“Hasidic Village in New York wants own public school district” blared The New York Times (July 21). The Hasidic community of Kiryas Joel, NY, already runs its own private schools, but the town (100 percent Hasidic) has been pushing for special religious accommodations in the nearby public school’s handicapped programs. Parents are unhappy with the school’s mainstreaming of handicapped students and fear that the customs and dress of Hasidic children would expose them to ridicule—it would certainly expose them to secularizing pressures. Several years ago, the Hasidim had sued the district to provide male bus drivers for their boys, who could not by custom be driven by women. The boys walk.

In exasperation, the village is demanding its own public school to be run not in strict conformity with Hasidic law but in a spirit of accommodation to their traditions. The New York Civil Liberties Union and the State Education Department are predictably opposing the measure, but poor Gov. Cuomo does not know what to do. It is not simply a matter of pleasing a Jewish constituency, since secularized Jewish liberals are prominently in the opposition. The fear is that today the Hasidim, tomorrow the Amish, next week the Baptists—where will it all end? Catholics are right now paying taxes for public education while at the same time supporting the diocesan schools that educate inner-city minority children. It would be a constitutional travesty if they could run Catholic-oriented public schools in Catholic neighborhoods. This would undermine the whole purpose of government education, which is social indoctrination. (TF)