Queens Organizations Have Spent Years Moving Children Into Jewish Schools, While New Data Show Both a Worsening Climate and the Limits of Sweeping Claims
Recent coverage of Jewish-school enrollment in N1ew York has focused on one striking number: an increase of 3,115 students during the 2025-26 school year.
Some reports framed that increase as an exodus from public schools driven by antisemitism. The fear behind that story is real, and some families have indeed said hostility in public schools pushed them to leave. But the statewide numbers tell only part of the story.
The 3,115 figure comes from a Teach Coalition analysis of New York State Education Department enrollment records. It represents a 1.8% statewide increase in Jewish-school enrollment. New York City accounted for 1,587 additional students, while Monsey added 1,904.
The same analysis found increases of 1,795 students in chasidic schools, 1,038 in Yeshivish schools, and 285 in Modern Orthodox schools.
Those figures measure net enrollment growth. They are not records of 3,115 individual students transferring from public schools.
The data do not show where every child attended the previous year. They do not separate transfers from new kindergarten students, births, relocations, and other demographic changes.
In Queens, however, the movement from public school to Jewish education can be traced back years before the current headlines.
Chazaq launched its Public School to Yeshivah division in 2017, well before the October 7 attack and the school controversies that followed. The organization’s published figures show steady growth: more than 700 public-school students placed in yeshivos by 2019, almost 1,000 by 2020, 1,115 by 2021, 1,324 by late 2022, more than 1,500 by 2024, more than 1,800 by early 2025, and more than 2,000 by early 2026.
Those are Chazaq’s cumulative counts, reported by the organization and community publications rather than audited government statistics. Even so, the timeline makes one point clear: Queens families were seeking pathways from public school into Jewish education years before the latest concerns over Israel-related hostility.
Chazaq’s model did not begin as an emergency response to antisemitic bullying.
Its Shaping Lives and other after-school programs introduce public-school students to Jewish learning, history, and practice. Placement staff then help interested parents find a yeshivah that fits their child. Over the years, the organization has consistently cited Jewish continuity, assimilation, school fit, and access to Torah education as central reasons for the work.
Other Queens organizations have focused on a different obstacle: cost.
JEP Queens, founded in 1972, says it has helped hundreds of children move from public schools to yeshivos and distributed hundreds of thousands of dollars in scholarships.
Our Jewish Children says it has helped more than 1,500 children attend full-day Jewish schools at 149 institutions across North America. For the 2025-26 school year, the organization reported supporting more than 350 children at more than 80 schools who had attended public school the previous year. It also reported receiving more than 400 applications for the following year.
The reasons families make these moves vary. Some want a stronger Jewish identity for their children. Some need tuition assistance. Others are looking for a different academic or social environment.
And increasingly, some parents say antisemitism, classroom activism, exclusion, or the way schools respond to complaints has made remaining in the public-school system untenable.
A Prizmah survey offers evidence that the post-October 7 climate has influenced Jewish-school enrollment, though it does not provide a New York transfer total.
In a 2024 survey of 103 Jewish day schools and yeshivos in the United States and Canada, 60% of responding schools said they had new students enrolled or expected to enroll because of the changed climate after October 7.
Among 73 schools that supplied parents’ reasons, antisemitism in public or independent schools was the most frequently cited. Eighteen specifically mentioned antisemitism in public schools.
The problem of religion-based bullying also predates October 7.
In a 2022 national survey by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, 13% of Jewish families with school-age children reported that a child had experienced religion-based bullying during the previous year, showing that Jewish families were reporting religion-based bullying even before the current wave of Israel-related tensions.
New York City has also faced longstanding problems with the reporting of school bullying more broadly.
A City Council resolution later cited a 2019 state comptroller finding of significant underreporting of harassment, bullying, and intimidation in city schools during the 2015-16 and 2016-17 school years. That audit dealt with bullying generally, not antisemitism specifically, but it helps explain why official numbers do not always match what parents say they are experiencing.
Since October 7, the picture has become more alarming.
United Jewish Teachers documented 250 incidents it classified as antisemitic or anti-Israel in New York City public schools through July 2026, including 68 in Queens. Nearly two-thirds were placed in a direct-acts category involving allegations such as harassment, threats, vandalism, or physical conduct.
The remainder involved disputes over curriculum, school events, protests, and other activity.
At the federal level, the U.S. Department of Education has opened a Title VI investigation into the New York City Department of Education over allegations that Jewish students were exposed to a hostile environment connected to anti-Israel activity by educators.
Queens organizations, meanwhile, have spent nearly a decade building a pathway from public school to Jewish education, while others have spent far longer providing scholarships and Jewish programming.
Every child deserves a school where he or she can learn without being shamed for being Jewish, targeted over events in the Middle East, or told that harassment is merely politics.
For families who decide that Jewish education is the answer, the work of Chazaq, JEP Queens, Our Jewish Children, and participating yeshivos helps turn that decision into a realistic option.
By Shabsie Saphirstein
