Anti-drug blueprint draws on existing yeshiva policies

By Michael Orbach

Issue of Oct. 3, 2008

At a window table at a kosher pizza store on Central Avenue in Cedarhurst on a recent Friday, two young men in their 20s sat with a reporter and discussed fact and fiction about drug use in the Modern Orthodox community.

One of them, who graduated from HAFTR five years ago, said he thinks drug use in yeshiva day schools is down since his high school days –– down on account of random drug test policies, and on account of administrators who are more aware of the problem than they were in the past. However, he also believes that illegal drugs are more accessible now than ever before and that “younger kids are doing drugs these days,” than in the past.

His friend, who recently moved from Florida, agreed. Looking outside, he added that he thought kids “were getting dumber” by doing drugs in public places and getting caught more often.

A few minutes later, as if on cue, a quiet drug hand-off between two teens, one wearing a kippah, took place under the glass awning right outside the store.

In September, responding to a reported rise in alcohol and substance abuse in the Jewish community, the Orthodox Union launched what it calls the Safe Schools Yeshiva Network. It provides yeshivot and day schools with a policy guideline for action against drug or alcohol abuse.

Frank Buchweitz, the OU’s national director of Community Services and Special Projects, summarized the purpose of the project.

“If it’s going on in the world, we [the Jewish community] are not immune and we want to protect the kids,” he said in a telephone interview with The Jewish Star.

The program is a collaborative effort with FEGS Health and Human Services, the Board of Jewish Education of Greater New York and the Yeshiva Counseling Network. Fourteen schools across New York have signed up to be a part of the network, including four local institutions, Machon HaTorah, the umbrella institution comprising HAFTR, Rambam and Shalhevet; Davis Renov Stahler Yeshiva High School for Boys; Stella K. Abraham High School for Girls and Hebrew Academy of Nassau County. North Shore Hebrew Academy in Great Neck is said to be in talks with the OU to join.

The policy was designed three years ago, Buchweitz said, and refined with the guidance of school principals involved in the effort. Schools that sign up have the option of adopting the policy in its entirety or utilizing parts of it. The policy recommends gaining parental consent for a school drug policy and designating a faculty point person to deal with suspected drug abuse. Once drug use is suspected, the policy recommends a screening process, drug testing and an intervention by a licensed mental health professional. The policy also recommends a lenient stance if a student admits to drug use and is willing to undergo treatment.

The policy represents an official awareness inside the Orthodox community that drug and alcohol abuse is taking place. Taken by itself, however, it is largely symbolic. Educators across New York State who discussed the matter with The Jewish Star lauded the effort but said that it represents parts of existing drug policies already present in most schools.

“I’m happy that a lot of schools are signing up to a document that owns up to the fact that we all have a problem,” said Rabbi Yisroel Kaminetsky, the principal of DRS.

Among other local yeshivot, DRS has an extensive drug prevention program with random drug tests for all seniors and a yearly mandatory drug education program for parents. Rabbi Kaminetsky said that the school has found, through anonymous surveys given to the students, that drug use has decreased since random drug testing began.

The Safe Schools Network is part of a larger initiative by the OU, the Safe Shuls, Safe Homes, and Safe Schools policy that aims to curb drug and alcohol abuse in all three venues as well as make each environment safer.

Dr. Asher Lipner, a psychologist active in the Orthodox community, praised the OU’s effort but stressed that more needs to be done to address the roots of problems like drug and alcohol abuse.

“A brief discussion with rabbis and leaders who work with the ‘teens at risk’ phenomenon will reveal that [most] of the children who turn to an antisocial or counter-cultural lifestyle have been sexually abused,” he said.

Lipner’s statement is firmly backed up by Rabbi Yakov Horowitz, director of Agudath Israel’s project Y.E.S., who wrote in September, “In my opinion, sexual abuse is by far the leading cause of high-end drug use and ruined lives of the teens in our community.”

Buchweitz said that every school that the OU contacted signed up. He hopes to see the policy expand both to schools considered more right-wing, and to schools outside the New York area. However, an official drug policy can only go so far.

"While random testing is very important, and we do this at DRS, it is only effective up to a point. The biggest deterrent to drug use in a school is warm relationships between the staff and kids, so that when someone has a problem, the kids feel comfortable confiding in their teachers, knowing that teachers will respond with compassion and direct the student to get help to get rid of the problem."