Any converts who homeschool?

Ruchel

Fri, May 28 2010, 8:09 am

Well, yes, some BD asks that the child is in a Jewish school AFTER, as well as the family being shomer shabbes and kashrus. Some ask more.

Not all families follow all or any of that and I have never heard of having problems, but you should know what YOUR BD says.

amother

Fri, May 28 2010, 8:11 am

Ruchel wrote:

But that's the point--homeschooling is Jewish in a Jewish family when teaching Jewish subjects. My children are immeasurably happier now. I think we're pretty on par with grade level things as well. Maybe even a little ahead.

Ruchel

Fri, May 28 2010, 8:14 am

amother wrote:

Ruchel wrote:

While I agree, not all BDs will be so "modern" about education techniques. To many, homeschool is "not real school".

Isramom8

Fri, May 28 2010, 8:15 am

I don't doubt that this could be true. I'm pointing out that since your family already has a difference, it could be a disservice to your kids' full acceptance and inclusion in the Jewish community to do a bunch of other different stuff. Homeschooling isn't the norm. Just consider that factor when you weigh your decisions.

amother

Thu, Jun 03 2010, 3:35 pm

My first husband is a Ba'al Teshuva. He homeschools our child, but hires a private Rebbe for Mishnayos and Gemara.

My son reads each parsha himself using the Hebrew-English Chumash.

The Torah emphasizes that how you treat other people matters.

According to our local school, a child can hurt other children so long as his father is a member of the school board.

Some schools don't accurately represent Torah values, unfortunately.

amother

Thu, Jun 03 2010, 3:41 pm

My husband's mother was a convert.

She stopped being frum for a few years, and even sent my husband to public school. Then she became frum again and sent my husband to Yeshiva.

The Rabbonim of the Yeshiva accepted my husband because it was still a valid conversion.

Soul on fire

Thu, Jun 03 2010, 4:31 pm

Isramom8 wrote:

I have been considering it but I think I would rather that she didn't fit into this community at least with most of the children. I know that is a horrible thing to say but most days she comes home upset because people have been mean, called her names, today she was called a non jewish fat chick by a 3rd grade boy. This is after a brother and sister (whom she was friends with before a bunch of nonsense happened) spread around the rumor that she wasn't Jewish she was just pretending to fit in. Rolling Eyes

I am stressed to my last nerve with this. I truly don't want to send her back to school in the fall. BH it's over in 2 weeks.

Soul on fire

Thu, Jun 03 2010, 4:33 pm

Is there anywhere that children are respectful and people are openly accepting of geirim? I mean it seems like the adults here have been very nice but their children - not so much. Confused

Oh and ftr my daughter is a convert also.

red sea

Thu, Jun 03 2010, 5:04 pm

Sure there are but maybe not in your neighborhood it seems. I really think you are doing the right thing 100% not to put your dd back into such a school.

Sherri

Thu, Jun 03 2010, 5:30 pm

It doesn't seem that your child's experiences are necessarily typical ones in Jewish day schools- you mention that it is not really so frum, the kind of kids that go there... so hopefully your daughter will get better treatment in a different place if you so choose.

Hatzlacha!

Soul on fire

Thu, Jun 03 2010, 11:07 pm

I am hoping that if IY'H we move someday it will be different but for now we are stuck here...at least another year.
It just breaks my heart when she comes home so angry or upset about things that happened. I know she isn't an easy person to deal with but it's not fair for kids to be mean either. Crying

amother

Fri, Jun 04 2010, 8:05 am

Unfortunately you don't have to be strict to annoy BTs or frum to annoy converts.

Mrs Bissli

Fri, Jun 04 2010, 8:14 am

[quote="FrumMamaPA]I have been considering it but I think I would rather that she didn't fit into this community at least with most of the children. I know that is a horrible thing to say but most days she comes home upset because people have been mean, called her names, today she was called a non jewish fat chick by a 3rd grade boy. This is after a brother and sister (whom she was friends with before a bunch of nonsense happened) spread around the rumor that she wasn't Jewish she was just pretending to fit in. Rolling Eyes

I am stressed to my last nerve with this. I truly don't want to send her back to school in the fall. BH it's over in 2 weeks.[/quote]

How terrible, I really feel what you and your daughter must be going through. Hug

I only came to read the thread recently, but have you considered speaking with parents of offending children privately? Did you speak with the teachers? For me, how the school handle such incident should be a Shibboleth to decide whether to keep her out of school or not. If the kids go to the same synagogue, they may continue to taunt her, G-d forbid.

