This is a guest post by Akiva
There was a massive peaceful protest in Jerusalem on Thursday as 68 ultra-Orthodox parents went to jail for refusing to send their daughters to school. The story was picked up by al-Guardian and even linked by the Drudge Report. However, the articles are spotty on why thousands of Israelis would protest these parents going to jail and many readers could draw the wrong conclusion.
Harriet Sherwood, the Guardian’s new correspondent in Jerusalem, made an error of omission which unfortunately makes these protesting Jews appear racist. She writes in the third paragraph:
“The parents are Ashkenazi, originating from Europe, and are in a long-running battle to have their daughters educated separately from Sephardi girls originating from north Africa and the Middle East.”
Guardian readers can draw the thinly veiled inference that religious Jews are racists. However, Israeli media reports (verified by my contacts there) revealed that among the parents going to jail are the very same Sephardi Jews that the Guardian wants us to think are being discriminated against.
If it wasn’t racism what happened? The school program would only admit girls who adhered to a stringent code of behavior including no television at home and a very modest dress code, regardless of where their ancestors came from. Parents of girls who were turned away petitioned the court, which ordered that they be allowed in regardless of their adherence to the school’s screening policy. Some concerned parents, including both those of European and Sephardi ancestry, pulled their daughters from the school and sought an alternative option. The court, perhaps to prevent embarrassment over its own verdict, ruled the parents were in contempt. The situation is complicated, but the key issue was not discrimination based on where the girls came from but rather parents concerned about the environment their daughters would be educated in being punished by the court.
To her credit Ms. Sherwood does eventually quote some of the protestors as noting their motivation was to protect their daughter’s level of religious observance. However, their statements are qualified with a warning label: “The reason for wanting separate education, the parents claim, is not racism but a desire to remove their daughters from the influence of those they consider less strict in their religious observance.” Good catch, but the article had already implied their motives are racist, without any qualification whatsoever, in the third paragraph.
Lastly, I wonder why Ms. Sherwood notes repeatedly there was a police presence, and that “police helicopters throbbed over the mass of black-hatted demonstrators”, but never mentions that the protest was totally peaceful.
Hawkeye
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WellofSense
Medusa
The Alchemist
Louise
Tosca
Maimon
Telling the Truth
Israelinurse
Adam Levick
Margie in Tel Aviv
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Hadar Sela
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June 21, 2010 at 4:25 am
Mizrahi Ashkenazi
So, now we see MindThePig degenerating to outright libel of a whole community. Thank you, MindThePig, for your implicit admission that you have no counter-argument of substance.
What a bigot. And an innumerate one at that. In 2010, the CBS (HaLishka HaMerkazit LeStatistika) found roughly 20% of Israeli Jews religious. 20% is not 0% (“nobody”).
MindThePig, apparently you, too, have a schooling problem.
June 21, 2010 at 4:27 am
MindTheCrap
Toko:
Where in the Bible or the Talmud is there a halachic rule that justifies the school’s treatment of the Mizrahi girls ? There isn’t, so this is not a religious issue. What if a public secular school in Tel-Aviv were to exclude or create separate classes for masorati students that attend synagogue or wear a kippa ? Would the school be justified in maintaining the “level of religiosity” of the majority ? Can you name another country that allows this level of segregation in publicly funded schools ?
June 21, 2010 at 4:32 am
MindTheCrap
Mizrahi:
What is an “Haredi element” . Do they have names ? Do you know what the word “doubt” means?
” roughly 20% of Israeli Jews religious”. Thank God, baruch ha’shem, that only 20% are religious. And they are obligated to obey the law of the land, particularly as they have no moral qualms about accepting such large amounts of public money from the same people who operate the legal system. Dina-di-malchuta : Dina !!
June 21, 2010 at 4:37 am
Toko LeMoko
Silke, thank you. I read your “conversation” with Naomi Pass with interest. You seem to have shown fairly clearly that the NIF is indeed a foreign organisation attempting to subvert Israel’s democracy, Israel’s international standing, and Israel’s security.
These are the people with whom Noar K’halacha allies itself?
June 21, 2010 at 4:49 am
Toko LeMoko
Mindthecrap wrote:
“Where in the Bible or the Talmud is there a halachic rule that justifies the school’s treatment of the Mizrahi girls ?”
Your question is loaded. The school’s “treatment of MIzrahi girls” wans’t related to Mizrahi or Ashkenazi but to details religious observance – to presence or absence of television in the home, to dress codes, etc. That has nothing to do with race. It does have to do with minhagim, which are part of religion.
“What if a public secular school in Tel-Aviv were to exclude or create separate classes for masorati students that attend synagogue or wear a kippa ? Would the school be justified in maintaining the “level of religiosity” of the majority ?”
First, you’re mixing issues. If you want to have the government defund the religious, fine – pursue the political process. But not jail parents.
