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The New Jersey Supreme Court upheld a ruling this week justifying a Bergen County yeshiva's firing of a rabbi five years ago for alleged inappropriate conduct.

Wednesday's decision dismisses an appeal by Rabbi Shlomo Hyman, who was let go in 2019 after 31 years of teaching at the Rosenbaum Yeshiva of North Jersey in River Edge. Hyman filed a $10 million defamation lawsuit against the day school that was dismissed in 2021, prompting the rabbi's appeal.

"Judges have no business picking Jewish rabbis or Orthodox priests," said Laura Wolk Slavis, counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which argued the case on behalf of several religious institutions. "The court’s ruling reinforces that common-sense principle, allowing Rosenbaum Yeshiva to choose who passes on its Jewish beliefs to the next generation."

Richard I. Scharlat, Hyman's attorney, could not be reached for comment Thursday afternoon.

The ruling centered on whether Hyman's defamation claims were invalidated by the "ministerial exception" clause outlined in the First Amendment. The legal doctrine requires courts to stay out of employment disputes involving employees holding "certain important positions with churches and other religious institutions."

The six members of the Court who heard the appeal — Justice Rachel Wainer Apter did not participate — were split 3-3 on whether discovery, the ability for each party in a lawsuit to obtain evidence from other parties, was required in the case. As a result, the Court affirmed the ruling of the appellate division, which agreed with the trial court's dismissal of the case on summary judgment without discovery.

Hyman's termination was due to conduct "neither acceptable nor consistent with how a rebbe in our Yeshiva should interact with students," the school wrote in a letter to parents in May 2019. The allegations outlined in the rabbi's lawsuit included touching students' shoulders and backs, placing stickers on their lapels and catching them while falling backward in a game of "trust."

Hyman's lawsuit alleged he was never given a chance to defend himself from the accusations, and that he was let go primarily as a cost-cutting measure. Attorneys for the rabbi have previously stated that the yeshiva never contacted law enforcement about his conduct, indicating there was nothing to report.

The suit also stated that Hyman "became an unemployable pariah" in the close-knit Orthodox community that ostracized his wife and five children as well. One of his daughters was forced to transfer schools, while another allegedly suffered health problems from emotional distress over the situation.

Wolk Slavis argued that religious groups like the Rosenbaum school should not be subject to defamation suits like Hyman's, which would require government officials to scrutinize how they choose to discipline an employee.

"Religious schools should not have to fear being dragged into court when making decisions that seek to protect children in their care," she said. "The Justices ensured that this freedom is upheld for Jews and for people of all faiths across the Garden State."

Hyman has 90 days from Wednesday's ruling to appeal the decision to the United States Supreme Court.

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NorthJersey.com

The River Edge school district may reconfigure grades across its three elementary school buildings to address overcrowding and better integrate students with disabilities into the general population.

The proposal has run into opposition, however, from residents who warned it would create instability for students in the pre-K to sixth grade district who are only now readjusting after the peak of COVID-19 disruptions. Some at a school board meeting last week also said the plan would be a burden for working parents who would need to drop children off at two different schools instead of one.

“The impact on our working families is going to be huge,” said Suzanne Lyons, who would face two different drop-off times for her kids. “It needs to be a major consideration as we move forward and figure out how this is all going to work.”

The proposal, outlined during Wednesday's meeting, would make the Cherry Hill School campus, which includes the district's New Bridge Center, home to pre-kindergarten through third-grade classes. Roosevelt School would host fourth through sixth grades.

Currently, the population of the Cherry Hill campus is 715 students and Roosevelt School has 478 students. If reconfigured, 688 students would attend Cherry Hill and 505 would go to Roosevelt.

Along with easing space constraints, the district wants to address the "unintended consequences" of past projects, which have concentrated students with disabilities in New Bridge Center, said Superintendent Cathy Danahy.

“We evolved to one campus, but really two schools,” she said on Wednesday. “NBC became the 'special education building,' as people refer to it as. I have moral and ethical concerns about that. In addition, the law protects students from this type of separation.”