Soul on fire

Fri, Jun 04 2010, 9:41 am

Mrs Bissli wrote:

How terrible, I really feel what you and your daughter must be going through. Hug

Yes we have spoke to parents and they do take care of it at the moment but kids don't always do what they are told, I suppose and sometimes it's different kids then before. The principal has been really good about listening to our daughter and dealing with kids who have been hurtful or mean to her. I just this it's unfair for my daughter and for the principal to have to continually deal with this. Not to many kids actually go to our Shul so that really isn't a problem. But I also fear if I pull her out of school completely she won't have any friends at all. Not that she really has any now. Maybe it's the age but these girls are friends one minute and backstabbing the next. I honestly thought it wouldn't be like this in a religious school. It makes me cry for my daughter. I don't know what else to do.

amother

Fri, Jun 04 2010, 9:43 am

amother wrote:

Unfortunately you don't have to be strict to annoy BTs or frum to annoy converts.

What kind of ambiguous and easily-read-as-obnoxious comment is this?

amother

Fri, Jun 04 2010, 10:05 am

amother wrote:

One of the condition on the letter was something like I promise to send children to jewish day school.

I would think a more appropriate "condition" would be to give your children a Jewish education.

I know a lady who converted with the Beth Din in London together with her two children. In one of her intervies with the Beth Din, they asked her what they were going to do about getting a Jewish education for the children and she replied "they're already getting one, they're homeschooled." The Beth Din (which is notoriously strict) were fine with this.

A few years after the conversion, the lady decided to send her eldest child to one of the Jewish high schools when she was the right age to start there. The school she chose was strictly orthodox but not the most frum one available. After a couple of terms in the school, the Mum was unimpressed with the Kodesh her child was being taught and decided to pull her out and homeschool her again which she did for the remainder of her schooling.

I believe she didn't tell / ask permission from the BD but she had no problems at all and why should she? She is a sincere convert who made whatever decisions she deemed necessary to give the best Jewish education to her children.

So in a nutshell, I don't think you think twice about that aspect. Additionally, some people think it is better to send children to a non-Jewish school rather than a non-frum Jewish school because it is easier to tell children they are different because they're Jewish than it is to have them ask questions about why their Jewish classmates are wearing jeans (girls), eating non-kosher food, watching TV on Shabbat etc.

btw, I'm a convert who intends to send her children to a non-Jewish school and teach them Kodesh at home.

pina colada

Thu, Jul 08 2010, 11:05 am

if you are ever looking for a nice community to move to, highland park nj has been said here on imamother to be a wonderful community with pple of all walks of life. pple find it to be accepting and the pple there are supposed to be really nice.

veggiefan

Fri, Jul 09 2010, 10:06 am

I feel for you PA mom.

My goals and expectations of a frum life have been slowly unraveling and changing after conversion.

I converted with my 2 girls, 9 and 12 at the time, after I divorced their non-religious Jewish father, with a very reliable BD.

My 12 yo had been accepted to a very prestigious gifted public ms, hs, she would have gone on to ivy league w scholarship. My other one was headed in the same track. We didn't live in a community, but we were within walking distance to a good Chabad with a very reputable rabbi, even in the yeshivavish velt.

The BD definitely wanted the 9 yo in yeshiva, which we had plenty available, and she was more adjustable so it was fine for her. She loved everything about being frum and I could clearly see her as a shulcom with 10 kids and school and day camp business.

My 12yo was not as gung ho about it, but knew that it was the right thing to do. I was still debating whether to send her to the free gifted school or MO yeshiva, which supposely had a very good reputation academically and was religious.

They came back from a kiruv camp last summer and wanted nothing to do with public school, so I accepted the offer from the MO school, which was not so easy to get into, and it wasn't their conversion status, it was that most yeshiva's don't want to take on the burden of catching up children who have not been in yeshiva before. I kept fighting for them though and the schools that these girls have always been outstanding, bright, excellent middos children, with all the grades and awards to show for it. They would apply the same qualties to their Hebrew studies as well.

I didn't know how I was going to all of sudden pay the wopping 3,000/month tuition bill, but I prayed and prayed. I got a good scholarship, so I thought it must have been a shidduch.

Well, the day before school started I took for them for lice check. I was schocked by the attire of the clothes. No different then the non-religious, Jewish or not. Women didn't cover their hair. I called my rebetzin in a panic. She said that's the MO, but it's still overall better for them then public school.

