Schools In "Chaos" Over Absorption Of Ethiopian Students

Petah Tikva schools are in chaos over the struggle to absorb Ethiopian children, The city has failed to place all 160 children from Ner Etzion school, which was shut down last week because it had become a virtual ghetto of Ethiopian students; the city says reassignment of pupils is almost complete, but most of the children are still at home even though school started Sunday.

Ethiopian students in Petah Tikva

Petah Tikva schools in chaos over struggle to absorb Ethiopian children
Municipality has failed to place all 160 children from Ner Etzion school, which was shut down last week; city says reassignment of pupils almost complete, but most of the children still at home after start of semester on Sunday.
By Talila Nesher • Ha’aretz

The Petah Tikva municipality is struggling to place all of the 160 children who had been studying in the now-shuttered Ner Etzion school, with part of the problem lying in the unwillingness of local private religious schools to take more than a very limited number. Nearly all the Ner Etzion children are of Ethiopian origin.

So far, only 15 children have been placed in local private religious schools, with those schools unwilling to have more than two pupils of Ethiopian origin in any class. Some 20 children have been placed in state-religious schools, some 15 have been placed in state schools and in Moshav Nehalim, while some 50 children are going to be sent to schools in Rosh Ha'ayin.

Although the municipality said that the reassignment of pupils was almost complete, most of the children were still at home yesterday.

Asked why more children had not been placed in private schools, municipal sources said the city had focused on state schools because "private schools do not absorb these children as well," and "the principals make problems over the few that they do take."

The Ner Etzion school, which was meant to be closed gradually, was shut down last week at the demand of parents who wanted their children better integrated. When the Education Ministry made that decision on Friday, private school principals held an urgent meeting with Petah Tikva Mayor Yitzhak Ohayon, at which, according to a municipal source, they demanded that "the burden of absorbing the children not be imposed on them."

A principal at the meeting said that all they had wanted was "to understand what was happening, because no one was updating us with all the chaos.

"The private schools do not have the infrastructure to absorb these children," he added, "because, for example, at the end of the school day there is no afternoon program, as there was at Ner Etzion."

The state-religious schools, meanwhile, are concerned that they are the ones on whom the "burden" will be imposed.

"In the end, our schools will turn into Ner Etzion 2," said an administrator in the state-religious system. "We're talking about four religious schools that have already absorbed 10 percent [pupils of Ethiopian origin] and in some schools it's 40 percent."

He said the sudden move by the Education Ministry would lead to the collapse of public education in the city, because not only do the private schools not cooperate, they pose unfair competition to the state schools.

"When 10 children in a class can't read or write, it pulls the rest of the kids down, and then the strong 'sabra' children move to the private system," the source said. "We support integration, until it starts to hurt our children."

Parents in the state-religious system are also resisting a mass absorption of Ner Etzion children. One of the heads of a state-religious parents' forum sent a text message to a municipal education official that read, "Until we see the full list of placements, no immigrant child is going to be allowed into school."

Daniel Uria, one of the parents representing the Ethiopian immigrant community, said he wasn't put off by the private schools' resistance, believing it wouldn't hold.

"Today, unlike in the past, we have the backing of the education minister," Uria said. "I want to see one school refuse to take us."

The main problem with reassignments involves the sixth-graders, who the municipality insisted be moved as a group so they do not need to reacclimatize to new friends this year, and again next year, when they enter high school.

As a result, the sixth grade boys' class will be absorbed by the Petah Tikva Yeshiva High School, headed by Rabbi Shai Piron, though it will take a few days to prepare a classroom for them. No solution has been found for the girls, after their parents refused the suggestion that a class be absorbed within the Yeshurun High School for girls.

Comments

[ultra haredi lite]

Two points:
1. Integration is not always a good move.
2. Integration takes time.

