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Opinion

The Oft-Ignored Real World Benefits of a Yeshiva Education


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"Parental Choice in Education" (photo: Governor Cuomo's Office/Kevin P. Coughlin)


My career began with my yeshiva education; a rigorous study of the Talmud that sparked a relentless pursuit of reason.

There is a common misconception that religious studies are not as academically rigorous as secular education, but that is far from the truth. Yeshiva education fosters logic and logic fosters innovative problem-solving. Yeshiva education is, quite frankly, more beneficial to the development of students’ analytical skills than secular education because it demands critical thinking inside and beyond the classroom.

Yeshiva education promotes cognitive dissonance; a constant reckoning with what we think we believe and how we can gain even deeper understanding. For example, the three-dimensionality of the Jewish alphabet taught me how to look at the world in a new way. From the time I could read, the alphabet conditioned my mind to follow my own original courses of thought.

Like most students, I didn’t know where life would take me after I completed my education. But I knew that I would go into a field where I could think critically and pursue innovation. So, I turned to an industry that made the most sense to me: computer science. Thus began my career in software and business. 

The logic mindset yeshiva education instilled in me has enabled me to thrive in the software space. I have the capacity to engage and probe in new ways, granting me the wherewithal to pursue industry needs from a distinct perspective.

When analyzing a computer system, one must think about how each piece of the system or program comes together like a puzzle. Like any puzzle, there are unexpected problems and unlimited approaches that one must adapt to in order to arrive at a solution. This is how I have approached my businesses, and it has contributed to their economic and societal successes and impacts.

My yeshiva education gave me another unparalleled advantage: wisdom. It taught me that everything is fluid and can be looked at from a number of perspectives, a teaching I follow every day and one that allowed me to found and build two companies I eventually sold to international conglomerates.

My first company that I built and sold was DPC (Data Publishing Company). I started DPC in 1994, selling sales tax compliance data and systems to numerous Fortune companies, and sold it to a multinational Dutch company six years later. My second company, Business Licenses, LLC, managed governmental business license compliance for industries and jurisdictions across the U.S. The company was so successful in the field that its licenses, permits, and tax registrations were acquired by a leading tax compliance software firm. Clearly, my religious education did not stymie my success as a business leader, nor does it hinder the economic and professional successes of yeshiva graduates everywhere.

Educational freedom prepared me —and my many fellow yeshiva graduates, at United Talmudical Academy (UTA) and beyond — to enter society as productive members with unique perspectives and life experiences adding to the kaleidoscope of the general population, making America exceptional. This diversity is a pillar of the American experience, something so cherished and irrefutable that suppression of our freedom to educate our children religiously is un-American.

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David Polatseck is a lifelong Brooklyn resident, graduate of its yeshiva schools, and a businessman.

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Legalizing Marijuana the Right Way


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Mayor de Blasio, DA Vance & others discuss marijuana legalization (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


Because of the coronavirus crisis, New York is facing a massive budget hole and calls for innovative solutions to dig us out of this fiscal crisis. While Governor Cuomo recognizes the tremendous tax windfall that would come with the legalization of adult-use cannabis, this is about more than just tax revenue.

The reality is that New Yorkers will face a mounting racial and criminal justice crisis without a more equitable plan like State Senator Liz Krueger and Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes have put forward in their Marijuana Regulation and Tax Act. The governor’s plan offers less in terms of racial equity and some of his proposed penalties for cannabis-related offenses will only perpetuate the very problems that criminalization has caused.

Legalization must mean redirecting law enforcement resources to address more serious crimes, expunging records for millions of New Yorkers unfairly ensnared in the criminal justice system, and the creation of tens of thousands of new jobs. Cannabis licensing and sales can be utilized in a way that disrupts the cycles of marginalization, violence, intergenerational poverty, and trauma that have plagued communities of color for decades.

Unfortunately, these potential benefits quickly evaporate with the wrong policy. Any legalization plan needs to ensure that the communities that have been and continue to be disproportionately impacted by criminalization benefit from legalization through reinvestment, as well as opportunities to participate in the legal market. It should not further criminalize the use of cannabis, like the governor’s current proposal, which makes it a class A misdemeanor with no caveats to sell, exchange, or give an individual under the age of 21 any amount of cannabis. That means that, if arrested and prosecuted, a 22-year-old who shares a joint with a 20-year-old could face up to a year in prison. 

If we are serious about rectifying the harms that criminalization has caused, then we need to stop throwing the book at low-level drug offenders. These policies have disproportionately targeted Black and Latino communities for decades, and even as recently as 2019 the vast majority of people arrested in New York City for low-level offenses were Black or Latino. More than 1,300 of the 1,400 marijuana arrests across the city that year were people of color despite the fact that white people are known to smoke marijuana at similar rates. 

Where the money goes matters too, especially in an industry projected to generate more than $1 billion in sales and $350 million in annual tax revenue. The majority of this new revenue—not less than one-third of it, as proposed by the governor—should go to the communities adversely impacted by the War on Drugs, and a just licensing system is equally as important.

