According to a HaMevaser report, Jerusalem City Hall has requested from the Ministry of Education to order the closure of the Chinuch Atzmai affiliated Darkei Noam Yeshiva located in the Katamon area of the city, adding it is a school that serves the entire southern area of the capital.
School director Rav Shlomo Bukshpein explains that the school has been the target of opponents over recent years, some due to jealousy and others for their own reasons leading to City Hall calling for its closure. He points out that it began when the school was instructed to give a number of classrooms to students of a State Religious public school. He explains that this in spite of the fact that the nearby non religious public schools are literally half empty. This was followed by instructions to forfeit the areas where the daily meals were warmed and served.
R’ Bukshpein adds that the next move was an unprecedented demand that does not exist anywhere else, compelling students to receive authorization from City Hall before they could register to the school. Despite the efforts to deter parents, this year, 5773, there are 50 first graders and 250 children registered in the preschool and kindergarten.
The rav points out that the city then began targeting the school with legal issues, leading to the ministry issuing the closure order, citing safety violations as the official reason. The rav adds there are literally hundreds of schools in the city in the exact situation yet they are not ordered to shut down.
The rabbis feels the city is trying to intimidate parents and the young students, explaining each parent received a copy of the closure order in addition to sending an inspector and policeman to the school and the latter handed each child a copy as well. The rav states the children were frightened to see a policeman handing out papers.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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One Response
OH MY….another ploy in secularizing the neighborhoods of Yerushalayim.
BH this is the time of Tshuva and parents are looking for safe, ethical and religious envirnoments for their children.