Several Jewish high schools ban cellphones

The 2025-26 school year will usher in a new phone-free era at several Jewish high schools in Bergen, Essex, and Union counties.

In Bergen County, those schools — all high schools — are Yeshivat Frisch in Paramus and the Torah Academy of Bergen County, Ma’ayanot Yeshiva High School for Girls, and Heichal HaTorah, all in Teaneck.

Those schools, as well as the Yeshiva University High School for Boys — perhaps better known as MTA — in Manhattan, collectively sent a letter to parents and students at the end of May.

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Bruriah Middle School and High School in Elizabeth, the Golda Och Academy in West Orange, and the Rae Kushner Yeshiva High School in Livingston are devising strategies as well.

The decision in the Bergen County letter “reflects our shared belief that schools should be spaces where students can be fully present — with themselves, their peers, and their learning,” it says.

Commenting on the decision and the cooperative way it was reached, TABC Rosh Yeshiva Rabbi Joshua Kahn said, “We are fortunate to have a community in which our school leaders talk often and are happy to collaborate and brainstorm together. This topic of smartphones is something that we have been discussing together since last summer. We have discussed its value, challenges, processes, and a shared commitment to moving forward together.

“As part of our conversations, we felt that this change is very meaningful and profound, and our students will be best served if they hear a clear and consistent message from all of our community-based high schools.”

Rabbi Kahn said the administrators’ primary goal is “to create a space for the healthy religious, academic, social, and emotional development of our teens.”

In December 2023, Jewish day school administrators were invited to hear Jonathan Haidt, the NYU social psychologist and bestselling author of “The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness,” speak at a Tikvah Fund conference. Dr. Haidt discussed the impact of technology, particularly social media, on teen mental health, and he explored how parents and school leaders might address this issue.

Rabbi Kahn said Dr. Haidt’s book “provides data to demonstrate the negative impact on the social and emotional development of our teenagers.” For example, diagnoses of depression and anxiety have more than doubled in teens and young adults since the advent of cellphones.

Following up on Dr. Haidt’s presentation, psychologist Yoni Schwab, assistant head of school at the Shefa School in Manhattan — a Jewish day school for students with language-based learning disabilities — has spoken about the cellphone issue to parents and administrators at 25 Jewish day schools across North America, including TABC, Ma’ayanot, and most of the Bergen County Jewish elementary schools.

Dr. Schwab provides a psychological perspective on the downsides of too much screentime and what different schools are doing about it. “It’s helpful to share information,” he said. “You want to coordinate across schools so that everyone is working in collaboration. In many families, the children attend different schools. This way, no matter where your kids are enrolled, you’ll know this is an important shared value.”

Dr. Schwab emphasized that “cellphones and social media are not going away; kids will continue to have them and they’re useful, fun, and very practical. But the amount of time kids spend on phones is interfering with their emotional and social development.”

He said that excessive screen time leads to difficulties in attention and emotion regulation, hinders interpersonal interactions and physical activity, and exposes kids to harmful content including pornography, gaming, and online gambling. The latter, he added, “has become a real problem in yeshiva high schools.”

“We need to pull back, big time, on kids’ access to screens — not to get rid of them completely — and the easiest way to do that is in school,” Dr. Schwab said. “Many schools are doing this as of September.” His own K-8 school has been phone-free for two years, and he has noted a positive change among the students there.

“Most lower and middle schools already have no-phone policies in place; many are collecting phones at the door in some fashion,” he said. “It’s more challenging to implement and enforce this policy in high schools. Probably some kids will cheat, and that’s okay. We’re not looking for perfection but to change the culture of the school.”

Each school is formulating specific policy details independently and will communicate these details before the start of the school year.

Frisch 10th grade Dean Meryl Feldblum, outgoing chair of the Frisch English department and incoming director of educational research — and also a Frisch graduate and the mother of a Frisch sophomore — assumes that the logistics will be complex in a big school like Frisch, which has approximately 1,000 students.

Echoing Dr. Schwab, she said that even though some students inevitably will skirt the system, “if 95 percent of the kids are compliant 95 percent of the time, it’s worth it. But getting to that 95 percent is not going to be easy.”

Dr. Feldblum explained why she is in favor of the new policy.

“For the last decade, if not more, we’ve been fighting cellphones,” she said. “They were a huge distraction in class. Originally, we would say, ‘You can’t have them on in class; put them in your backpack or your pocket.’

