New York Yeshiva Closes After 13 Students Test Positive For COVID-19

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Yeshiva students study at the Darchei Torah Boys School in Far Rockaway, in New York City's borough of Queens. (Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images)

NEW YORK (JTA) – At least 13 students at a yeshiva in Queens, New York, tested positive for COVID-19 just weeks into the new school year and days before Rosh Hashanah.

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Yeshiva Darchei Torah will transition to distance learning temporarily while the Health Department conducts an investigation, according to Politico.

The cases come on the heels of school closures and quarantines of entire classes in several Jewish day schools in the New York area and rising anxiety over an uptick in COVID cases in Orthodox communities. One Orthodox high school in Manhattan shut down for at least two days after four students tested positive.

While the schools hoped to resume in-person learning after finishing the previous school year entirely online, the return to in-person classes has proven difficult in the face of new COVID cases.

A spokesman for New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said the Queens yeshiva would resume virtual classes amid the Health Department conducts an investigation.

“Following discussions with senior City Department of Health officials and the yeshiva leadership, we have proposed moving the school to remote learning for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday to complete a health investigation and protect students and staff from COVID transmission, given evidence of cases across multiple age levels,” Bill Neidhardt, a spokesperson for the mayor, told Politico in an email. “The school has significant experience with virtual learning from earlier in the year, and we believe this is the safest approach to track down the cause of over a dozen lab-confirmed COVID cases across the school.”

In a letter to the school community, Rabbi Yaakov Bender, head of the yeshiva, said “there is a concern that the Yeshiva may have to close because of a proposal from the City of New York” and said the school was preparing a plan to transition to online learning.

“There is no replacement for in-person learning, which we have been conducting in a safe and efficient manner — in careful adherence to the instructions of world-class infectious disease specialists — since late August,” Bender wrote. “However, our staff is hard at work preparing a plan to transition to virtual learning.”

It should be noted that the 13 positive cases referred to by the Health Department represent less than three-quarters-of-one-percent of the Darchei Torah student population, which currently sits at just under 2600, according to a Yeshiva official.


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34 Comments
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Judith
Judith
3 years ago

This is real , not fake , because some selfish individuals continue to host large weddings , visit New York even though their state is on the quarantine list , daven in shul without masks , etc.

Anonymous
Anonymous
3 years ago

CONFIRMED – This is NOT fake news. Rabbi Yaakov Bender wrote “staff is hard at work preparing a plan to transition to virtual learning.” See Yeshiva world for his entire letter – school closed.

Chucj
Chucj
3 years ago

CRAZY TOWN

PaulinSaudi
PaulinSaudi
3 years ago

Gosh, if only someone had told them how risky reopening was.

ruby
ruby
3 years ago

sof maaseh bemachshava techila.. you cant tantz on both sides either you follow the cdc & try to be yotzei kchol hagoyim or you follow our mesorah.
the mageifa happened in march .. this is not that & our response needs to be appropriate , leaving decisions of yes yeshiva or no yeshiva cant be decided by the mayor .

Dave
Dave
3 years ago

Fake news!!

Phineas
Phineas
3 years ago

If it’s a school-by-school basis, will parents just put their kids in a school that’s still open?

dil emma
dil emma
3 years ago

this is one big dilemma .

Educated Archy
Educated Archy
3 years ago

Just wondering from all the pro school closure folks, how many have kids in school?

Measles expert
Measles expert
3 years ago

This is terrible. How many students have died from testing “positive”? What is the latest death count of bachurim/students?

Joe G
Joe G
3 years ago

Fake. Yeshiva is open

Educated Archy
Educated Archy
3 years ago

Many charedi frum yeshivas have remained open despite recent new cases in our community. There seems to have been zero school spreads. Camps were open as well with I’d say one million kids attending camps with no social distance. While wedding seem to be a hot spot , schools are not. As the data pointed to before, kids don’t seem to spread it as much. Our yeshivas need not be closed. And yeshivas are essential. Firstly, we don’t believe in kids using zoom like others. Secondly, we believe for judaism you need the in person rebbe feel. Let’s never shut down this essential service for long periods of time.