[seymour]

if a private school get state funding

they should be forced to take in some students if they refuse simply cancel the check.

good to see the nation that says we are a light of morality to other nations handle this so well

My guess it is the people who claim they are shinning the brightest the frummas who are handling this the worst

hope i am wrong

[corn popper]

Seymour,
It's not as black and white as you make it. Would you advocate mainstreaming a severely handicapped child into a regular class by judicial fiat too? You have to take a case by case approach. You must evaluate each child and the potential school and class to be certain that it's an appropriate match. Otherwise, the child that you're trying to help will be the biggest loser.

[Bas Melech]

Having lived in Eretz Yisroel, I can tell you that there are 2 main issues:
1-Israeli both religious and non religious think that people should go to schools with people like them.
2-Israelis in general and especially the religious DO NOT LIKE Jews of color.

In the charedi world for example, there are schools that admit only children of fathers who learn and are not BTs.

A child of color (Ethiopian or Chinese) is discriminated by EVERYBODY, especially if from a BT family.

The excuse that the Ethiopian children are not at grade level is the excuse of the prejudice. It says that the previous school provides a lower educational standard. If another new student was not up to grade level, would tutoring be available? These "educators" are really saying that Ethiopians, no matter what tutoring is available, will NEVER be able to learn.

The Lubavitchers are even more extreme. They do not think that Ethiopian Jews are in fact Jewish, as somebody recently told me. They fail to recognize Rabbinical ruling that they are.

Yes, prejudice is alive and continuing in the Jewish world both in Israel and the Diaspora. They forget that Moshe's Tzipora was dark and the Messiah will be too.

[Bas Melech]

As a general rule, the more charedi, the more prejudice.

[Bas Melech]

Two points:
1. Integration is not always a good move.
2. Integration takes time.

Posted by: ultra haredi lite | September 06, 2011 at 05:53 AM

Integration is not always a good move for whom? Having known blacks who were the first students to integrate white schools int the US, many of them did not like leaving their friends.

School administrators will make integration difficult by placing more demands on unwanted students in order to validate their claims that the students can't adjust. This happens in Jewish schools.

Integration takes time. How much?

As a general rule, the more charedi, the more prejudice.

[Jeff]

Would you advocate mainstreaming a severely handicapped child into a regular class by judicial fiat too?

So being black is analogous to being developmentally disabled?

[corn popper]

Jeff,
You're an idiot! You know that's not what I meant. You're beneath contempt.

[Korbendallas72]

It's time to start calling Haredim and Chabad in particular by their proper name - Jewish racial supremacists. They're the KKK of Jews. Worse even, at least the KKK has the common decency to openly state their agenda unlike these Chabad scumbags who practice a form of Al-Taqiyya in the name of their idol Schneerson.

Thank God we live in a country like America where these idolatrous bastards at Chabad can worship their Schneerson-sorcerer-demigod in their own non-Jewish way. May Hashem discredit them and may the name of dead idolaters be forgotten, speedily and in our days.

[corn popper]

Korbendallas72
Hey Shmuck, the white European Ashkenazi SECULAR government of Israel in its early days is largely to blame for the demeaning of the Sephardic Jews. Get a life you hateful bastard. And no I'm not Chabad.

[Jeff]

Jeff,
You're an idiot! You know that's not what I meant. You're beneath contempt.

I suppose.

Korbendallas72
Hey Shmuck, the white European Ashkenazi SECULAR government of Israel in its early days is largely to blame for the demeaning of the Sephardic Jews.

Which really doesn't detract from his point.

[corn popper]

Jeff,
You're evidently beyond logic.

[Korbendallas72]

corn popper - I hate idols and all those who bow to them. Jews smash idols, remember? We don't give in to the weakness of our hearts and be led astray by them, no matter how pleasant their words may be. We don't engage in sorcery or animal sacrifice off Temple grounds. We don't oppress our brothers for the sake of a 16th century caste system.

But it's all okay if our father is a rabbi and our kashrus impeccable and we happen to be Ashkenazi, dress like Elwood Blues, shower less than hippies, speak yeshivish in calm tones with a broad smile, and engage in Orwellian doublespeak with impunity.