A licensing process that prioritizes Minority- and Women-Owned Business Entities (MWBEs) would be transformative for Black and Latino New Yorkers, and help create equity in communities that are all too often locked out of opportunities since they lack access to capital, credit, real estate, or the ears of people in power. Offering incentives and low-interest lines of credit to MWBEs (which the aforementioned legislation in the Senate and Assembly does) ensures they can take part in this once-in-a-generation opportunity. But we also need to include statutes that prevent the wealthy from using their influence, their armies of attorneys, and their vast reservoirs of cash to game the system at the expense of honest entrepreneurs. 

As cannabis legalization takes place, we are going to have thousands of people who will have the opportunity to earn an income with the newly-legalized industry. For that reason, the newly-created cannabis sector — alongside District Attorney offices, employers, community organizations, and labor unions, among others — can create a space that will not only generate jobs with a living wage, but they can open the doors for new apprenticeship programs that create a pathway to education and jobs for young people. Everyone from the farmer and delivery driver to the store clerk must be paid fairly and have access to opportunity if we are to create an industry built on restoring justice. Stealing any opportunities from the communities that need them most isn’t just corrupt, it’s also a crime that needs to be adjudicated. As the head of the Construction Fraud Task Force in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, I went after big companies that abused their power to exploit the MWBE system and stole workers’ wages and I partnered with the community and labor unions, and we must do the same when it comes to marijuana too.

New York is living through a pivotal moment. We have an obligation to reinvent ourselves and lead in driving meaningful change, and the Marijuana Regulation and Tax Act does just that. New York can lead the country and Manhattan can lead New York. We need to take a much broader view of economic empowerment and look at the full range of social institutions that empower advancement and those that compound the problem, and we need to act now.

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Diana Florence is a candidate for Manhattan District Attorney. On Twitter @dianajflorence.

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Seizing the Moment to Solve Our Child Care Crisis


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Child care (photo: Comptroller's Office)


Nearly one year into COVID-19, New York is the epicenter of an unparalleled child care crisis. Women have left the workforce in record numbers as the burden of holding together families falls disproportionately on them, child care options dry up and remote schooling remains our children’s new normal for the foreseeable future. Unsurprisingly, women of color are bearing the brunt of the job losses, with Black women and Latinas experiencing the highest rates of unemployment nationwide. At the same time, child care programs – mostly women-run – are struggling to hold on under the financial strain of pandemic-related expenses and declining revenues.

But make no mistake – this crisis is one of our own making. For decades, government has failed to invest in child care as a public good, leaving families with a patchwork of unaffordable options of varying quality and providers, especially those in our underfunded subsidized system, with poverty wages and no resources to weather this emergency. As the pandemic descended on the city, these fault lines only deepened and reinforced gender and racial disparities in the workforce and at home.

Long before the pandemic, we proposed building out a comprehensive infant and toddler care system, NYC Under 3, to build upon the city’s existing pre-kindergarten infrastructure and provide high-quality, affordable child care to New York City children aged zero to three. Through a small child care tax on the top 5% of  the city’s biggest employers, we could begin charting a path to universal access – expanding care to tens of thousands of low- and moderate-income families currently shut out of support, raising wages of the care workforce, and eliminating child care deserts across the city.

But now we need to focus on the emergency at hand and recognize that there will be no economic recovery – not for women, and especially not for women of color – without child care.

The good news: the federal government can rescue the child care sector. New York State is slated to receive $450 million in emergency child care funds through the Consolidated Appropriations Act that Congress passed at the end of December. The Biden-Harris Administration has earmarked another $40 billion for child care in their American Rescue Plan. If Congress approves close to this amount, New York would likely see another $1 billion in child care funding.  

The bad news: New York previously received more than $160 million in CARES Act funds to stabilize the child care sector, and the allocation of those dollars has been complicated by delays and red tape – preventing dollars from quickly getting into the pockets of the providers most in need of support and hurting the options available to families.

New York State must submit a plan this month for how it will spend the emergency funds. It is critical that these new resources are distributed to families and providers efficiently and strategically. The State should look to the proposal outlined by the Empire State Campaign for Child Care, which recommended directing a share of funds to shore up the existing subsidy system, which primarily serves lower-income New Yorkers, and getting low-barrier stabilization grants directly to providers to make up for lost revenue over the last year.  

Even before the pandemic, there was only enough capacity to serve one in five infants citywide. It is critical that we invest now to ensure financially-strapped programs aren’t forced to close their doors permanently – and families aren’t left with even fewer options.

Parents and child care providers must also have a seat at the table in deciding how resources are spent. This is not just good governance; having those closest to these challenges participating in decision-making processes makes for better policy.

Even if we get this next step right, covid relief is not a long-term solution to our child care crisis. The State and City must step up and do what is needed to actually expand access to quality, affordable child care. Additional state and local investments are particularly important to ensure families whose immigration status makes them ineligible for federal relief are not excluded.

With federal resources on the way and the next State and City budgets under negotiation, we have the chance to build a strong foundation upon which we can work toward the day when high-quality, affordable child care is available to all.

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Scott M. Stringer is the New York City Comptroller. State Senator Jessica Ramos represents parts of Queens. On Twitter @scottmstringer & @jessicaramos.

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