The Jerusalem District Court held a session after the Ministry of Education and Minister Shai Piron filed against Beit Shemesh City Hall as the latter allocated classrooms to chareidi girls in a secular school. The court explained “If this was Givatayim we would not be here today,” indicating the court is leaning towards permitting the girls to remain in the school despite the controversy.
The hearing was held on Sunday morning 12 Elul after Piron filed against Beit Shemesh City Hall. Piron wants the court to order the frum girls from the Mishkenos Daas School out of the secular Safot U’Tarbuot School. The city decided to allocate a number of classrooms for the frum girls since the school is capable of housing 500 students but with the shrinking secular community in Beit Shemesh, only 144 students attend the school.
Before beginning the hearing Justice Amnon Darel met with the lawyers. The court told the attorneys “As a father to children I am not aware of any school that has the luxury of these conditions, a different classroom for every subject while there are 140 girls without classroom space. If this was in Givatayim we would not be here today”.
Attorney Adi Kedar, who represents Beit Shemesh City Hall explained to the court the so-called alternative plans presented by the ministry show the ministry really does not have any solution to offer. He added the data presented by the ministry was not all truthful.
During the hearing the court addressed the representative of the non-religious school’s PTA saying “If only every student in Israel had the conditions that exist for your children today and will continue to exist after dividing the school”.
The court then asked Beit Shemesh City Hall if they are willing to remove the structural changes that were made, referring to the sheetrock partitions dividing the religious and non-religious classrooms. It was explained that the controversial partitions have already been removed prior to the hearing.
The court promised a ruling later in the day.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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3 Responses
I think this item is very important and in the world of education is watershed.. Please update us on the upcoming minutiae
Finally some sanity out of the Israeli ?JUDICIARY? system: truly a rarity!
Thank you Editor of YWN for nor including the title Rabbi before this Piron… If anybody was ever undeserving of it he certainly fits the description.
I drove past this morning before school was open & the “wall” was gone. Before I saw it myself I thought it was wrong, but when I saw it, albeit daubed with red paint, it was not nearly as offensive as it was made out to be. All it did was to externally divide what is now 2 schools that share an adjoining interior wall. From what I could see there are 2 entrances & play areas – what was wrong with that? One school is what we know as public & the other, yeshiva. All this fuss & taxpayer expense – so unnecessary.