Second, the parents did indeed remove their girls with intent to place their girls in private education. The Court jailed them specifically for removing the girls. That has no justfication in law, and is religious repression.
“Can you name another country that allows this level of segregation in publicly funded schools ?”
Irrelevant. The Israeli situation is unqiue, and there is no reason why Israel should have to conform to foreign concepts.
June 21, 2010 at 4:56 am
Toko LeMoko
By the way, Minthecrap, before you rush to defund haredi schools, you might ask whether consistency would then require de-funding Sephardi and Arab schools teaching religion. Are you so anxious for Israel to take on such complex internal battles while serious external threat looms (the expanding Iranian-Syrian-Turkish-Hamas axis)?
June 21, 2010 at 4:57 am
MindTheCrap
Tokeyo-Le-Pooko:
“Irrelevant. The Israeli situation is unqiue, and there is no reason why Israel should have to conform to foreign concepts.”
Foreign concepts: democracy, justice, equality, humanism, respect, etc, etc. All totally foreign to Judaism.
Thank you for explaining your philosophy so clearly.
June 21, 2010 at 4:57 am
Silke
Toko
it isn’t about what I proved or didn’t prove
it is about Ms. NIF Naomi Pass saying that she a foreigner thinks herself entitled to meddle in inner Israeli matters.
That is totally independent from who is right in the inner Israeli debate or whether there even should be a debate.
All that is not for foreigners to initiate or to have a hand in especially if they talk about Israel as if she were a naughty child that a kindergarten supervisor nannying every step of it.
June 21, 2010 at 4:59 am
Mizrahi Ashkenazi
MindThePig,
If you’ve any disputes about the term “haredi elements” then dispute Yediot, not me. But any fool knows Yediot meant “haredi sources.”
June 21, 2010 at 5:02 am
Toko LeMoko
Silke, your points are well-taken.
“it is about Ms. NIF Naomi Pass saying that she a foreigner thinks herself entitled to meddle in inner Israeli matters.”
And to think someone earlier got huffy about a foreigner simply expressing an opinion here. Is the secular left inconsistent, or what?
June 21, 2010 at 5:12 am
MindTheCrap
MizrahiAshenazi:
“But any fool knows Yediot meant “haredi sources.” ”
Like you.
June 21, 2010 at 5:16 am
Toko LeMoko
Mindthecrap,
You’ve no intellectual basis at all and so are twisting slowly in the wind.
“Foreign concepts: democracy, justice, equality, humanism, respect, etc, etc. All totally foreign to Judaism.”
None of those concepts are in play here. What is in play is the sole question of the right of parents to determine their children’s religious observance. That’s a core concept which you (and the Court) want to violate.
However, the particular concept in question before your desperate digression, was the question of state funding of religious schools. Israel is not the UK or France. It has a clear objective of perpetuating the Jewish people’s existence, culture, and traditions. That means it is within its rights to fund (or de-fund) religious schools, as its (democratically-chosen) government pleases.
If you don’t like the resulting compromises with the religious, then stop complaining and vote for Shinui. But don’t jail haredim just because you don’t like having to compromise with them politically.
June 21, 2010 at 5:21 am
Silke
Toko
sorry even though your point makes me smile I won’t go there, I don’t do faction
remember, I am German and so I am by birth condemned to be a stickler for principles
and if it is evil when the CIA did it (Congress, Paris, Koestler) in order to enhance freedom in Eastern Europe then why should it be saintly if NIF does it in Israel to promote the unfallible wisdom it claims to possess
what applies to my sovereign rights within my apartment should apply to countries also (I know that leads to all kinds of Catch 22s but that last years have convinced me that the “without-borderers” have gone way too far.
June 21, 2010 at 5:49 am
MindTheCrap
Tokeyo-Le-Pooko:
“But don’t jail haredim just because you don’t like having to compromise with them politically.”
They were jailed because they refused to obey court orders. The court (particularly Judge Edmond Levi) made every effort possible to promote a compromise; the parents even refused to allow mixed classes for the last few weeks of the school year so that negotiations could continue over the summer. The President also tried to mediate without success.
Compromise politically ? I thought you said that this was an issue concerning religion. Make up your mind.
BTW, these Mizrahi families want to send their children to very ultra-Orthodox school. How much different can their “level of observance” be if that was the school of their choice ?
June 21, 2010 at 5:50 am
MindTheCrap
IT IS EASIER TO CONCLUDE “NO RACISM” WITHOUT ALL THE FACTS
June 21, 2010 at 6:21 am
MindTheCrap
FROM 2003 !!!!
Sorry, rejected; your grandmother’s Sephardi
By Tamar Rotem
Ha’aretz
5 August 2003
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/objects/pages/PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=32559
5
About two weeks ago, ACRI (the Association for Civil Rights in Israel) sent a letter to the Ministry of Education demanding it put an end to the ethnic quota system used by the Bais Yaakov religious secondary schools (seminaries) for girls. The letter was timely – scores of girls of Mizrahi origin have already been rejected for the coming school year.
