Haredim Blame Anti-Sefardic Discrimination On Presence Of Sefardic BTs

“We will not give in because this is not racism. Our daughters will not go to school with girls whose level of religious observance is insufficient. How can we help if it there is a larger movement of return to religious observance among the Mizrahim and the level of observance among the returnees is inferior?”

Discrimination Has a Father and a Mother
Michal Goldberg and Nissan Strauchler • Yedioth Ahronoth (p. 2)

[Translation Didi Remez • Coteret.com]

Dozens of parents of Ashkenazi pupils in the Beit Yaakov girls’ school in Emmanuel will have to stand before the judges of the High Court of Justice and explain why they disobeyed the court’s ruling by forbidding their daughters to attend classes together with pupils of Mizrahi origin.

In that same unprecedented decision by the panel of judges, the teachers of the Beit Yaakov school were also summoned to state their reasons why the pupils in their school were sorted by the color of their skin. Those parents or teachers who fail to convince the judges—Edmond Levy, Edna Arbel and Hanan Meltzer—could find themselves charged with contempt of court. The punishment determined by law for such an offense is a fine and even imprisonment.

Although the Beit Yaakov school receives funding from the state, the parents and teachers remain undeterred by the force or the law or the High Court of Justice. H., who has forbidden his daughter to attend the Beit Yaakov school, stated yesterday, “We will not give in because this is not racism. Our daughters will not go to school with girls whose level of religious observance is insufficient. How can we help if it there is a larger movement of return to religious observance among the Mizrahim and the level of observance among the returnees is inferior?”

Yitzhak Weinberg, the father of two daughters, added, “In recent years, many families of returnees to religious observance have arrived, and the level of their religious observance is inferior. Our daughters, who do not know about robbery, murder and certain curse words, are exposed to these things.”

The ethnic segregation between Ashkenazi and Sephardi pupils began approximately three years ago, and two years ago a petition concerning the matter was submitted to the High Court of Justice. In August 2009, the judges of the High Court ruled that the Beit Yaakov school and the Haredi Education Network compromised the Sephardi pupils’ right to equality. They ordered the Haredi Education Network to remove all appearances of discrimination. They also ordered the Ministry of Education to revoke the school’s license and stop its funding if it disobeyed the injunctions.

But it turns out that in Emmanuel, which is located in Samaria, a court ruling is one thing and reality is another. After the ruling, the Ashkenazi pupils moved to an illegal school that was established for that specific purpose. Some of the teachers at the Beit Yaakov school teach at the illegal school.

In light of this situation, the petitioners contacted the High Court of Justice once more, claiming that this was contempt of court. Three weeks ago, the High Court of Justice ruled that the school must pay a fine of NIS 5,000 for every day that it does not obey the ruling. In addition, the judges gave an order to summon the parents of the 74 Ashkenazi pupils, approximately 20 teachers and several high-ranking officials in the Haredi Education Network.

All the parents will be asked to tell the court why it should not find them guilty of contempt of court, and why they stopped sending their daughters to the school. Each teacher will asked to state whether she teaches the pupils who stopped attending the school after the ruling was handed down.

Judge Levy, who is the director of the panel of judges in this case, has never hidden his displeasure over the facts that have come to light. When it was discovered that the school’s regulations suggested that all Sephardi pupils learn to recite their prayers with Ashkenazi pronunciation, the judge, who is religiously observant, said, “Even if you give me a hundred lashes, I will never be able to pray using Ashkenazi pronunciation.”

The court’s decision has caused an enormous uproar among the rabbis, who are planning a large-scale public struggle. The Grand Rabbi of Slonim, some of whose followers live in Emmanuel, has already announced, “I will march to jail first, if necessary, as our ancestors went to jail for the sake of education in Eastern Europe.” He ordered his followers to continue the struggle and not attend “a place where education is in danger.” 

Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, the greatest Halachic decisor, said of the ruling of the High Court of Justice, “This is a terrible decree and great destruction, and we must cry out loudly against it.”