[Jeff]

dress like Elwood Blues

Heh!

[Waiting4Moshiach]

Nebech, these kinder have to suffer for the sins of their parents, but why? Everyone knows what original yidden looked like from walking through Boro park and Crown Hites. Why confuse evrything by bringing in these others with their new ways? When Moshiach comes he will tell us who is who but until then send them to public schools and
PRAY FOR HASHEM TO SEND US MOSHIACH ALREADY! The longer we wait the bigger all our problems become!

[Jeff]

Everyone knows what original yidden looked like from walking through Boro park and Crown Hites. Why confuse evrything by bringing in these others with their new ways?

That's right. Everyone knows Moshe Rabbenu had light skin and wore a black hat and coat in the desert.

[Dave]

Seymour, Bas Melech, Jeff and Korbendallas72- excellent posts.
Sadly we Jews have not learnt from centuries of being discriminated against- we discriminate against each other.
I am Sephardic and I have both hiloni and haredi/ hardal relatives in Israel- and almost all of them (both hiloni and haredi/ hardal) have also married Sefardic people and some of them have told me (both the hiloni and the haredi relatives) that they're still discriminated against.
And then both the Sephardim and the Ashkenazim discriminate against the Ethiopians !
Disgusting, sad and despicable.
I think we should revive the monarchy of Israel with the specific requirement that the King and his relatives MUST marry Ethiopians/ Indian Jews/ other Jews of colour/ converts, etc.
At least that would set an example.
But I am probably dreaming in technicolour.

[Korbendallas72]

Every scumbag human gets what's coming to them in the end.

[Yona Hall]

As an African-American Orthodox Jew who has lived in Israel almost 12 years,I cannot say that there isn't discrimination based on color and culture in Israel.Everyone knows that it exists and everyone knows that Israeli's did try very hard to not make the same mistakes with the Ethiopians as they did with Jews from North Africa and the Middle East and Yeman.

Someone stated that people like to be with their own and that is exactly what a former Russian told me the other day,when I told her that an Oleh from England had told me that Israeli's were racist.

I meant to ask her what she meant by"their own",but will another time.She might have meant people of the same culture and language.For sure I'm most comfortable with American Orthodox Jews,except when I want to get into a Black issue.

I thought if anyone would or could say that Israeli's were racist it would be me,but maybe I remember Israel when I first came here in 1979 and to be Black was seen as a marvel.Everyone stared and children would point and the chareidi children would actually scream and run away!

Nowadays I see Black folks every where.In the 1980's Sephardim were bused to other areas to integrate schools.There are only 100,000 Ethiopians in Israel,so how many children could there be?

I n general it's true that the more religious the more racist,but then they are "racist"to all Jews who are not from their particular group.

I,on the other hand,have had excellent receptions with Chabad and have noticed other Jews of color who were welcomed by them.I cannot become one because I am a convert from Christianity and for me there is no man who comes between my relationship with HaShem.I did notice that they do not accept the Ethiopians as Jews,until they do a giur and since most refuse to do anything more than a mikveh dip,that's that.

[JRKmommy]

No, corn popper, I don't know what you mean. You compared schools accepting Ethiopian students to a school being forced to accept a severely handicapped student. [I won't even get into the fact schools often do have a duty to accommodate...]

The rest of your post makes no sense either. You say that you need to take a case-by-case approach, ignoring the fact that the schools are simply lumping all the students together under the "Ethiopian" category without even bothering to consider their individual skills. Furthermore, why would you subject only one group to a "case by case" approach, unless ALL students needed to be evaluated individually?

These are children. They are also Israeli citizens. They have the same right to an education as any other Israeli children. Give them a decent education and support, and there is no reason for them not to thrive.

[Maskil]

And Chabad still denys the Ethiopian Jews' rightful place in society - they won't admit 'em into their schools:

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