Such discrimination against girls from Mizrahi families who apply to the Bais Yaakov seminaries is evident every year as the replies go out to Jerusalem and Bnei Brak.
Dozens of the girls involved, all graduates of Bais Yaakov elementary schools, insist on registering for the exclusive secondary schools that they see as the natural next step – but the schools apparently are determined to perpetuate Ashkenazi hegemony in the Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) world.
In Jerusalem, three of the movement’s seminaries employ a quota system – Haseminar Hayashan, the oldest, whose principal is Benyamin Scharansky;
Haseminar Hehadash, under Rabbi Yeshayahu Lieberman, where in addition to the regular syllabus, secular subjects like architectural drawing and computer studies are taught; and Darkei Rachel, under Rabbi Yehezkel Mendelssohn.
An ACRI investigation found that these three schools, to retain their exclusivity, take pains to see that no more than 30 percent of the incoming class are of Mizrahi origin because they are considered “inferior” candidates. Scores of girls seeking admission, most of them outstanding students, are left out, while less academically able Ashkenazi students are accepted.
Rejected in this manner were about a hundred girls in Jerusalem and another hundred in B’nei Brak this year. That figure is expected to shrink, because Haredi society has developed a lobby system for girls who are rejected, and the lobbying will yield results. Still, every year, about 30 girls don’t make it into any of the seminaries, and they are all Mizrahi.
For most of their parents, who have done their best to be assimilated into a constituency ruled by the Ashkenazi elite, this is a devastating blow. Imagine how H. must feel, a man of about 60, whose granddaughter was not accepted at one of the seminaries two years ago, because her grandmother (his wife) is Mizrahi.
Mixed blessing
H., a well-known figure in Jerusalem, with ties to the Hassidic (Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox) community on one side and to the Shas (Sephardi ultra-Orthodox) community on the other, could not accept the fact that, with all his connections, he couldn’t help when the crunch came.
Feeling the injustice deeply, he devoted himself night and day to a campaign to persuade one of the three schools to take her; he also worked hard to help another 20 parents in similar circumstances. Pressure brought to bear in high places led eventually to all of the girls’ being accepted, aside from his own granddaughter.
H. says that she has found a place for herself in the interim at a less prestigious seminary. The principals cite lack of space. H. says it’s a flimsy excuse, because they have not increased the number of classes. He believes that the only answer is for registration to be taken out of the principals’ hands and given over to an independent, external (non-Haredi) entity, like the Ministry of Education.
So far no public agency has intervened to put a stop to this practice. About two years ago, a petition on the issue made its way to the Supreme Court, but the petitioners, a group of Mizrahi parents from B’nei Brak, restricted the petition to their own specific case. The high court did not render an opinion in principle with respect to the matter.
“We are acting as citizens who think the Ministry of Education cannot solve the problem of discrimination one instance at a time,” says Attorney Neta Amar of ACRI, over whose signature a letter was sent to the ministry. The ministry’s general response, she says, was that “it’s impossible to prove discrimination here,” adding that she “found that shocking, that a
government ministry agrees to keep silent about a racist policy.”
Her letter demands that the ministry take steps to revoke the license of these seminaries or to oust their principals. The ministry is unlikely to
do either. The letter’s importance is in exposing the religious and social apparatus behind the quotas. The director of Haredi education at Jerusalem city hall, Benyamin Cohen, explained to Attorney Amar that Rabbi Yosef Shalom Eliashiv, a leading Torah authority, is considered the heir of Rabbi [Eliezer Menahem] Shach, who originally made the decision that the seminaries would accept at least 30 percent Mizrahi students.
Cohen claims this represents progress, because at one time the quota was 17 percent. Amar claims that setting a quota is “a kind of exercise they do, as if the rabbi is saying, `We’ll take this racism thing one step at a time.’”
Cohen asserts that, by way of monitoring the seminaries’ compliance with the quota, a committee of three rabbis was set up by Rabbi Eliashiv, consisting of Rabbi Yosef Efrati, Eliashiv’s assistant and personal delegate, Rabbi Aryeh Dvir, his spokesman for seminary affairs, and one Rabbi Reichman.
Double checks
The letter says: “The Haredi Education Department at the Jerusalem Municipality supervises and reports to the committee of rabbis on observance of the quota. At the department’s request, each principal writes alongside the name of each student at his institution whether she is Sephardi or Ashkenazi.” Cohen added that he makes further checks as to the girls’ ethnic origin, to be on the safe side.
The application form for Haseminar Hayashan in Jerusalem asks candidates to state their parents’ ethnic origins. H., the outraged grandfather, says
that last year, parents began falsifying their ethnicity by legally changing their surnames to Ashkenazi names.
