Talk:Young Advocates for Fair Education

Change from Naftuli Moster to YAFFED

The subject of this article is probably best presented if it were about the Yaffed organization rather than the founder (he is only notable for his advocate effort anyways...) I.am.a.qwerty (talk) 22:28, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Bad move, QWERTY! This talk page is for discussing changes that should be made. You just made this change unilaterally. I am undoing it. Discuss things first and get a consensus before you basically delete articles.

Last comment unsigned by User Van Eman. No deletion occurred. This is a case where the group founder does not meet WP notability requirements as he is only known for this particular group/advocacy action, nevertheless, the group he founded and his activism is noteworthy (hence the name change and rewrite. In any case, the article was mostly about the org even before I moved it. This is a standard WP guideline so no need to wait around argue for consensus on this one (the rule itself is a product of concensus). If you disagree please consult one of the more experienced editors if this move has in fact diminished the quality of the article. I.am.a.qwerty (talk) 07:03, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Wrong. The article was around for quite a while and met notability standards. When you are quoted in The Jerusalem Post and the New York Times for your work, it's notable.VanEman (talk) 03:26, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

I believe we are discussing two different things here. The current article subject (YAFFED) is most definitely noteworthy. The man, Naftuli M., is only known for his YAFFED activism. Until that changes, it would make more sense to include him into the org article, rather than vice versa. I.am.a.qwerty (talk) 18:11, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Wrong. Naftuli Moster is noteworthy in his own right, serving as a spokesman for education issues in the community. Many leaders of organizations have separate articles as bio independent of the organizations they lead.VanEman (talk) 08:25, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

Merging the Naftuli Moster page with the YAFFED page would be in appropriate as the organization consists of more than just him and the organization is not synonymous with the person. I have no opinion as to whether Naftuli Moster meets standards of noteworthiness to merit his own Wiki article, however simply placing the information from his page onto the YAFFED page wouldn't work, since not all of the information on the page referring to him personally is relevant to the YAFFED page (his marital status, for example). I therefore propose closing the discussion of whether to merge the two articles and instead having a discussion on the Naftuli Moster Talk page as to whether or not that page should be deleted. HudsonValley (talk) 03:48, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

Censorship

Both the Jewish Week and The Jerusalem Post have carried articles about how YAFFED and similar organizations of Jewish activists fighting for the Orthodox community to meet secular education standards are facing censorship by the ultra-Orthodox community. People who participate in this activism are viewed as mosers. An apology was issued by a Hasidic newspaper that carried an ad for YAFFED. We need to be alert for attempts to censor the information shared on Wikipedia that is relevant and well documented. VanEman (talk) 16:15, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Your concern is valid. But no need for the alarmist tone. I'm sure that you can find a way to work with the other editors to ensure a well balanced article. I.am.a.qwerty (talk) 19:23, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Total re-write of Article

Article was written promotional News style and hate style towards the Hassidic community (subject of article). Article needs total re-write in a Nuetral non promotional sense. Caseeart (talk) 18:28, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Recent article corrections: summarized the sources that bring YAFFED'S goals, activities and members.

Sources were misrepresented in order to Promote YAFFED and to rant against the Hassidic community. Partially corrected to accurately present the sources. -NEEDS MORE WORK-

Multiple times along the article there were repeated rants about how poor Hassidic secular education. Placed it all in the beginning and removed the duplicates.

Removed many long "interviews" and rants that are not notable. (If we put every one of Moster's interviews we will never end the article.

Added controversies and response from the Hassidic community per WP:UNDUE "In articles specifically relating to a minority viewpoint, such views may receive more attention and space." - We specified that this is their response. @ I.am.a.qwerty Please let me know if this needs corrections. Caseeart (talk) 19:59, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

User:Caseeart, I think you may have gone too far with your edits. Too much emphasis on community response not enough on the main issue. I.am.a.qwerty (talk) 19:20, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

You did use a more neutral tone, but it could be that you shortened it a bit too much.Anyways for now lets leave it like this.

