6 Responses

1. How could the doors be closed to Yiddishe neshomos?

2. ^^^ it’s worse in Lakewood ear hatoyrah

3. #1:
   Because some parents want their girls in certain mosdos but don’t want to adhere to the standards of those mosdos.
   I don’t know the particulars here, but I do know that on more than one occasion there have been girls who were left “without a school” because their parents, instead of sending the girls to the places where they did get accepted, insisted on trying to push their way in to the place/places where they weren’t accepted.
   For example, I know of a family, very sweet people but who have a TV and weren’t willing to get rid of it. That’s something that’s way beyond the pale for any Israeli Bais Yaakov. But the parents wouldn’t accept that; they wanted their girl in Bais Yaakov, and they wanted their TV.

4. #3: However there are other cases where girls are refused school places, like in Telz Stone outside Yerushalayim, because the father, tu tu tu chas vesholem, works or the mother drives. These are not valid considerations to keep a girl out of school. These days Daas Torah is a convenient peg to hang anything on, and that works both ways. Just take the recent case of the Beitar teacher dismissed from her long held teaching job because she followed Daas Torah and get a driving licence. Interesting that this piece has disappeared from YWN completely.

5. This issue to my understanding is more complicated than it seems.

   On the one hand, it is well known that the Chareidi School System in Israel is over packed and suffers at the hands of a Secular Government that reluctantly give financial support, but non-the-less, tries to prevent funding wherever possible, thus resulting in unnecessary overcrowding by not supplying funds for expansion of existing Mosdos and building new Mosdos to keep up with the communities educational needs. On top of that, my understanding is that there’s a Catch 22. The Ministry of Education places a cap on student body size, but then demands the schools to go over those maximum classroom size that they themselves instituted. This, unfortunately, puts great stress on the School Administrations to be more scrutinizing with acceptance to the school. I’ve heard more than once where principals had to decide who to turn away because they have only one seat still available in the classroom.

   With that said, I must say that the discrimination against Sefardim in our educational system in Israel is VERY real! Some excuse it by stating that there are many families among Sefardim who are troublemakers or ill-tempered and they feel it is not in the interest of the school to take them. Others say that they receive strong pressure from parents that do not want too many Sefardi students in their child’s classroom. Regardless, this is dead wrong and the fact that we tolerate it disgusts me. More than once I’ve been asked when a child of mine reaches Yeshivah Kitana age if I can send my child to such and such Yeshiva Kitana, so that a Sefardi child that wants to go there will be accepted (many places won’t take a Sefardi child unless he’s accompanied with an Ashkinazi classmate of his). Furthermore, many places have quotas on how many Sefardi kids they’ll accept. Usually it is around 35% of the total student body.

   Before we get too infuriated I have to point out another piece to the puzzle that I assume will shock you as much as it did me. A Sefardi neighbor of mine asked me if I could help him get his kids into our kids’ elementary. In our discussion I ask him frankly, “being that you see the blatant discrimination against Sefardim why do you and other Sefardim desire so much to enroll your kids in their schools instead of sending them to a Sefardi school where they won’t be discriminated against?” His answer floored me. He told me that he understood the Ashkenazi School Administrations and he agrees with it. He told me that only the top quality Sefardi kids are accepted and those are the types of kids he wants his kids hanging around. He stated that the Sefardi schools are full of kids from families with bad midos and he doesn’t want to send them there. This was a big eye opener to me, although I don’t know how factual his statements were.

   It seems to me (although I might be wrong) that these 100+ girls that left without a school to enter are mainly either Sefardim, girls from families with Hashkafas that are not congruent with the school, or they are girls that are weak in their Yahadut. Concerning the later two I can understand the schools. A school should not be required to accept students who are not compatible with their school’s Hashkafa. Regarding Sefardim, however, this is nothing less than Sinat Chinum (assuming that the child is well behaved and comes from a decent family). Quotas are based purely on Sinat Chinum.

   However, with that said, I must point out that the real culprit is not necessarily the school administrations. The real blame is to be placed on our society as a whole. We’ve created this problem ourselves. How many of us would hesitate to send our children to a school that’s top notch simply because the school is from another camp? How many Ashkenazim will not even consider sending their child to a Chassidish Cheider, nor a Sefardi one? The same goes for Chassidim and Sefardim the other way. I once sent my kids to a Chassidish Cheider in America because I felt that that school had the frumist Hashkafas in town. I did not want my kids getting caught up in baseball and other sports, collecting card, etc. It may not be trief, but it is not Yiddishkeit. I had a friend at the time who sent his kids to the local Ashkenazi Cheider. After several years his wife admitted to me that she regretted not sending their kids to our Cheider being that she saw that the kids in our Cheider came out more Eirleicht. She admitted that her decision was based purely on the fact that the Cheider was Chassidish and disregarded the fact that half the student body was Ashkenazi.

   Another issue is that horrible emphasis that place in shidduchim as to where the student learnt. How many parents push to have their child enrollment into a school pure based on “it’s good for Shidduchim” and not because it’s the place that will maximize the child’s Jewish education and devotion to Hashem? It’s very difficult when everybody around you is telling you, “DON’T SEND YOU CHILD THERE! SHE’LL NEVER GET A SHIDDUCH GOING THERE!”

   These foolish attitudes need to stop. We must get a grip and place things in its proper perspectives. In my opinion part of the problem is rooting in our demand of spiritual perfection of “others”. We want our children to be in the best Yeshivas/Seminars, want zevugim that have no flaws, and demand all the Chumras in Halacha. The previous Dor understood better than we to look for “Priorities”, not “Perfection”. As my father always said, “the world ain’t perfect”!

6. Utter non sense if you send your child to a government funded school which these are. They are the bosses
   If you don’t like it go private and pay for it
   This is happening in Lakewood as well. But they’re private schools if they take funding they can have a problem