MONTREAL — Yohanan Lowen lived 36 years in obscurity until last month when he launched a $1.25-million lawsuit against the chassidic schools he claims deprived him of a secular education. Today, he hopes to be a champion for thousands of others he says are like him.
He is also suing the Quebec government and other public bodies he accuses of failing to enforce the law and turning a blind eye to this violation of his rights.
Dec. 15 is the deadline he has set for the defendants to respond to his mise en demeure (demand letter) filed on Nov. 14. (Neither the government nor the schools have responded to requests for comment.)
In an interview, the soft-spoken Lowen said that only since leaving the chassidic world a few years ago has he acquired such basic knowledge as reading and writing in English, and begun to integrate into broader society. He said he had never even listened to the radio before.
“I received zero secular education… everything except Torah was forbidden. Some leaders said it was a sin [to learn anything else],” said Lowen, who lived from age 10 in the Tash community of Boisbriand, north of Montreal. “All I had was some English instruction one summer when I was 11, for about an hour a day, and that was voluntary.”
The father of four, who turns 37 this month, said he has never been able to get a job other than occasionally teaching religious studies within the chassidic community. He said he continues to suffer psychological stress that has affected his eyesight.
“I felt like I was walking on another planet,” Lowen said of his entry into the outside world.
Today, he gives Talmud classes at “a liberal synagogue” and collects welfare, he said.
“I consider myself more Jewish now than when I was with Tash or in Outremont,” said Lowen, who was without a kippah, wearing jeans and carrying a smartphone.
Two of his children go to “modern Orthodox” schools and two to the public system. He points out proudly that two of them have been top-finishers in a national Hebrew Bible contest.
Lowen, who left Tash seven years ago and lived among other Chassidim in Outremont until 2010, was joined in the interview by Julien David-Pelletier, executive director of Clinique Juridique Juripop, the low-cost, not-for-profit legal clinic that’s representing him.
Quebec law is very precise, David-Pelletier said. “The first responsibility for a child’s education is with the parents. And if they do not provide it, the state must intervene.”
Although some former haredi school students in New York and Israel have threatened similar action, Lowen’s is the first of its kind in the world, David-Pelletier said.
Lowen said many chassidic parents today want a better education for their children, but the leadership is holding them back, and they are watching his case closely. “I’ve received support secretly from many Chassidim, including rabbis and authors here and in New York, Israel, Belgium, London, all over.”
Lowen was born in London, England, (his father grew up in the Tash community of Boisbriand). The younger Lowen attended Satmar and Neturei Karta schools in London.
They also provided no instruction beyond religion, he claims. “They were no better, except that we lived in the town and walked on the same streets as other people. In Tash, we only saw chassidic Jews. We were isolated.”
Lowen has six sisters (no brothers) and concedes girls’ education is somewhat better than that of boys.
His story is receiving attention from the French-language Quebec media, which for years has been reporting on “illegal” haredi schools. Successive Liberal and Parti Québécois governments have vowed to rectify the situation in at least a half-dozen schools.
The Public Education Act requires that all Quebec children between ages five and 16 be in a legal school (or authorized home schooling) and taught the mandatory curriculum.
Named in Lowen’s suit are Yeshiva Beth Yehuda and Oir Hachaim d’Tash rabbinical college, which he attended, and the attorney general of Quebec (acting for the education ministry), as well as the local youth protection office and public school board, which are responsible for Boisbriand.
The $1.25 million was based on Lowen’s potential lost earnings and to allow him to get an education, as well as damages, David-Pelletier explained.
He said the government knew when Lowen was a child and earlier that the Tash schools were not abiding by the law. Youth protection and the school board are also culpable, he argues, because public boards must notify families when any child in its territory is approaching age five that they must be enrolled in a licensed school, and youth protection must step in, by law, if that is not being done.
David-Pelletier said they are open to having others similarly affected join in the lawsuit, and turning it into a class action.
Lowen said he is aware he risks being regarded as a pariah by Chassidim, although he has heard nothing from those communities.
“They are wrong. If this does not go public, it will just get worse and worse… I am trying to help the thousands of children who have been abandoned.”
In the meantime, Lowen has become a bit of a celebrity. He appeared on Nov. 23 on ICI Radio-Canada’s Tout le monde en parle, the most popular TV talk show in Quebec. “A woman recognized me on the bus afterward,” Lowen said with amazement.