A haredi private school system is granted public funding. Even so, it can't make ends meet. So its rabbinic leaders devise a plan – fire as many senior teachers as possible and replace them with new recruits, fresh out of school and much cheaper to employ than veteran teachers. The rabbis do it, even though most of the fired teachers are their family's sole breadwinners. Many have been with the school system for more than 25 years. Worse yet, no administrators (i.e., rabbis), no matter how highly paid, are fired.
At first the older teachers go silently, upset but unwilling to challenge the leaders of the school system because those leaders hold not only the schools' purse strings – they also control other community organizations and wield great communal influence. But then some teachers stand up. They refuse to go quietly. They bring their concerns to the government. And, when the school system will not relent, with the permission of a major non-hasidic religious leader, Rabbi Aryeh Leib Steinman, the teachers sue.
The teachers win the lawsuit and are allowed to form a union to protect themselves. But the school system refuses to recognize the union because the teachers are women and in the haredi community women are not allowed to hold positions of communal authority.
Meanwhile, the government makes clear the source of the school system's financial troubles – mismanagement.
So what school system is this? Agudath Israel kindergartens, largely under the control of the Ger hasidic dynasty. And who fired these long-serving teachers? The haredi rabbis who run – and mismanage – those schools. Who pays for that mismanagement with their tax dollars? The citizens of Israel.
You can read the whole story here. (If the link doesn't work, a PDF of the article follows …)
Download ultraorthodox_women_unite_haaretz_israel_news.pdf
[Hat Tip: Ben Max.]