Before & After: What Happens When an Editor Finally Says "Yes"

A Literal Literary Loser Explains Edits

On November 13, I wrote a post entitled “Just an Editor Who Can’t Say No,” lamenting the numerous outlets who’d ghosted me after I submitted a solicited article. The piece I shopped around was finally published by “Jewish Week” on Tuesday, November 26. It featured multiple changes from the one I initially submitted.

I thought my readers might find it interesting to take a sneak peek behind the editorial curtain of how a submission becomes a sale. You can read the final version, here, then check out the original draft, below. Stick around afterwards, and I’ll walk you through what changes were made… and why. Then you can tell me if you liked them.

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Fear of Antisemitism Guiding Parents in Applying to NYC Schools

Applying to schools in New York City has always been a fraught process. Since October 7, 2023, however, Jewish parents aren’t just asking about a school’s academics, or its sports and arts programs. Families want to know about a school’s climate for Jewish students.

These parents are convinced they’re not overreacting. They watched the video of a Jewish teacher forced to hide from rampaging students at the public Hillcrest HS, and read in The New York Times about parents at the private Elisabeth Irwin HS filing a grievance after their children were taken on a field trip to be “subjected to anti-Israel and anti-American propaganda.”

But there have been other, less publicized incidents, as well.

“On Monday, October 9, my child came to school and found their teacher chanting, ‘Palestine all the way! Israel is going to get what they deserve!’” revealed one mother. “When my child complained to the administration, they were accused of harassing the teacher. Later, a girl who said she’d be celebrating Hanukkah was attacked by older students. The administration insisted it was nothing. Now, Jewish students are terrified to say anything, because the ones who speak up are always punished.”

“My daughter was stopped in the hallway and asked if she was Jewish,” another parent confirmed. “Girls were repeatedly asking her if she supports Israel, to which she was responding, "I'm against killing people," but it didn't help and eventually they wouldn't sit with her. She was called a white colonizer. In Math, the better performing kids were sitting at one table, and classmates were calling it "Jew table.” She was sending me pictures from the bathrooms of stickers that said 'resistance by all means.’ The school was covered in swastikas and graffiti. When I emailed the principal, the response was "Your daughter is wrong about the swastikas and graffiti, and we already called the police and we are wiping everything every day.” She finished the 9th grade but didn't want to return to school this year.”

Of the families who opted to pull their children from their respective schools, some opted to transfer to Jewish schools, where they felt safer.

"Rodeph Sholom School has received inquiries and applications from families who felt that their children were experiencing anti-Semitism in their current school,” verifies Janet Barzilay, Director of Enrollment. “Our school offers an environment where students are not on the defensive about their identity."

Surprisingly, Catholic schools became an attractive option, even for Jewish families.

“My older daughter now attends a Catholic School where there are strict conduct codes and moral clarity from leadership,” Natalya Murakhver revealed. “Over the summer all students were required to read a book about the Holocaust. After nine years as a public school parent, it was a not so difficult decision this year to pull both of my children out of public schools and send them to classical, parochial schools that offer truly liberal, rigorous education. The year that followed October 7th exposed so much Illiberalism and anti-Semitism in our public schools. As a public school graduate myself, public education's great decline is nothing short of a union made tragedy.”

The spike in antisemitism caught those already enrolled in a school during the 2023-2024 year by surprise. Those applying to Kindergarten, Middle or High School for 2025, however, are now factoring that element into their overall decision.

“My eldest applied to middle school two years ago. I was looking for schools that were near to us, had relatively good reputations, and lots of after-school options,” explained Brooklyn mom Lena. “As we approach the application for High School, I am absolutely looking at which schools have a reputation for being safe for Jewish students. I am concerned about the systemic antisemitism in schools (and sometimes pervasive even to school districts) where they will be asked to check their identity at the door in order to be accepted (i.e. along the lines of No Zionists Here type rhetoric). This issue has risen to the top of our priorities list as we can see that there are schools that are interested in keeping Jewish students safe and schools that just aren't.”

“It is no secret that there is an upsurge in anti-Semitism,” says Dr. Abraham Unger, Head of School at the newly opened Emet Classical Academy. “What used to be called anti-Zionism has been utterly unmasked as the anti-Jewish bigotry it really is, and it has become socially acceptable in some of the most venerated halls of influence – most prominently in the education space from grade school through the most advanced research institutions. But anti-Semitism is more than just an assault on the Jews. It ultimately is a deeply strategic attempt to push back against the great ideas of Western civilization.”

Naomi Levin Schoenkin, whose child is enrolled in Emet’s first year cohort, agrees. “For the first time, my children, who have attended both public and private schools in NYC, are learning about the contributions of Jews and Jewish thought to Western civilization!”

New York City schools have been hemorrhaging students since even before the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2017, there were 1.1 million enrolled in the public school system. The number currently stands at 912,064 (and that’s with the expansion and addition of universal pre-K for 3 and 4 year olds, meaning the drop in the Kindergarten through 12th grade population is actually larger).

Parents have always been wary of the low educational standards, ancient facilities, and safety concerns endemic to NYC schools. Making families of Jewish students worry about the harassment their children might now encounter could drive even more of them out of the system and, if they can’t find any acceptable options, out of the city altogether.

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The first and most obvious change is that the initial draft was written as straight reportage, while the published piece is now first person. My oldest son noticed immediately and asked, “They told you to put in all that stuff about yourself, right?”

He’s 100% right. I try to keep myself out of my stories as much as possible. The piece isn’t about me, it’s about the issue and the people who are being affected by it. (Even if I’m one of the people affected by the issue.) But the “Jewish Week” editor thought I needed to establish who I was and why I was qualified to write on the topic, prior to diving into the meat of the story.

The second change is the quotes from the schools were cut entirely. The editor thought this was a story about families, not institutions. The parents’ quotes were also cut down, but that was mostly for space/word count, since we had expanded so much on the historical context at the top.

Finally, and this what I think really altered the tone of the piece, was the editor asked me to not just report the problem - she wanted me to offer a solution. Which was a brilliant bit of insight, the one that justified the post being published and, ultimately, read. Thanks to her notes, I dedicated the final third of the completed piece to explaining what parents could do to, if not fix the problem (the problem is thousands of years old, my thousand words wasn’t going to fix it), then, at the very least, ameliorate it as far as it pertains to New York City schools.

One of the things I frequently tell my children is that many situations “aren’t better or worse, just different.”

But now I want to hear from you: Comparing the piece I submitted to the piece that was published, do you think it was made better, worse, or just different?

Let me know in the comments and thanks for reading this far!

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And lest you think editing and Thanksgiving kept my daughter and I from making a book review video… here is out latest!