We also need to fix the beginning of the article as it appears in a way to smear the Hassidic's education system rather than focus on YAFFED's activities. Caseeart (talk) 20:04, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Please be mindful that other editors may not see it the same way. I.am.a.qwerty (talk) 20:29, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Community response and controversy sections

User:Caseeart, User:VanEman please note the recent changes I have made in the "Community Response" section. I hope we can find a middle ground that meets WP standards and you both will find representative of the topic at hand. I have also deleted the controversy section as it is too contentious and fails WP:Undue, Pov. In either case, the main issue is addressed in community response. I.am.a.qwerty (talk) 20:29, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

External links modified

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an insightfull article into naftuli moster's life, written by naftuli himself.

I highly recommend reading the article "My Hasidic Family Got Into a Passover Fistfight — Over Cake"

especially since it discusses ingreat detail his family and how he started thinking about yeshivot in the first place.

i'd like for the info from that article to be incorporated into the Wikipedia page.

link to the article for the readers convenience: https://forward.com/opinion/218183/my-hasidic-family-got-into-a-passover-fistfight/ RJJ4y7 (talk) 19:15, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

the aforementioned article

At the Passover Seder, we read about the four sons of the Haggadah, distinguishing them by the things they say. But the wicked and wise sons say essentially the same thing. Both ask: “What are these practices you keep?” The family of the wise son respects his question, while the family of the wicked son punches out his teeth. The difference is not in the sons, but in their families.

Last Passover, I was the four sons. I was wicked among one family, wise among another — and yet I never changed.

I began the holiday at the Hilton in Stamford, Connecticut with my father-in-law’s family. The family is American ultra-Orthodox. They dress modestly, keep the laws and stringencies, but are more worldly than the Hasidic family I grew up in.

Growing up, our customs did not permit any but the most basic ingredients to be used on Passover for boys and girls past bar or bat mitzvah: no pasteurized orange juice or pre-packaged chips or Oberlander’s kosher-for-Passover lady fingers. And with one mother to cook for a husband and 17 children, it sometimes felt like food was as scarce as it had been during Egypt’s famine. But at the hotel, mornings greeted me with cheesecakes and coffee prepared under the strictest supervision.

After the first two days of the holiday, we went to visit my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins who were staying at another hotel in Poughkeepsie, where they’d brought a private kosher supervisor to oversee all meals. I packed some of the first hotel’s cheesecakes and rainbow cookies into a matzo box for the young cousins and less stringent relatives. Emblazoned on the box was kosher certification for the matzo the box had come with, and separately we brought a paper with a rabbi’s signature certifying the pastries.

Though my immediate family belongs to Belz, an insular Hasidic sect, my grandparents, aunts and uncles, who belong to Chabad, were always more moderate in comparison. My parents used to discourage my siblings and me from visiting my mother’s family, fearing their bad influence.

My grandparents had grown less modern and more mainstream-Chabad over the years, but they still kept Disney movies in their house and a TV in their bedroom. My aunt too had changed from the days when she dated men who weren’t even religious, but still the tops she wore, though modest, didn’t come as high as the shirts my sisters would wear, and as a surgeon she often worked on Saturdays. She sent her children to ultra-Orthodox schools, but also let them take private lessons in non-ultra-Orthodox settings. If the cake was kosher enough for my father-in-law, I imagined even my adult relatives would indulge, but at the very least I knew the children would be permitted to eat the pastries, as I would have been at their age.

When my wife and I arrived at the hotel, a young cousin greeted us in the lobby and led us to my grandparents’ room.

“Zaidy, Bobby —” I started to say, my wife of less than a year at my side, the matzo box filled with cakes poised on my arms.

“What is that? Take it out!” my grandfather yelled at me, pointing at the box.