Okay so they started, YD loved it because it was a much freer environment then public school and of course she shined in all her general ed subjects because they were behind her top class in public school. She had no problem catching up from the classes she got pulled out of to have Hebrew resource. And in Hebrew, her teachers loved her and she did great. They loved that she was a good kid and tried really hard was got good grades, because turns out, there weren't too many of them like that there.

The OD, she of course got straight A's in her general studies classes, and because she was in the English taught Chumash and Gemora classes, she got A's in those too. In Iyvrat she got the top grade because she was in a class with a bunch of kids who could never get the Hebrew language.

But the older one didn't like the girls there, they were basically very, very MO, rich girls, who she had didn't have religion, sad to say, or non-religious stuff in common with.

She found a few a bit more religious, but still a lot macher then us, to be friends with, but she missed her just, nice, decent down to earth friends from her gifted class. She kept hearing about all the wonderful experiences they were having at that school.

Anyway, I regret in some aspects sending my older one to that school. But I felt so much pressure whether she was going to be accepted as Jew after conversion. We live in an area where people make shidduch's based on what yeshiva you went to. I didn't want her to not have those opportunities.

I think we would have been better off, keeping her away from people who are not as machmir about observance or middos.

And it is such a financial nightmare what we go through, since I am doing this pretty much on my own.

Now I am married to a BT, and he is having his first Jewish child, and we are moving to a MO community because he has children who are not Jewish and he's had bad experiences bringing them to a very Yeshivisha community.

But he doesn't "drink the cool aid" as they say, as I did, he thinks for himself with his ORav. He also has a very respected yeshivaish relatives, not his immediate family, but they accept as like that who still accept his unorthodox, orthodox ways because he is a BT. They are just so happy that one from his family returned, and he found a shidduch and we are going to have a baby.

But even they want my girls in yeshiva, even if it's not so religous.

Anyway, because of our finances and the cost of living and having a baby, I asked my DH if he'd consider sending our child to public school in this frum community, which is suppose to be a good public school. Only frum children with special needs are sent to public school for the most part in our communities.

He said he's not sure, but he might consider it.

He doesn't have a problem if I wanted to send my girls to public school.

I would homeschool, but my older one actually knows she needs some company and needs some activities with other children, even if she's not crazy about the kids or school.

I feel so bad for her. It should have been only blessings for her to become Jewish and it's just one hard sacrifice after another.

I don't know if I will let he got o gifted public hs or not. It's a matter of finances and what Hashem presents to us, and how much strength I will have at that point to constantly defend my decisions.

Oh and BTW, the agreement if I recall in the Torah is that you will educate your children in Torah and mitsvots, as phrased sometimes as a yeshiva education, not specifically, send them to a Jewish day school. And in some ways homeschooling does a far better job of that then a yeshiva.

But also too, one thing this experience has taught me, is to have tolerance for other kinds of Jews. It's hard to teach that to your child from an insulated homeschool.

I think in the end, my children will be stronger in their yiddishkeit because we have had to remain so agaisnt many odds, even the Jewish ones. And I would like my children not to be judgemental of other Jews, they don't have to be like them, but they shouldn't judge them.

Just do what's right for you in accordance with Torah.

veggiefan

Fri, Jul 09 2010, 10:44 am

Also I find, FFB's don't really understand what it's like to be a convert, a child or adult.

We have been given well meaning, but not always very good advice from our FFB friends and close relatives.

I feel, that eventhough I have fully accepted a frum life, it doesn't mean that we don't struggle emotionally, financially, and psychologically every day with things from our past.

How can one just transition into this new life with no remnants of the past. It's impossible, it's unhealthy.

Even BT's have a hard time smoothly blending their past life with a frum life.

So give yourself a break, take it slow and always do what's in the best interest of your family, because in the end besides Hashem that is all you'll have. Not other FFB people, not the BD.

And I have only heard of one crazy Chareidi Beis Din taking away a women's conversion because she stopped covering her hair or something.

We always try and shoot for the best of everything in observance and kavanah, but the bottom line is: if you keep kosher inside and out, keep shabbos and yom tov, observe taharah mishpahat, bris, and davin to Hashem, you are a Jew.

I am always envious of my FFB relatives who have never known any other existence but their blessed FFB life, despite what to outsiders may look like poverty at times and a lot of work on women. They live in a surreal world that I don't know how much longer can lasts agaisnt the tides of economic hardship and ruthless media.

Soul on fire

Mon, Jul 12 2010, 12:13 am

Thank you veggiefan...you did give me a little perspective. Right now as much as I would love to keep her home I think it's best for her to be in school. (Well once summer is over)
Also your story sounds familiar, do I know you from a yahoo group maybe?