Today, girls from the hassidic communities of Slonim, Gur, Breslau and Sanz attend the illegal school. Parents claim that approximately 30 percent of the girls who left the Beit Yaakov school for the illegal school are Sephardi. Together with the parents and the teachers, a respectable list of Haredi rabbis and public figures are expected to come to the court today. The Haredi Voice’s news broadcast stated that the parents would arrive at the court together with the pupils. […]

[Translation and Hat Tip: Didi Remez / Coteret.com.]

Comments

[al Farabi]

Jail is exactlty where racists and bigots like slonim and elyashiv belong!

[Dr. Dave]

Our daughters, who do not know about robbery, murder and certain curse words, are exposed to these things

They can get enough exposure from the FFB chareidim who steal and embezzle, molest and abuse children to the point of murder and call brave soldiers and police curse words such as "Nazi"

[HaNavon]

Elyashiv really should be imprisoned, along with the Rabbis that condone this behavior. There needs to be a complete halt on the illegal schools that teach and encourage racism.
THe reason for their actions is not due to the influence from girls who teach them about theft, murder and curse words, because these Sefardic girls are not baalot tshuvah at all! These Sefardic girls are the daughters and granddaughters of baalei tshuva, so they don't know anyone who steals or murders anyway. What's clearly happening is that the Ashkenazi girls are picking things up because that's what kids do, and the parents are blaming the Sefardi girls instead of taking responsibility.
This should be treated NO differently than segregation in American schools, which is illegal in both public and private schools.

[BT]

Dr. D, exactly. It's the BTs that are in actuality more religious than the FFBs in many, many cases.

[Dave]

And converts are almost always more religious than other Jews, in my experience.

[this sounds illegal]

since when can judges force parents to send their children to a certain school?

[Garnel Ironheart]

It's really hard to be a white Ashkenazi male, you know.
Our women are held to be on a higher spiritual level than us.
Sephardim have a better yichus and passion for Torah than us.
Only way to compensate is to persecute both groups and demean them.

At first I was outraged by this story but now I think this is a good thing... for the Sephardi girls. Why should they have to hang around with the Ashkenazi (epmhasizing the last four letters in their attitude) princesses?

[nobody]

You need to reword your headline. The way you wrote it "Haredim blame anti-sefardic discrimination on BTs" sounds as if the haredim are saying it's only the BT's who are discriminatory against Sephardim but FFB ashkenazi Haredim are not. Probably the opposite is true. But in any case, this is not what the article says. Please fix your title.

[Shmarya]

Fixed it.

[Althelion]

This is racism. Period. This is about skin color NOT level of religious ritual oberservance.

Baseless hatred - ain't that why the Second Temple was destroyed?

In Israel, do the Sephardim discriminate against the Ashkenazim as much as the Ashkenazim discriminate against them?

[Leibel]

This is absurd. What happened the idea in Bava Metzia about not reminding Gairim and Baalei Teshuvah about their past? Plus the FFB world is far from pure these days, how many BT's and gairim have been involved in the recent round of scandals (as compared to the number of FFBs). Just being born into a frum family by an accident of birth doesn't automatically you "superior" to others.

[the farshlepte krenk]

its probably more like a bit of both combined: religious inferiority is infused into the sephardic stereotype (which is of a classical orientalist bent)

[yy]

chevreh -- I hardly read nor comment on blogs but thought I should ck out what's happening on this issue. I'm astounded at the sweeping antipathy!

It's absurd to suggest this has anything to do with skin color. As the article states, and I've heard NUMEROUS times up close, from people within the very community of those that have pulled their daughters out, that there are at least %30 sephardi girls in this group.

Are you guys listening? %30. That's not a fig leaf.

One of the parents of this group, with a clearly sephardi name, testified in court on behalf of the decision to seperate. The court later summed up that testimony on paper by noting that "one of the parents, who CLAIMS he is Sephardi..."

Don't you get it? The issue IS religious standards and it so happens that in this context and quite a few others (but far from a clear cut pattern) the majority of those who don't want or can't live by them are sephardim. And they are somehow too proud to accept that its legitimate for those who do want that higher standard to build exclusive enclaves.

No personally I feel these enclaves have plenty of their own problems, but to charge them with being racist is absurd. Live and let live; worship according to your tradition and preference of standard -- and STOP ALL THE BESMIRCHING!!