This story begins with a lawsuit that was filed by Chareidim who R”L left the path of a Torah-observant life and decided to sue the State of Israel for failing to see to it that they get a proper education – an education that permits them to earn a livelihood. The approximately 50 people filed a lawsuit claiming their schools did not teach them core subjects and as a result, today they must get an education before they are capable of joining the workforce.
In its response to the lawsuit the state denied culpability, explaining that parents all have an option to select the school they wish to send their children too, including chareidim, and their parents could have just as easily placed them into schools that taught mathematics, science and English. The state maintains it sees to providing a classroom seat for all students to permit them to study and acquire an education, and in this case, the onus falls on the parents, not the Ministry of Education or other state agency.
In its response the state told the court that it wishes to file a lawsuit against the parents of the plaintiffs for placing the children into schools that did not provide them with an education as they stipulate in the lawsuit.
The “Out for Change” NGO (“יוצאים לשינוי”) https://www.facebook.com/yozimleshinuy/ is fighting to permit them and others like them to enter programs to complete their ‘bagrut’ matriculation exams. The NGO feels the state’s response is simply “shrugging off [the matter] which is partially based on speculation and conjecture”.
The NGO feels that the state failed in its responsibility to “compel” the parents to place them in a school that complies with state education standards rather than sitting back and permitting parents to place them into schools that fail to meet these standards.
Some of the plaintiffs were former talmidim in Mir L’Tzeirim, Ohr Elchanan and Merkaz L’Chinuch Atzmai.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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7 Responses
Can’t wait to read the chorus of comments to this article….
They might get something. The whole idea of zionism is to free the Jewish people from the yoke of Torah and Mitsvos, so from a “public policy” perspective, undermining the hareidi schools is a good policy. It would be much less traumatic to outlaw Torah education than to put the hareidim in cattle cars (much more practical, since Israel doesn’t have any rail links with other countries, and probably doesn’t even own any cattle cars).
So can all the Baalei Teshuva sue the state for neglecting their spiritual and religious education, bringing them up to be Hebrew-speaking goyim who are ignorant of Torah and threatening their zkar for doing mitzvoth?
Prima facie, that is a poor excuse for an answer from the State’s attorney as the State licences and funds the charedi school system, thus legitimizing and enabling the choice of the parents to send their children to those schools. The issue at hand is seemingly the extent of the State’s responsibility to dictate minimal educational standards. The State’s attorney could have presented the position that the question is moot as the State has no real power to dictate educational standards to the charedi community and that while the issue is real its solution is political and social rather than legal. The fact that the State’s attorney chose to dodge the issue and to take the strange position described in the article shows that the office of the AG feared that the presiding judge might try to force a legal decision which would be socially disastrous. Can YWN report the name of the presiding judge?
I know it is hard to believe but it is possible to have a yeshiva (let alone modern orthodox) education and still have a good general studies curriculum. Look at all the frum professionals here in the US…
The state needs to enforce minimal educational standards and any school not meeting them should be shut down. Charedi schools all over the world teach secular studies and some dona great job of it. There is no excuse for not doing so.
1 – #3 Jerusalem mom- Excellent comment.
2 – #4 – There is a State approved school system called
“Chinuch Atzmoi” “Independent Education”, and this is the Chereidi school system. The problem is not that they are worried about the education of the kids per say, but that they want to destroy Torah life in Israel and cause Chereidim to become secular, G-d forbid, and realize that this can only be done through destroying our educational system. “B’chol dor v’dor omdim aleinu l’chaloseinu”.
And if they are so worried about education, why don’t they fix up their own schools, instead of trying to destroy ours?