[VIDEOS IN EXTENDED ARTICLE]
The conflict in a Beit Shemesh school being shared by chareidim and non-religious students has snowballed rapidly into a major national news story.
Since the city’s municipal elections and re-election there has been a visible divide between the city’s growing chareidi population and the dati leumi and non-religious residents.
The school in question has many empty classrooms and Mayor Moshe Abutbul made the decision to allocate a number of these classrooms for the chareidi sector which desperately needs additional classrooms. Sheetrock partitions were constructed to make certain there is no contact between the schools. The outcry and hate graffiti that accompanied opening day, Monday 6 Elul, led to the Ministry of Education decision to shut the school. Ministry officials are angry that the mayor unilaterally acted regarding the תרבויות ושפות School, deciding to allocate classrooms without consulting with ministry officials. It appears the ministry feels the chareidi school is question is not operating legally and that City Hall literally stole the classrooms from under the school’s nose a few short days before the start of the school year.
According to protestors, at least some of them, they are not protesting the presence of the chareidi girls as much as the dividing wall that was set into place.
The ministry has instructed the city to operate the chareidi school at a different venue but the city did not comply with the directive. City Councilman Richard Peres (פרס) was taken into police custody for spray painting graffiti on the partitions separating the schools. A school guard was summoned for questioning and at least one teacher sustained light injuries in Monday’s confrontations. Tempers flared and police worked to avoid making arrests, seeking to distance persons from the conflict zone, the dividing wall.
MK (Yesh Atid) Dov Lipman was on the scene, quoting former US President Regan telling Russia’s President Gorbachev “tear down the wall” in his reference to the sheetrock partitions. He expressed embarrassment and shame over the wall. Secular activists accuse Mayor Abutbul of creating the divide between the different populations, as is seen with the sheetrock walls.
City Hall officials told the press the girls in the chareidi school are residents of the city and as such, the city must find classrooms for them. Mayor Abutbul expressed delight that the two schools opened simultaneously on Monday. He feels that allocating the empty classrooms was a wise move, albeit a difficult one, insisting both sides must exhibit tolerance towards others. He feels the “integration” is step in the right direction. City Hall adds the school can accommodate 500 students but there are only 144 secular students attending, hence the decision to give some of the available classrooms to the chareidi sector.
Opponents insist the mayor is not integrating anyone with the construction of a dividing wall separating the schools.
Schools are open and once again Beit Shemesh residents find themselves at odds due to tensions between chareidi residents and other residents of the community.
A day before school opens:
Opening day, 6 Elul
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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16 Responses
it didnt need to be a fight someone make a mountain out of a molehill
The upside to these anti-religious zealots attempting to impede any progress among the religious population is that this conflict will cause many more of the irreligious and barely or modern religious to leave Beit Shemesh thereby increasing the Chareidi majority and decreasing the enemies of the Torah.
What if they open a coed school in bnei brak?
The two sides can co-exist without building more walls and imposing artificial separation. In NYC, we now have hundreds of school buildings where public and charter schools operate in the same facility and we generally don’t build interior walls separating the students, unless its for the physical safety of younger kids who might get unintentionally run over by the more rowdy older teenagers when an elementary school and upper school use the same building. The frum and non-frum kids in Beit Shemesh will have to learn to live side by side as they get older, go to work, shop and generally live their lives. Imposing this type of artificial separation does nothing to promote achdus.
no one would go
Why didn’t they(Ed.Ministry) move the secular school to the other, smaller location, in planning for the future? I’m sure the girl’s school will soar.
In what other location in Israel are secular and religious schools sharing the building?
Why did the Education Ministry not plan for the need for a great increase in the number of students in the community?…were they expecting someone to use half of their apartment to house the students’ classroom (like they are doing in a hareidi Jerusalem kindergarten) or maybe they ran out of caravans(the typical choice for hareidi schools overflow.)(Don’t mind the rockets, dearies)
Why should the hareidi sector not be incensed because the state has all this talk about “equal burden” but clearly, for a long,long time the State has not come close to equalizing the education allocation discrepancies.
I’ve always contended that the controversy in Beit Shemesh has little to do with “intolerance” and a lot to do with economic disparities.
Again Mk Lipman is giving his 2 cents.
Chuck Schwab:
Your comment demonstrates that you are a substantial enemy of Torah. The precise issue here is that the “chareidi” mayor and his city councelman want to eradicate any remnant of non chareidim from this neighborhood, and ultimatly, from Beit shemesh. Non chareidi israelis are mostly not “anti religious zealots”,or “enemies of Torah”.Your stated desire to be rid of Jews less religious than your standard is at odds with Torah true Judaism. What were you doing just one month ago on tisha be’Av? Any idea why you were sitting on the floor and fasting,again? Your atitude is THE cause of any resentment or discomfort that not yet religeous Israelis feel towards chareidim. Shlomo Hamelech teaches us “kemayim hapanim lepanim,ken laiv heAdam leAdam”. If you despise them, they will sense that and treat us in kind. Your sentiment is a poisenous, cancerous hashkafa that has infiltrated into our community, and is a major cause of Jews resenting Torah, R”l.
