The mother of an Ofakim child told Channel 2 News that their son was refused in an area preschool because her husband serves in the IDF. She is quoted saying that when the operator of the Sephardi chareidi kindergarten learned her husband is in the IDF, she was informed her son cannot be accepted.
The woman is quoted sharing the conversation the school director had with her, reporting she was told that while she is a good and righteous person, the lessons the son will learn as a result of his father serving in the IDF will interfere with his chinuch and ability to study Torah. “I hope your son will not follow his father’s example and serve in the army” she quotes the school director as saying.
The mother explained that as soon as she showed her outrage the director quickly found another reason upon which he blamed the school’s decision to refuse the child. She was told that since she has a computer and iPhone at home along with other unacceptable immodest items he is not suitable for the school.
When Channel 2 contacted the school the conversation went a bit differently and the school insists his being rejected is in no way connected to his father serving in the IDF. The mother reports that she found another frum school that willingly accepted her child.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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13 Responses
B”H. May this incident and all such future incidents serve as notice to the Klal that serving in the army of the Anti-Torah medina are unequivocal grounds for exclusion from our machne.
I’d love to know if the admissions application to that school explicitly lists their requirements, such as no IDF service and no computer.
and who’s to say which school is right
How much do we want to bet this had NOTHING to do with the father’s IDF service AND there will be NO follow up?
What a complete BUSHA???
Those who have made a decision to serve in the IDF and are frum, Torah Jews should be praised and honored not cursed and de-legtimized.
Such small people!!!
Reasonable, but perhaps they should have waited until the new law actually goes into effect. At this point, for a frum person to be serving in the IDF is a matter of money, and selling yourself to the army is just as reputable as selling yourself to program computers for Intel, or selling yourself to work in a grocery store. Up until this year, most non-zionist yeshivos had no problem with dropouts going into the army. However once the government starts conscripting people out of the yeshivos, then willingness to serve (or to continue to serve) in the IDF will become a “litmus” test in terms of frumkeit.
#4, you may be right,but if the initial part of the conversation is accurate, the school should lose its funding. The very idea is obscene. That mentality by an Israeli is very sick.
If half of these schools had any idea how many of their ‘families’ had internet…Or many families say it’s only for parnassah. Having a family committed to a Torah education and the ability to serve the IDF is a true gift to any school.
I have a great bridge to sell anyone who believes this had anything to do with the father’s IDF service.
Even in places far more insular than Ofakim, a father who served in the IDF has no bearing whatsoever on whether a child will or won’t be accepted to a school.
The iPhone, on the other hand, is another story.
While it may sound ridiculous to people in the US, where there is no such thing as a kosher cell phone, the iPhone probably has a lot more to do with it. The gedolim in EY have gone on the warpath against them.
Chuck Schwab, how funny you are. You remind me of the parents of some girls I’ve gone out on shidduch dates with before getting married. Questions like “Does my father watch TV?” “Do my grandparents who are snow birds in Arizona eat kosher?”. Questions which are completely irrelevant to the child trying to enter school.
I have quite a few friends in Kollel who served in the Israeli Army, and one close friend who is BT who served in the US Navy. Let’s throw those guys out of Kollel! Wise up sir.
#5- If it is true – and #4 may be right here- then you are 100% correct. The comments that will follow, though, will claim that there is no such thing as being in the IDF and frum. Such idiotic comments have been posted for many months now.
What no one has ever answered (and I posed this question many times), is why then are there IDF regulations regarding kashrus and chometz that can lead to court martial if violated? Why are there separate mess tents for milchig and fleishig? Why did YWN report on a story about soldiers having to eat cold food b/c their food was warmed up on Shabbos by a non frum person? Why is the IDF in need of Sifrei Torah? ALL THIS for an army that is looking to shmaad people???
Yanky: It is the same as Yevonim who gave Jews all rights and riches for the simple tradeoff that they stop learning Torah.
Nu, so this crackpot mother didnt get into the school of her first choice so she invented a bubbe maaisa about the reason to embarass a yeshiva.
Nothing new.