“What does it have to do with the parents’ ethnicity?” fumes B., a woman from the Lithuanian Jewish community who assists families wishing to have their daughters admitted to the seminaries. “It’s hutzpah. Just because she’s Sephardic, a girl should suffer? These girls must not be given the
feeling that they are outsiders.”
In the Haredi community, some people say that admitting too many Mizrahi girls would be a stain on the seminary’s good name, because they often have relatives who are not Haredi.
One rabbi unblushingly explained to parents that the seminaries are really doing them a favor, because if Sephardi girls were accepted strictly on their merits, the quota wouldn’t be even 15 percent.
The Haredi community views the committee as having been designed to filter the stream of parents coming to Rabbi Eliashiv, who is known to be against discrimination; the committee is not thought to have real influence on what the seminaries do. A story is circulating among the parents that one father, whose daughter was at home for more than a year, sat for three days in front of Rabbi Eliashiv’s house and, miraculously enough, his daughter was accepted to the seminary.
A handwritten plea from Rabbi Efrati about the case of H., the grandfather with a Sephardi wife, to the seminary, shows how problematic the question is: “Since it was agreed that, in the neutral [not Hassidic] classrooms, acceptance would match the percentage used at all the seminaries – the reckoning need not take a long time. It is impossible that the ancestral
origins of a young woman determine how someone’s great-granddaughter be defined. Accordingly, I beg him to appoint someone to meet with the people from Rabbi Benyamin Cohen’s [the principal's] office to look into the matter and have an end to this. Please.” The letter didn’t help.
All rejected
Informally, if one of the seminaries is required to deviate from the agreement, the other principals will accept a similar number of Mizrahi girls at their own institutions. This year, the principals couldn’t agree among themselves, and not a single one of the Mizrahi girls waiting impatiently at home for a decision was accepted.
Attorney Amar believes that many people in the Haredi community, including the Ashkenazi sector, find the entire subject an embarrassment. Every parent worries that his daughter’s standing in the marriage market will decline if she attends some other seminary, explains B., the woman who assists parents with the process, which is why other seminaries have lost so many good students.
The fact that some Haredi parents are turning to agencies that would once have been inconceivable, like ACRI and the Supreme Court, reflects the
beginnings of protest. Even B. confesses that she has simply given up.
“The funding for the seminaries should be cut off. In spite of everything, they receive government funds.” She knows that she may be viewed with a jaundiced eye by the seminary principals, and says that perhaps she’ll send her daughters somewhere else to study.
As always in the Haredi community, whose members are experts at improvising survival strategies, there’s already someone trying to circumvent the problem. A former instructor at one of the seminaries has set up, in her own modest home in a Jerusalem neighborhood, an alternative seminary.
Last year, about twenty girls studied with her, of whom only a few were accepted at regular seminaries. Most paid her by the hour; others, unable to pay, studied for free. Although the teacher has only the highest praise for these students, she seems not to have made up her mind yet about the larger issue. Her own daughters have studied at one of the Bais Yaakov seminaries, which she considers the crown jewel of Haredi life. Her daughters, she emphasizes, don’t look at all Sephardi. But, she says, she got them a Mizrahi tutor to bolster their confidence in their ethnic origins.
The Ministry of Education responds that it “rejects outright the allegation that it colludes with any sort of discriminatory policy toward girls of Mizrahi origin wishing to be accepted at recognized schools which are not official (Haredi) or at Haredi seminaries.”
In the wake of the ACRI query, Ronit Tirosh, director-general of the ministry, has named two committees to look into allegations of discrimination. One will focus on official Haredi educational institutions, and the other on the seminaries(considered private).
“Every girl who is a student in the Haredi educational system has a place in one of the educational institutions in the city. The education system cannot provide a solution for a girl who decides to punish herself by remaining [at home] without an institutional framework.”
Haseminar Hayashan alleges that it does everything possible “to redress past injustices with respect to the admission of girls from all ethnic groups,” and that it will continue to conduct itself in the matter “in accordance with the instructions of the gedolei yisroel (ultra-Orthodox authorities) who oversee the seminary.”
June 21, 2010 at 6:23 am
MindTheCrap
FROM 1990:
DO AGUDAT YISRAEL SCHOOLS BAR SEPHARDIM?
by SURIE ACKERMAN; In Jerusalem reporter
October 26, 1990
The Jerusalem Post
Officials of the Agudat Yisrael-affiliated independent educational stream are vigorously denying claims made in the Knesset education committee last
week that their schools discriminate against Sephardim.
“This is just an example of the blind hatred against haredim,” said Rabbi Shmuel Weinberg, assistant director of the independent educational stream network. “We have 25,000 pupils from Sephardi backgrounds in our schools, and they have always studied with us. I don’t think there’s an institution in Israel that has done as much for the Sephardim as the independent educational stream.”
