Review: Yeshiva University
The Golden Calf of Modern Orthodoxy
Yeshiva University is a terrible institution. If you are still confused about its supposed “merits,” let me spell things out, then introduce you to a special creature known as the “Yeshiva University student.”
Yeshiva University once gave an award to a man whose record includes statements widely criticized as antisemitic, in order to gain recognition from the goyim and get their respect (it did neither, don’t worry)
They have produced a long list of rabbis who function in a bubble and have no idea how real life actually works. Instead of producing leaders, they manufacture socially malformed “rabbis.” You see it in people like Rabbi Mark Scheiner, Rabbi Avi Weiss, Rabbi Michael Broyde, Rabbi Hershel Goldwasser, and of course our very own Father Riskin (Rabbi Shlomo Riskin)!
They are modern liberal students first, and Jews second. This means that when Western values clash with Jewish values (which does happen), the values of the ones they so desperately seek approval from take precedence
I have heard many ridiculous lines from YU graduates about the “Torah” they supposedly learned. My favorite was the one who seriously announced that “the Rambam is an atheist.”
I once even had a guy who was spouting a bunch of neoliberal nonsense (who I didn’t know attended YU) confidently inform me that he went to a right-wing college. Upon inquiring which college he was referring to, when he responded YU, I could not help but burst out in laughter.
Now these pasty faced YU-goers, all trying to buy the biggest phone possible, racing to see who can get a phone the size of an iPad first, actually think they’re cool. As they strut around with their hexagonal wire-rimmed spectacles, humming way too loudly the latest stupid Maccabeats iteration (which only reinforces stereotypes that Jews are a bunch of weak little prepubescent ginger haired, freckle-faced losers), with their perfectly groomed sideburns, over gelled hair, they don’t realize that they are only considered “cool” by a very small minority of Jews and by zero non-Jews. Everyone else looks at them with apprehension and a queasy sense of unease. If they took off those Ray-Ban aviators for a second, they would probably realize so as well. For those poor souls, if they want to keep living in their alternative reality, they could simply move to Teaneck or the Five-Towns, where they’d feel right at home.
In order for these people to make themselves feel more comfortable for those short periods of time that they have to leave Washington Heights and actually live in the real world, they feel compelled to make themselves seem more accepted by handing out special awards to individuals with anti-Jewish records. Their logic is, if we give them awards, they accept us in the real world a bit more. Obviously acting like normal human beings never crossed their minds. Due to this reality, basically no one outside YU, Jew or otherwise, gets along with YU students. YU’s “torah” (lol) isn’t respected in the yeshiva world and their “maddah”* is laughed upon by secular universities.
All in all, if you want to limit your social circle to Yeshiva University graduates and have no life outside of these people who don’t understand either Torah or maddah, then I guess your mind is made up to go to a sub-par institution where skinny pathetic guys hoard their Stern girlfriends like rare collectibles. Until it comes time to protect them on the street; then they’re out of there, racing back to their little alternative reality in Washington Heights, where there are only rainbows, unicorns and fluffy pillows.
* maddah = secular studies
**credit to the inspiration for my blog for the base of the YU student description