New Bridge is connected to Cherry Hill School, which currently has kindergarten to sixth-grade classes on the south side of town. Roosevelt. on the north side of town, is now home to kindergarten to sixth grade.

How the school district got here

During a presentation Wednesday, Danahy said she gave a state-of-the-school address last May in which she discussed the space constraints. At that time, there was a thought to bring kindergarten back to New Bridge Center, but ultimately it was decided it was too soon to make that decision.

In December, finance and facilities committees met to revisit where the district was in terms of space. Another idea was brought to the table: the reconfiguration of grades, which was outlined to the public for the first time during Wednesday night's meeting.

Before 2005, the school district offered only half-day kindergarten, but that changed when a proposal to build New Bridge Center, which would have space for modified full-day kindergarten, was approved in a referendum, with the building opening in 2007.

Over the years, more self-contained classes, including the Building Bridges and Building Connections classes, were brought to New Bridge Center, allowing the district to bring back students who were previously sent out of district. There were five self-contained programs in New Bridge Center by 2013.

The Building Bridges program helps students with autism and disabilities from preschool through sixth. Building Connections is a program that serves disabled students in kindergarten to third grade.

In 2015, the student population was overcrowded at Cherry Hill School and needed additional space. Four kindergarten classes left New Bridge Center and went to Roosevelt School to make space for additional classrooms at Cherry Hill.

School district wants more integration between students

Moving kindergarten students to Roosevelt School was a “temporary solution” and a workaround.

“Students in special education have a right to learn in classrooms beside grade-level peers, and the way we have students separated is a challenge we must overcome for the well-being of our students and to be in compliance with the law,” Danahy said.

One of the key components to reconfiguration is to weave the Building Bridges and Building Connections classes more into the school community. The reconfiguration would have students with disabilities and the general student population participating next to one another in assemblies and special programs, such as theater and dance .

Currently, the special education classes lack space for occupational therapy and physical therapy. Some resource room classes are also taught in a dual-use room setup, or a bigger room separated with a partition in the middle, which is not ideal, Danahy said.

“We do our very best with scheduling to make sure those classes don’t occur at the same time, but sometimes they do,” she said. “Special education resource room classes are best taught in designated small group instruction.”

On the staff side, there aren’t adequate parking lots for staff or street parking for teachers. Having a significant number of staff members traveling to different buildings also cuts into instruction time.

“This conversation is not going away,” Danahy said. “We can either find big solutions to our big challenges or we can continue to put in small workarounds that may solve small things along the way, but not the big things.”

Students, parents raise objections

Before any decision takes place, district officials said, they will need to conduct an in-depth traffic study, look at busing considerations, find solutions that would have fewer cars on the road and figure out drop-off and pickup procedures.

There also was a discussion of alternatives at Wednesday's meeting, including adding staff, moving kindergarten to New Bridge Center, redistributing students throughout the district and moving sixth grade to River Dell Middle School. The latter would come with its own challenges, as dual-use rooms would remain, school officials said. Moving sixth grade to River Dell Middle School would require both River Edge and Oradell to pass a referendum measure, parents were told.

During the meeting's public comment session, many students and parents rejected the idea of changing the grades among the three buildings.

Madeline Markman, a fifth grader from Cherry Hill School, said she and many of her classmates were upset by the proposal to move them to Roosevelt School for their last year. This year has felt the most normal since the pandemic hit, and the idea of changing schools makes her and her classmates “upset and anxious.”

“It means a lot for us to finish our last year and graduate at Cherry Hill,” Markman said.

Jenna Dolaghan, a parent who also works as a substitute teacher in both Roosevelt and Cherry Hill, said the plan would “rip the rug out” from under students after they had a one-year return to normalcy from pandemic disruptions.

"If you talk to any behaviorist or counselor out there, what they're going to tell you is that children need routine and consistency," Dolaghan said.

Maria Rivera, a parent who has a sixth grader in the Building Connections program, said her son has been able to participate in activities with the rest of the student body.

“My son does every single activity, he goes into every single class party, he’s included in everything,” Rivera said. “He’s not excluded.”

Stephanie Noda is a local reporter for NorthJersey.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: noda@northjersey.com

Twitter: @snoda11

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