The Knesset discussion focused on schools in Bnei Brak, but some local haredim say that in Jerusalem, Sephardi girls are having increasing difficulty gaining entrance to Beit Ya’acov schools, run by the independent
educational stream.
According to city councillor Ben-Zion Kugler (Degel Hatora), Jerusalem Beit Ya’acov schools have always maintained a Sephardi “quota,” ensuring that no more than 35 percent of the pupils in their schools come from Sephardi families. According to Kugler, the local situation was aggravated in 1989 when the Ger hassidim opened the Beit Ya’acov Hahassidi in Ezrat Tora, which in only its second year has attracted close to 1,000 pupils
affiliated with various hassidic groups.
Deputy mayor Meir Porush (Agudat Yisrael), who sends his daughters to Beit Ya’acov Hahassidi, explained that the Ger hassidim had opened the school in the wake of conflicts within schools, stemming from the Agudat Yisrael-Degel Hatora split before the 1988 elections. During the 1988-89 school year, Porush explained, “there were reports of fights between girls, and of teachers who were insulting the rabbis of the opposing group. It was decided to give hassidic girls their own framework.”
But the sudden exit of so many Ashkenazi girls from various Beit Ya’acov schools in the city upset the Sephardi-Ashkenazi balance in these schools, Kugler explained. Thus, when Sephardim tried to apply there, they were refused entry, even in cases where they had older sisters in the schools,
he said.
Moreover, the Beit Ya’acov Hahassidi excludes Sephardi girls because of its policy that pupils must come from a hassidic background, forcing neighborhood Sephardim to register at Beit Ya’acov schools in adjacent
neighborhoods. These schools, including Beit Ya’acov Beit Yisrael and Beit Ya’acov of Mattersdorf, were reluctant to accept them, since they would
then exceed their Sephardi “quota”, Kugler said.
“The simplest solution would be for independent educational stream officials to force Beit Ya’acov Hahassidi to accept its share of Sephardim,” Kugler said. “But they’re afraid of Ger, which is now the strongest element in Agudat Yisrael.”
Weinberg and other independent educational stream officials readily confirmed and even defended the existence of a per-school quota for Sephardim in the Beit Ya’acov schools. “When you talk about integration, does that mean letting the minority element suddenly become the majority?” he asked. “That’s not how integration works in the State systems.”
Weinberg denied that the Beit Ya’acov Hahassidi school had an exclusionary policy. “Sephardi families usually don’t identify with the hassidic approach and aren’t even applying there,” he said. He conceded, however, that the school’s opening had created registration problems and that the independent educational stream had ordered several Beit Ya’acov schools to raise their percentage of Sephardi registration to 40 or 45 percent.
Weinberg insisted that when the percentage of Sephardi girls in a school approaches 50 percent, the best of the Sephardi as well as Ashkenazi girls begin to leave. “Most Sephardim don’t want their girls studying in all-Sephardi schools,” Weinberg said. “I don’t know why that’s so, but that’s the reality.”
As evidence, he cited the miniscule registration at a new Sephardi Beit Ya’acov his network had opened this year in Geula. Though the school had the backing of leading Sephardi sages, including former Sephardi Chief
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, only eight girls are attending the new school. This occurred despite the problems Sephardi parents encountered in registering their children elsewhere.
“If they are so convinced that the education in our regular schools is so much better, are we to blame?” Weinberg asked.
Sephardi sources view the situation differently. Moshe Nimni, Jerusalem Shas spokesman and assistant to Shas deputy mayor Nissim Ze’ev, cited the long-standing quota system in the Beit Ya’acov schools as the main reason Ze’ev opened his N’vat Yisrael school for girls a decade ago. The school now has 500 girls in its elementary school, and can’t expand until its new campus on Rehov Shmuel Hanavi is completed.
“Anyone who wants to study in an all-Sephardi school will go to N’vat Yisrael; we don’t need the Ashkenazim to start a school for us,” Nimni said, referring to the new Geula school. He denied that many Sephardi parents insist their girls go to Ashkenzi schools out of a sense of inferiority, but rather, “because they believe, on principle, that girls from all the groups should study together,” he said.
Perhaps ironically, given his close ties with Ze’ev, Nimni sends his daughter to an Ashkenazi Beit Ya’acov. “They accepted her with no problem,” he said.
June 21, 2010 at 6:26 am
MindTheCrap
FROM 2006:
Died of a broken heart
Neta Sela
Published: 08.26.06, 13:32 / Israel Jewish Scene / Ynet
Jacob (Jacko) Sofer from Jerusalem felt a pain in his heart, passed out and died. Friends from the Haredi-Sephardic community are sure it was the result of his heartbreak at not being able to get his daughter into the school of her choice
So much heartbreak regarding children’s education: Thursday evening, Jacob (Jacko) Sofer left his Jerusalem home in a cab. A few minutes later, he felt a pain in his heart, lost consciousness and, despite efforts to resuscitate him, died.
