Sweden's New Home Schooling Limits Being Tested By Chabad Rabbi

In Sweden, a change in law took effect January 1 that limits mores narrowly the situations in which parents can home-school their children. It is now permitted only in "extraordinary" circumstances. The new law aims to make education across the country more uniform. (See prior posting.)  Chabad Lubavitch World HQ / News reported yesterday that one of the first tests of the new law involves Rabbi Alexander and Leah Namdar, Chabad representatives to Sweden.  Four of the Namdar children are studying in an online international school. Authorities in Gothenburg have formally notified the Namdars that they will be fined the equivalent of $2400 (US) per week if they do not enroll their children in a Swedish school by Feb. 1.  The Namdars' supporters say the Swedish law was aimed at immigrant children who were illiterate. The Namdar children, by contrast, are being educated along with 500 other students in the online school, and this is supplemented by private tutoring. They have a full morning schedule of Judaic studies including Hebrew, while their afternoons are devoted to English, Swedish, mathematics, geography, science, music, art, and gymnastics. Apparently Swedish schools have significant bullying problems, and the Namdars are concerned that as the only Orthodox Jews in Gothenburg, the children would stand out in a Swedish school and become targets for anti-Semitism. The Namdars say that their right to give their children a Jewish education, which the public schools cannot accommodate, is at stake.