“And even then, kids were constantly trying to hide the phone under their desk and behind their books. So we instituted a new rule this year, where we have a sort of shoe organizer hanging in the front of the classroom and kids are supposed to put their phones into it as they walk in. But it’s a constant battle with them in terms of just putting the phone in. It’s a giant waste of time and energy, and I don’t think it helped the teachers’ relationship with the students.

“But the issue is much larger than just classroom management,” Dr. Feldblum continued. “I think every single study has pointed to the fact that these phones are poison. When I have this discussion with students, I compare phones to cigarettes: ‘They’re addictive and they’re bad for you. The apps you guys are using impact your attention span and even your academic abilities.’ Studies show that reading and math scores have gone down since we’ve had these phones in our lives.

“Studies also show they’re bad for us socially and emotionally. They are causing anxiety and depression to skyrocket. They’re impacting our ability to socialize. When you walk into the lunchroom or other spaces where kids are supposed to be talking and communicating, half of them are on their phones. It’s not good for us, and it’s time to take them away.”

Jewish schools in Essex and Union counties are reaching the same conclusion.

At Bruriah Middle School and High School in Elizabeth, phones must be handed in before morning davening and are returned at the end of the day, according to the principal, Dr. Bethany Strulowitz.

Rabbi Daniel Nevins, head of school at the Golda Och Academy in West Orange, said that elementary and middle school students are not permitted to use their phones during the school day. “High school students are permitted to use their devices only during designated times,” he added. “Faculty have discretion to ask students to use devices for specific assignments, though this is uncommon.”

Rabbi Eliezer Rubin, head of school at the Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy and the Rae Kushner Yeshiva High School in Livingston, said a cellphone policy is being formulated for future implementation, “based on RKYHS’s educational philosophy and input from parents and students. A thoughtful, deliberate approach to policy will ensure that our decisions regarding social media will be considered, doable, and effective.”

How do the students feel about these winds of change regarding their phone usage? Unsurprisingly, they have not reacted with great joy.

When Frisch announced its phone-free policy for next year, Dr. Feldblum said, “the kids were all upset. They really don’t know how they are going to function, how they are going to find their friends and communicate with their parents or coordinate a ride home.

“I told them, ‘Well, I didn’t talk to my parents during the day when I was in high school. If there was an emergency, you used the phone in the school office. And as far as a ride home, I had to plan in advance. But you’re right; it’s going to be a challenge at the beginning. You’re not going to know exactly where your friends are all the time. It might take you a few minutes to find them, but there aren’t so many places your friends could be hiding in the building.’”

Dr. Feldblum also pointed out to her students that those who are Shabbat-observant or go to sleepaway camp are accustomed to functioning without a phone for a day or even for several weeks. “I say to them, ‘You guys are used to this. You already do it.’”

Her son, Simmy, acknowledged that “something was needed” in addressing the ubiquitous presence of smartphones in school.

“It’s hard to tell if this new policy is going to be the right thing and how it’s going to work out in the long term and in the short term,” he said.

“I think it’s going to be hard for students to get used to it in the short term. There will have to be other changes to compensate for there not being phones. Like, right now it’s very hard to use your computer in school because of how much stuff is blocked on the Internet, and the Internet connection is very slow. So a lot of people use their hotspots on their phone to be able to do almost anything.”

His peers are mostly “annoyed” about the cellphone ban, Simmy added, “but I think they’re going to be fine with it in the long term. I do believe that in the end it will introduce more social interaction.”

Simmy said he sees students “just sitting in the corner of the hallway on their phones doing nothing. I think if it’s nice outside, we should go outside and hang out with other people. When it’s not nice outside, there needs to be more to do inside the school building because kids can get bored.”

Still, if it were up him, he’d prefer a more limited ban that would allow phone use at some point during the day, “because people would like to check if they got an important email or message.”

Dr. Feldblum said the Frisch administration now communicates with students by text message when there’s an important announcement, like a change in schedule or the location of an exam. Such announcements are displayed on a screen in the center hallway, she said, and she suggests that more screens could be installed around the building so that nobody would miss messages even if they didn’t hear them announced over the PA system.

Rabbi Kahn of TABC emphasized that, come next year, the participating schools “will look a lot different” and will have to consider many practical and logistical aspects of the ban.

“The change for next year is not just about a cellphone policy, but about a cultural change within our school community and a deep investment in healthy development — religiously, academically, socially and emotionally,” he said.