Thus far, it sounds like another sad but familiar story of a forty-something man passing away before his time. However, the Haredi-Sephardic community in Jerusalem is convinced that the reason for his early death is a problem that plagues hundreds of the community’s families.
“He ate his heart out that he couldn’t get his daughter into the seminary of her choice,” said one of Sofer’s close friends. “In recent weeks, he was informed that his daughter could not study in the seminary that she desires. He kept saying that he couldn’t handle it, that it would kill him – that’s exactly how he expressed himself – that he couldn’t bear his daughter receiving Torah instruction like the average girl.”
Work colleagues said that, on the afternoon of his death, he spoke to them about the issue and appealed for their help: “I have no energy. You have to help ensure that my daughter gets into a good seminary.”
A grave injustice
Even eulogies at Sofer’s funeral, which took place at one a.m. Friday morning, touched upon the issue. “He died dedicated to the education of his children,” said one mourner. “Everyone is speaking of the injustice that was done to him,” he added.
Sofer, who leaves behind a wife and five daughters, worked for the Yad-Eliezer charity organization, which distributes food to needy families and sponsors a mentoring program for troubled youth. “He was a person who was ready to do everything for everyone,” said his friends. “He worked for that organization ten times what they paid him, worked day and night and you never heard him complain. He had a heart of gold.”
Discrimination against Sephardic girls in the Haredi school system is perhaps one of the more painful issues among the Haredi community. The Ashkenazi schools for girls are considered better, particularly in recent years, and demand far outpaces supply. As a result, these schools tend to enroll students from Ashkenazi homes and, only later, Sephardic students.
Based on predetermined agreements, Ashkenazi schools must afford at least 30 percent of their enrollment slots to Sephardic students. In many cases, despite intervention of rabbis, principals refuse to take any more than the requisite number.
400 girls have nowhere to study
A city councilman of the Shas party, Shmuel Yitzhaki, explained the source of the problem to Ynet: “Sadly, most of the good schools belong to our Ashkenazi brothers, who have been on the map for close to 50 years, and thus, the Sephardic community lags behind them in this area. This year, there are some 400 girls who need to begin seminary, but there is not room for them to study.
“We’re in a situation where we have to beg to get our girls enrolled in educational institutions. Not just beg, but yell and cry. In many cases, girls prefer not to study anywhere else, in hopes that they will be accepted to the school of their choice.”
Lawyer Ari Eitan, as part of his work, help parents in their struggle against schools that do not agree to accept their children. “In conversations I’ve had with the Ministry of Education, sources claim that the Haredi schools said that they didn’t discriminate. For some reason, the ministry chose to take their word, despite the fact that any Haredi child in the street knows that there is flagrant discrimination,” he said.
In Eitan’s opinion, the reason Sephardic students are not accepted to the schools is a result of explicit racism. “Principals say clearly: ‘we’ve filled the Sephardic quota’. This is open racism, they’re not even trying to hide it, and it’s one of the greatest injustices in the Haredi community,” he says.
June 21, 2010 at 8:35 am
ItsikDeWembley
Mizrachi Ashkenazi:
“After all somebody has to stop the haredi-hating, anti-Semitic totalitarians of the Israeli left.”
I don’t take this remark lightly.
An apology is due.
I am an Israeli left winger which am not an anti semite and most certainly do not Hate haredim.
I may disagree with them.
But hate?
Are you suggesting I hate my cousin’s husband?
Or my brother in law’s brother?
You should apologise.
June 21, 2010 at 8:39 am
ItsikDeWembley
Mizrachi Ashkenazi
Seems like I jumped the gun.
I assume you don’t mean all the Israeli left are: “haredi-hating, anti-Semitic totalitarians”.
Hope this is the case.
Apologies for my mistake.
June 21, 2010 at 9:25 am
MindTheCrap
Itzik:
He meant what he says: the Israeli left who believe in democracy, justice and equality are the “totalitarians”. The Haredim, who believe in none of that and who would turn the country into an Ayatollaship, are his libertarian heroes.
June 21, 2010 at 7:39 pm
Toko LeMoko
Here (from a comment in an Israeli newspaper) is one courageous individual trying to rise above anti-haredi bias:
Trying to rise above bias
Thinking Man
The hard part for me with this Immanuel matter is that readers of this paper (and others) are not presented with a clear statement of the facts of the case. Further, we don’t really get a clear statement of the legal issue(s) considered and decided by the SC. Both of these lackings are huge problems, and allow emotions to run amok. From what I’ve been able to piece together, every Israeli should be scared of the precedents being set by the action of the SC in this case.
