MTA: Pros and Cons

News Analysis

With a rich history, vocal alumni, and community support, MTA would seem to be a vital part of the Yeshiva University family that deserves to be nurtured and protected. Yet its very future is now a subject of strident debate, leading many students and administrators to marvel at the ugly public spectacle unfolding in front of their eyes. They wonder why an apparently simple matter has become so muddled. Those who claim to not understand forget that nothing in YU is simple, and that there exist underlying reasons and passions that further complicate the high school's future.

Why has the high school engendered such support and strident defenders? Supporters of MTA cite numerous reasons for the continued existence of their hallowed institution. The rich tradition and history of the school cannot be overlooked, with eighty-five years of alumni leaving their mark on the Jewish community as laymen, rabbis and educators. A sizable majority of the rabbinic and educational leadership of the Modern Orthodox Jewish world received its first grounding in the principles and hashkafah of Torah U'Maddah in the hallways of the architectually distinctive Main Building.

The educational impact of MTA cannot be overstated, as it is doubtful that there exists a Modern Orthodox school that has not had MTA-educated teachers pass through its halls. Many of these same educators actually began their teaching careers in the MTA classrooms in which they had previously been students.

MTA is also perceived as unique in the pantheon of yeshiva high schools. The raison d'etre of MTA is ostensibly its commitment to Torah U'Maddah, something MTA supporters say is simply not found with the same degree of commitment and passion anywhere else. MTA is also considered the most "right-wing" or religious of the boys high schools in New York City. Closing the school would severely narrow the options of New York parents looking for a Yeshiva high school experience for their children. They will not send their children to co-ed schools or more "black-hat" yeshivot. MTA's position at the right of the yeshiva high school spectrum fills an essential niche in religious educational system of New York.

The advantages given to MTA by its association with YU are not to be found at any other high school in the area. It is the only Modern Orthodox school with dormitory facilities, giving out-of-town parents another option to the local schools in their cities. As the only Modern Orthodox high school with a pipeline to a flourishing Beit Midrash and Yeshiva Gedolah, students at MTA are exposed to rabbis and older talmidim of a high caliber, something many parents cite as the impetus for choosing MTA. MTA students can take college classes, and while they may not be beloved by the majority of the college's teachers or students, the opportunity for a high school boy to take upper-level university courses is not to be found anywhere else.

Institutional and personal reasons exist for many of the school's defenders as well. Many MTA parents are YU rabbis or teachers and send their children to MTA at steeply discounted tuition rates that are hard to find elsewhere. Any change in the current status of the school would probably entail much faculty bloodletting. Various MTA administrators, teachers, and especially rabbis could potentially find themselves without jobs, along with the generous (as compared to other schools) University benefits that accompany YU paychecks.

Older teachers and rabbis would be devastated, for if the school closed or merged it would be doubtful they would be able to find comparable employment. And as many of the MTA educators are community or pulpit rabbis, it behooves their communities to support the school, otherwise their salary and pension burdens could potentially fall on the collective.

With all the support and apparently valid reasoning to keep the school, what is the motivation to get rid of it?

On the surface of the matter, the reasons postulated by University officials are threefold. The first is financial - MTA is officially a perennial money loser. The school's endowments notwithstanding, (and they are considerable endowments for a yeshiva high school) almost all Jewish educational institutions find themselves dealing with a shortfall between tuition receipts and outlays due to the high percentage of parents that cannot afford the prohibitive tuition costs and require financial assistance.

MTA is no different in this respect, but it has always had a rich uncle to cover the bills, namely, the central YU bureaucracy. But rich uncles, even really rich ones like YU, eventually get fed up with footing the bill for so long and wish to unburden themselves of their pesky little relatives.

The second reason given by YU spokesmen and factotums is that of space. There is a serious lack of elbow room on the uptown campus, and the high school, with its dropping enrollments and trouble-making student body (has there ever been a high school student body that didn't make trouble?) takes up a huge chunk of it.

Dean of Students Efrem Nulman has made no bones about his desire to possess the beds in Strenger Hall to make up for the shortfall in current undergraduate dorm space. Strenger could take on far more significance and value for YU as it could possibly be torn down and the site could be utilized for a new college dorm, alleviating the housing crunch for a burgeoning undergraduate population that shows no sign of growth abatement.

The wisdom on the street says that even if MTA goes independent, it is merely staving off its inevitable demise for a short while until the University kicks it off campus and repossesses the space it sorely needs.

The third factor that has been bandied about by University officials is geographic. Eighty-five years ago when MTA opened for business, Washington Heights was a thriving Jewish neighborhood and Manhattan was the home for the majority of MTA's student body. The falling enrollments waved about by YU administrators are in part due to the flight of the Jewish population to the suburbs of Long Island and Northern New Jersey. Fewer and fewer parents want their kids sitting on a bus for a couple of hours a day when there are schools that tout themselves as comparable to MTA in values and academics closer to home.

While these may be valid reasons to consider closing MTA, solutions can be found for the issues of space and finances. And while it is true that MTA's clientele for the most part live outside of the Heights, there are still three hundred-plus students who apparently think it is worth it to travel the distance to attend MTA. The real drive to shutter MTA is rooted in far deeper and intractable issues.

Sources within the administration indicate that the topmost levels of this university do not want to be in the high school business. MTA is seen as a hindrance - from its faculty and students to its board, led by the chairman, Elliot Gibber. And while Gibber is perceived as well meaning and resourceful, the time and effort expended on the high schools grate on the central bureaucracy. Striving to achieve academic excellence has become the theme song of YU from top down, and collegiate academics, the thinking goes, do not include high schools.

The movement to change the status quo regarding the high schools began long ago and only now is the swell beginning to peak. As early as the summer of 1997, Rabbi David Eliach, the former principal of Yeshiva of Flatbush and one of the most respected educators in New York, was called in as a consultant to see what could be done for MTA. Rabbi Eliach is also the consultant who gave a clean bill of academic health to Torah Academy of Bergen County and reported back to Rabbi Lamm that it was a viable candidate for merger consideration. (TABC would love to merge with MTA - the bride price would be a new building and a good chunk of MTA's endowments.) Eliach's proposal to severely cut down the size of MTA and make it a far more selective school was dismissed as being unrealistic and not cost-effective.

Unfortunately, the bottom line for MTA hinges not upon practical concrete considerations or actual problems that can be confronted and rectified. Like most things in YU, the crux of the matter hinges upon the intangibles - the personal, the political, and the religious.

Right or wrong, the man seen as the driving force behind the move to dump the high school is YU's chief financial officer, Sheldon Socol. After thirty some-odd years of in-house fighting and maneuvering, it would be an understatement to say that Socol has made his fair share of institutional enemies. Anything he supports or proposes will automatically be met with knee-jerk opposition from various segments of the University because Sheldon is for it.

The rabbeim in the beit midrash have a special place in hell reserved for Socol because they perceive him as being anti-religious. They see the issue of MTA's closing as a religious one, with Socol playing the role of the heathen attempting to breach the walls of the holy city.

Socol has not gone on the record to explain his reasoning, but administration sources speculate that the high schools do not fit into Socol's grand vision of where he would like YU to go and in what direction he feels the University should be moving. The opportunity to disengage himself from the high school's perceived right-wing leanings probably figures prominently in Socol's calculations as well.

So what does the future hold for MTA? Whatever happens, it is a safe bet to say things will never be the same again and MTA as we currently know it is finished. What will take its place? That still remains to be seen.

Related Stories:

• MTA May Close Doors
• MTA--The Historical Dimension
• MTA, YU, and the Tyranny of the Few