We need to seperate between 2 issues: how can we find a school for these chareidim who wish to lead an insular lifestyle and wether they have a right to that; and is that approach to judaism justified. Gadol hador u must realize that even if you feel their approach is too extreme they still have a right to protect their kids- from their perspective however much they may love all jews that is not worth the risk of their child rejecting their way of life. Its a shame to see jews who feel so strongly about freedom and achdus restricting freedom of rrligion and hurting jews who don’t mean to offend even if it may be taken that way. If you wish peace for israel have a little understanding.
Just to add some info, the secular, Dati & Charedi all get along in Sderot.
Nobody pointed out what appears to be the high degree of derech eretz and savlanut of the chareidim and the complete opposite on the part of the not yet frum, more secular, less educated neighbors. Also the apparent sympathy towards the chareidim on the part of the police is noteworthy.
tirtza, your questions are right on target. Basically, this school building is located right in the middle of a Chareidi neighborhood. It was placed their intentionally by former mayor Vaknin, who had a habit of trying to use school locations to control the growth of Chareidi communities (he was the one who allocated the land for the Orot Bonot building right next to the community of sikrikim as well, with the same goal of trying to set a clear border to their growth).
Currently this huge building designed for 500 students is being used by 144 students who ALL live in a different neighborhood (“old” Beit Shemesh), and must bus in. There is plenty of available classroom space in their neighborhood, but the administration of the school refused to consider a move to a different building closer to their student population. Meanwhile, the neighborhood where the school is located (the Mishkenos Yaakov section of Ramat Beit Shemesh A)suffers from a huge shortage of classrooms. The Chareidi girls school that was given a small part of the building is a school of over 900 students, most of whom are in caravans, and almost all of whom live in the neighborhood.
The big split here involved the secular school and its 144 students receiving all of the office and auditorium space, most of the yard space and 6 classrooms. The Chareidi school received a separate 6 classrooms, but basically no other space in the building (no offices or meeting rooms, etc.), and are using those classrooms to house a few hundred students.
Yet somehow, it is the secular school that views itself as the victims here. . .
(I agree that building a dividing wall was stupid, but the noise about the wall is being used to drown out the greater issue of the tremendous discrimination AGAINST the Chareidi community when it comes to allocating classroom space that has been going on for years)
Why put in the wall?? Why couldn’t the kids just go into the classrooms and nothing would have happened? Now the Chareidi don’t want the kids to even see someone not like them? What is the use of this great Torah education if it doesn’t make you strong enough to live in the world and be frum no matter who you see? If you are so weak then your chareidi education is useless. How is it that thousands of previous generation frum men and women worked and went to schools and shops around all kinds of people but managed to be frum, but this generation of kids must be shielded- why are they so weak with all this Jewish education? Well, the fact is they aren’t weak, it is just the adults have gotten very intolerant of other groups not as frum as they are and want to separate themselves like the Seducees and the Essenes during the second Bais Hamikdash. The Zealot groups were responsible for unimaginable sinas Chinam that is returning today. If they want chareidi schools let them pay for them instead of IDF service.
this is so typical. Charedim always move in and act like they own the place. if the cheridim were moving into the bldg w.o the proper Ishurs to do the construction than the guy on the video is right, its his bldg and the charedim cant just move in cuz theres extra space. but instead of violence and protests. i would have instructed all of the chiloni girls (i assume its a girls school) to come in immodest dress for a couple of days. and the charedim would move on to a different location very quickly. Imagine if boro parkers marched on over to ps 181 or whatever and said , boy you have a nice bldg with lots of empty classrooms, i think we re gonna stick some Bobov kids in here cuz their bldg is too crowded. Its ludicrous. you cant make everything anti chareidi!! sometimes it is the chareidim that are acting inapropriately. of course i would like the state to provide these lovely chareidi girls with proper accomodations, but i dont see how you can just move into someone else s school just because you decided they have plenty of unused space. and you want to know why the chilonim in beit shemesh protested chareidim moving into the neighborhoos. well this is why…
listen, in regards to reading other posts from people in the area, i would say , they had the entire summer to sort things out. and just because it seems like a great idea to use this space, I dont think you can just move on in. The politicians need to sort this mess out.
chareidi amiti #8: No, au contraire. It is you who is what you call the enemy of the Torah. It is your likes who have an ingrained unadulterated uncompromising hatred of Torah Jews and Torah Judaism.
That such ilk are electing to move out of Beit Shemesh is a welcome development. It is their own undoing. It is they in their gross hatred and instigation of conflict that makes their own ilk unwilling to move to the area and more importantly their own to move out not wanting to live in the area.
You might call this scenario a win-win situation.