First of all, the school in Immanuel was opened in a community that basically has Hareidim, both Ashkenazi and Sefardi, and seculars, most if not all Sefardi. The school was opened as a religious school, and when the secular community was sending their children to the school, the school established two tracks, a religious and a secular. The admissions criteria for the religious track included a dress code in line with religious law of modesty. The two tracks were kept physically separate within the same building — like two school buildings within one large structure — but the staff (largely Hareidi) taught both tracks. Most everyone was happy with this arrangement — the Hareidim (both Ashkenazi and Sefardi) had a religious school while the seculars had their school. Peace.
Now here’s dangerous precedent number 1: A person who does not live in Immanuel nor does he have children living there, brought a lawsuit against the school for discrimination. How does such a person have legal standing to bring a suit? The implications of this legal conclusion is that any Hareidi person from Bnei Brak can theoretically sue any secular school (or other State-sponsored institution) without any regard to his connection to that institution. Scary!
Two, the SC took up the issue of the dress code being discriminatory. How does a dress code mandating modest attire discriminate against Sefardim? Those who wanted to adhere to the dress code were 100% free to do so and thus be a part of the religious track, and those who chose not to wear the modest clothes chose the secular track. The dress code does not involve imposing an offensive or racist symbol or clothing item in such a way as to practically preclude one group from adhering to it; rather, the code is a reasonable way for a school to maintain its chosen educational standards. In the US there are several public schools requiring dress codes as a means of keeping gangs out of schools. Thus, dangerous precedent number 2: the SC can deem a policy to be discriminatory even when the policy is not; thus, the SC can come along and tell a school in Tel Aviv that it’s requirement that classes be taught in Hebrew discriminates against Russian immigrants or Arab citizens. You can think of other examples that hit home with you.
Next is the scariest for all of us: the SC ordered the school to drop the dress code and remove the two-track system along with the two schools within one building arrangement, and the school complied. The Hareidi parents did what seems to me to be fair and logical: they decided to send their children to other schools or teach them at home. I’m not sure what’s wrong with this. Fine, if a school is publicly funded, that can subject the school to review by the SC (which, as I’ve said above, should scare us all), so the school can be compelled to change, but why should private citizens be commanded by the SC how and where to educate their children? This is what happened to the parents in Immanuel.
So first the SC ordered the school to order the parents to send the kids back to the school, and the school, being a party to the lawsuit, complied. But naturally the parents weren’t going to feel compelled by the school’s request, so they continued to school their children elsewhere. So what did the SC d The SC told them to send their kids back to the now secular school in Immanuel or else face fines and imprisonment. This is a completely totalitarian move on the part of the SC, but since no article seems to frame the issue this way, we are all missing it.
To state it clearly, the legal issue at stake in Immanuel is: does a citizen of Israel have the right to choose where and how to educate his or her children? Answer from the SC is no! Do you see how scary this is, even to a Left-leaning secular Israeli?
One last scary precedent: the parents are not parties to the lawsuit in the first place. Of course, they couldn’t be. It is the school that had the so-called discriminatory policies, so the school had to obey the SC. How do the parents get to be held in contempt of court when the rulings cannot legally apply to them? So now you have a precedent where basically the SC can order any citizen of Israel to send his or her child to a school chosen by the SC, or else face consequences.
June 21, 2010 at 8:26 pm
Toko LeMoko
MindTheCrap, you seem (unlike the commenter I cited) not to be a thinking man. Nor even a reading man. For you missed the part of your YNet article which said, “In Eitan’s opinion, …”.
Opinions and articles are not proof, and the lack of legal process by the Supreme Court is shocking.
In proper process:
1. Noar K’halacha would not have had standing for complaint.
2. The parents in your articles would have had standing, to insist not that religious and non-religious tracks be abolished, but rather that quotas (if any existed) be removed.
3. The plaintiffs would then have had to prove either the existence of quotas, or a clear case of two equally-religious girls, one Ashekanzi and one Mizrahi, differently-treated. (ACRI allegations are not proof under a normal judiciary system, since not subject to proper evidentiary rules. At most ACRI allegations could be a basis, not for ruling, but for the plaintiff’s discovery process with intent to show proof.)
4. Were that case proved, the Supreme Court would then have had justification (once again) not for abolishing religious and non-religious tracks, but for abolishing the quotas.
5. As it is, the Supreme Court foolishly omitted the proper and justifiable course before it:
a. Grant a continuance for two weeks, until after the school year.
b. During the continuance, put in place the “acceptance board” compromise.
The acceptance would have resolved all sides’ complaints:
- the board members would be diverse and its functioning transparent
- the criteria for tracking would be open, explicit, and consistent
- mutliple tracks could be established on the basis of minhagi and other religious criteria
- the board could ensure aplication of the same criteria to Mizrahi, Sephardi, and Ashkenazi
This comprommise was in fact on the table. The Supreme Court, rather than acting in a legal and professional manner, gave vent to its political, ideological, and religious bias by
- “jumping the gun”
- ruling on a matter already under negotiation
- ignoring the solid compromise under discussion
- abitrarily interfering in freedom of religion
- arbitrarily elevating a civil matter to a criminal one
- acting with malice, the exact opposite of judicial temperament.
