quite complex and asked whether they ever questioned things that they didn’t initially understand or agree with. “Oh, yes,” they said. “That’s how we learn.”
This is not a program of rote memorization. The religious education program is based on the Torah, the books of the Prophets, and the Tanya, a foundational text of Lubavitch Hasidism written by the founder of the Chabad movement. It is described as “the one-size-fits-all life manual” by Chabad. The girls also study the Sichos: the public talks, addresses, and lectures of Menachem Mendel Schneerson.
As part of its core mission, the school involves students in regular service projects. Each week, students spend part of the day assisting someone in need—a new mother requiring help around the house, say, or an elderly person needing help with groceries, or a neighbor looking for a house-sitter.
The students I spoke with emphasized the importance of the relationships they build with peers and adults. “You are not alone here,” one said. The school is intentional about fostering this sense of community. Alongside a strong culture of mutual respect, it offers evening social activities and occasional weekend trips for Shabbat dinner and Sabbath observance. To maintain order and focus, students must check their cell phones in lockers during the day. On weekend trips, phones are not used on the Sabbath; when the school proposed allowing access at sundown, the girls themselves asked to remain phone-free until they returned home, preferring to stay fully present with one another.
New York City has always been shaped by the communities that make up its population, even as their backgrounds have changed over time. Today, public schools are seeing rising enrollment from Asian families, reflecting recent immigration trends, while the number of black students is declining. In the private sector, Jewish schools now enroll the largest share of students, while Catholic school enrollment continues to fall. If the city and state hope to retain families and sustain vibrant neighborhoods, they must recognize and support the full range of communities shaping New York’s future.
For too long, New York State has focused on the presumed academic failings of some Hasidic boys’ yeshivas, which reject secular studies or offer them poorly. These schools do teach Talmudic studies—what the families most want for their sons—and they exist within a broader educational ecosystem that includes girls’ schools like Beth Rivkah. Together, these institutions help form the next generation of community and family leaders.
For what it’s worth, my leisurely stroll through Crown Heights after visiting the school did not support critics’ claims that boys’ yeshivas are driving widespread poverty. To call the homes well maintained and attractive would be an understatement.
The New York Times drove the message that the boys’ schools cause despair, and the three major city dailies called for their reform. What the press has overlooked is the recent change of heart by Naftuli Moster, the young man who started the whole challenge to the yeshivas. Moster now “considers the confrontational tactics he once embraced misguided and says he has developed a deep appreciation for the Orthodox way of life,” reported the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, quoting Moster’s admission of “something that I wasn’t able to sort of acknowledge and admit at the time—that preservation of the community has a lot of value.”
The cause that Moster launched led to new regulations by the state education department, requiring the boys’ schools to offer a curriculum “substantially equivalent to that of local public schools.” A legal battle ensued; it was finally adjudicated by the state’s highest court in June. Though nominally a win for critics of the schools, the decision significantly limited the state’s enforcement power. The court upheld the regulations as lawful but ruled that the state cannot shut down schools that fail to meet them. Instead, enforcement must target parents, who could be found in violation of compulsory education laws unless they can show that their sons are receiving secular instruction through tutoring or other supplemental means.
An obvious compromise is available. If New York were to join the many other states that have established education savings accounts, families with students in schools not meeting the “substantial equivalence” standard could use ESA funds to purchase supplemental instruction. Meantime, parents of girls attending Beth Rivkah and other private schools already in compliance could use the funding to offset tuition costs.
If New York continues to deny parents genuine educational choice, the federal government may step in. The Trump administration budget reconciliation bill includes a federal tax credit of up to $1,700 for contributions to organizations that provide financial assistance to families paying tuition at private and religious schools or purchasing educational supplements. Unfortunately, a last-minute political compromise made state participation optional. It’s time for New York to join those embracing educational pluralism and family choice. Beth Rivkah and many other schools—with different, but equally valuable, missions—deserve no less.
Photo: Founded in 1941 by the sixth Lubavitcher rebbe, Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson, Beth Rivkah was the first school in the world created specifically for Hasidic girls. (Courtesy of Associated Beth Rivkah Schools)