I tried setting the box on the table, telling him it’s kosher, when he yelled, “Don’t put it there, take it out! Get out with the food!” I tried setting it above the fridge, in a less accessible area, thinking that would suffice, but still my grandfather yelled.

Surprised at his reaction to my seemingly courteous gesture, I offered the pastries to my aunt and uncle in the adjacent room.

“You couldn’t bring it there, so you think you can bring it here?” my uncle hissed. “Get out of here.”

“What’s going on with this family? I’m trying to offer kosher food and this is how you treat me! This is f–king ridiculous,” I said, my aunt, too, now shrieking me out of the room.

“How dare you use that language in front of my kids,” she screamed, while her husband seethed into my ear. His breath was on me, his long, grey beard quivering in my face. “Get out or I’ll f—king stick a fork up you and your wife and eat you,” he said.

My aunt was still shrieking, and my ten-year-old cousin was saying, “You told him he can’t say ‘f–k,’ but now you just said ‘f–k’!” and I was rushing out of the room.

I went off to the side, crying, while my wife sat with my grandmother in the lobby and presented the kosher certification. A second aunt joined my wife. “Don’t take it personally,” she said. “Sharona’s been acting crazy all holiday — Sharona and Aryeh, they’ve been snapping at my kids since the day we got here. I left the Seder crying from those two, just took my kids and left — and Zaidy, he’s old, he’s set in his ways.”

Minutes later, my grandfather, flanked by a child on either side, proceeded to the lobby and to my wife. From where I was standing in the next room I heard him say he didn’t blame her, that she’s not from a Hasidic family so she couldn’t have known. “But your husband knows better,” my grandfather said. “He brought the cakes on purpose.”

“What are you saying to my wife?” I asked. “Maybe say hello to your grandson who just drove over an hour to see you. Maybe say ‘hello, how are you.’”

My aunt toddled toward me. “You talk that way to my father, and I’ll hit you.”

“You can’t touch me,” I said, knowing Orthodox custom prohibits physical contact between genders.

“I changed your diapers and wiped your tushy,” she said to me as she drew nearer. Then she lunged at me, throwing a few punches at my face, before another uncle managed to restrain her.

Leaving the hotel, my grandfather yelled after me, “You shaygetz! You mamzer!”

“I’m a mamzer?” I asked, so he might consider the implications for his daughter.

He paused. In his heavily Russian-accented English, he said, “You know what mamzer is?” — still clearly unaware of the implication. “A bastard.”

When my mother called the following day, I expected her to berate me as her family had. After all, she refused to even invite me for the holiday since I was no longer Hasidic. But my mother expressed surprise at her family’s reaction, given their laxity in the past.

Later that holiday we went to visit my mother-in-law. Again we packed cakes from the hotel.

“Maybe we shouldn’t,” I said to my wife. But my wife objected: “My mother loves cheesecake.”

We set the box on the kitchen counter when we arrived, joined everyone in the family room downstairs, and told them we’d brought Passover cakes.

“You brought cake?” said my mother-in-law.

I stood frozen, horrified at what I’d brought upon myself a second time.

But in the next instant, my mother-in-law tore up the stairs, and by the time I joined her in the kitchen she had plated herself a piece of cake.

For the final few days of the holiday, my wife and I were hosted by a dear friend and mentor. We had met her two years earlier at a Jewish event. Her family is Orthodox, attends synagogue, and keeps a kosher kitchen, but maintains an open home to individuals of different backgrounds.

“I don’t care how you get here,” she said to one of the guests. “By car, by foot. You can park a block away if you want.”

Sitting at the table, eating square matzos, we talked about the drama of the last few days. Our host shared similar hardships she’d faced with fundamentalist relatives. And then she told me: “Anyone would be lucky to have you in their family.”

Note: This is the story of Naftuli Moster, as told to his wife, the writer Miriam Lipsius. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RJJ4y7 (talk • contribs) 19:32, 4 November 2020 (UTC)