June 22, 2010 at 1:01 am
MindTheCrap
Tokeyo-Le-Pooko:
You are an idiot. Do you think that discrimination against Mizrahim in Israeli society doesn’t exist because you write an clever comment explaining it away ? This is exactly the Guardian method for solving all of the world’s problems – write an article.
There are 2 people working in my office – one is a man who father was a bookkeeper trained in Morocco. The father was unable to get a job in his profession after immigrating to Israel and worked as a construction labourer for 40 years because nobody would hire him. Do you think that any Polish-born bookkeeper suffered the same fate ?
The second is an Ahkenazi orthodox man, who talks like you about the Emmanuel affair, but when pressed on the subject simply says – I don’t want them in my children’s school, they lower the level and they are primitive, etc. He even says this in front of the Moroccan, totally unaware of the implications of what he is saying. He is not being deliberately rude and he has a university degree – it’s just the way everyone in his community thinks and he denies any charges of racism.
Think about it.
June 22, 2010 at 1:10 am
Christian Zionist
Aha. It looks like the Israeli left has scored an own goal – after years of the Israeli left using the foreign left to intervene against other Israelis, the Israeli right has learnt the same trick:
http://www.jta.org/news/article/2010/06/21/2739704/op-ed-emmanuel-school-controversy-about-religiosity-not-ethnic-segregation
http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/General+News/63204/Agudath-Israel-Leader-Asks-Israeli-Ambassador-to-Meet-on-Emmannuel-Situation.html
June 22, 2010 at 1:20 am
Toko LeMoko
Well, well. Not only Ovadia Yosef and the Shas leadership have found Um Lalum too unethical to deal with – so has the Bet Din:
http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/article.php?p=63023
June 22, 2010 at 1:38 am
MindTheCrap
Great ! So now the Ashkenazi Orthodox can get on with continuing their discrimination because Tokeyo-le-Pooko and C.Z. have “proven” it doesn’t exist. The two of you are great friends of Israel. Are Orthodox Jews above the law in your countries ?
June 22, 2010 at 1:58 am
Mizrahi Ashkenazi
MindThePig and Itchy,
Some of your excuses for your anti-Semitism sound much like, “Some of my best friends are haredi.”
On the contrary to your arrogant demands for apology, I think Israeli hilonim, the Israeli Supreme Court, and the Israeli government owe an apology to the Emmanuel haredim for some of the most vile, rancid anti-Semitism since medieval times.
And your mentality is now drawing to the inevitable conclusion: The introduction of totalitarianism to Israel:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/news.aspx/138167
I am not haredi and so am not bound by the constraints of lashon hara. Thus, I suggest you heed the advice of that fine old Mizrahi proverb: Lechu lehizdayen.
June 22, 2010 at 2:08 am
Toko LeMoko
Here’s the text of the Beit Din statement:
http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2010/06/21/statement-of-the-jerusalem-beis-din/
June 22, 2010 at 2:19 am
Toko LeMoko
Her is the text of a Ministry of Education report contradicting the Supreme Court:
http://matzav.com/the-case-of-beis-yaakov-chasidic-school-for-girls-in-emmanuel-israel
June 22, 2010 at 5:05 am
Abtalyon
Mind the Crap:
As you and I have both seen, TKM, MA and CZ believe that religious courts and rabbis are above the secular state law. In the real world, including Israel it isn’t so, but no amount of argument will convince them. Let’s leave them to their illusions.
June 22, 2010 at 7:47 am
smtx01
Why is virtually impossible on these threads to have a rational discussion about important relevant subjects between people who hold differing viewpoints without resorting to school yard name calling.
Differances between people should be ackowledged and treated with respect, anyone who came across this site out of a genuine interest,wishing to engage in a discussion would be seriously put off.Such public slanging matches discredits us all.
June 22, 2010 at 8:05 am
Akiva
DO you honestly think that 16 sefardi parents would go to jail to protect discrimination against sefardim?
Could it be that they are trying to protect the religious freedom of their own daughters?
Think real hard!
June 22, 2010 at 2:50 pm
Toko LeMoko
As you and I have both seen, TKM, MA and CZ believe that religious courts and rabbis are above the secular state law.
On the contrary, it is the Israeli Supreme Court which believes it is above the core values of human rights, including both free speech and freedom of religion.
Israel needs to re-structure its government to establish “checks and balances” to the unlimited Supreme Court power inimical to a democracy.
It also need to esnure the Supreme court is not a racist, segregated insttution by ensuring sufficient presence of Mizrahim and haredim on the court.
It’s also interesting that Abtalyon, MindTheCrap, and Itsik had no comment upon the Ministry of Education report cited. Schmucks.