In his daily column in Yisrael HaYom, Dan Margalit compares Emanuel to Little Rock in the United States, explaining that it was President Dwight Eisenhower who sent federal troops to enforce a racial desegregation ruling.
Margalit, a veteran and prominent journalist represents the secular community’s inability to digest the core issue, the different lifestyles and minhagim of the Ashkenazi and Sephardi communities, not racism as he and others view the Emanuel Beis Yaakov situation. In his column, Margalit described the situation with Eisenhower, as federal troops were dispatched, determined to end the “apartheid” situation, drawing his inaccurate analogy.
The secular tzibur is incapable or perhaps unwilling to understand this does not violate “Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself”, as Margalit points out in an authoritative air, but what is certain is that the case, Thursday’s planned chareidi community prison march and the threats against Yoav Lalum, only serves to further delegitimize the Ashkenazi chareidi community in Israel today.
Margalit views this as a test of the system, law and order in a democratic society up against the rebels, in this case, clad in black and white, those who exhibit an unwillingness to recognize the supreme authority of the nation’s highest court, pledging its allegiance elsewhere, to the Torah HaK’dosha and Rabbonim Shlita.
Another prominent left-wing secularist is Dr. Yossi Beilin, a former Meretz party leader, who is also given page 3 for his venomous words, questioning how a people can tolerate the blatant racism of the Ashkenazi chareidi community.
Beilin feels the recent rulings of the nation’s highest court sends a clear message to the chareidi community regarding the realities of the nation’s democracy, and its state institutions. He insists that the reason there is a separate Sephardi political party in Knesset is to provide a response to the unwanted chareidi Ashkenazi racism, adding in this case, the racism is not going to prevail.
(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)
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11 Responses
I’m expecting a lot of “hate” responses to this BUT;
1) I don’t understand how it is right to discriminate against sfardi.
2) I am FFB and am connected to the yeshiva velt, but this story is making me uncomfortable.
3) And it can not be that ALL sfardi kids are of a lower level of frumkiet.
SO WHATS THE STORY JERRY?
Please answer “tzim zach” and if you feel a need to insult, please indicate where your answer stops and where the put-downs begin.
The little rock comparison is not correct.
This is not a case of blacks being denied entry to a white schools.
This is more like a case of protestants being declined entry to a catholic school (le’havdil).
And this case is further complicated by the Judiciary trying to defund and disenfranchise the religious institutions in Israel. To seal secularism into Israel by law, as the demographics show the religious becoming the majority.
Look up “Judicial Activism” in wikipedia.
er.. while I don’t really get what the big deal is with this issue, and am uncomfortable with protests and racism allegations, Boilin is wrong. Wasn’t it the ashkenazi chareim that helped found Shas, with Rav Shach giving support. also there were sephardi parties before there was a sephardi charedi party. The chiloni ashkenazi left wing was, and might still be, quite racist against sephardim.
Actually an even better comparison is Protestants refusing to be forced by the Supreme Court to attend a Catholic school, and the parents receiving jail time for it.
While I rarely agree with Mr. Margalit, this time I think he mis right. The parents in Little Rock used the same flawed logic the the parents of Emmanuel are using – the cultural “differrences.”
President Eisenhopwer did what he had to do, and, if necessary, the Israeli government should do the same iin order to stamp out this blantant racism.
Jews are Jews. The Nazis did not discriminate between Ashkenazim and Sephardim, neiother did any other persecutor.
student613 said, “This is more like a case of protestants being declined entry to a catholic school” to even make that comparison clearly demonstrates the problem. are our sephardic brothers thought of as a different religion?! chas ve’shalom! as a frum person I am embarrassed by what i view as racism! the only thing that should matter is toras hashem temimah, not weather or not you eat rice on pesach! hashem yerachem!
Toras Hashem temimah is important, and there is room to say that a group of people who don’t want their pre-teens to associate with other students who wear make-up, listen to MP3s, send SMS’s to each other and comparing internet websites — is also important to a Torah temimah education (emphasis on the word temimah).
Protestants and catholics ARE the same religion, by the way. Whatever it is, its not racism.
Ok, how about putting it this way, what would you say to the Supreme Court forcing American Indians who wanted to make their own school, to go to public school – and fine and jail their parents if they don’t. Since when is preserving a way of life the same as racism?
Also note that racism is generally connected with discrimination. Its not the poor parents of Emanuel who are keeping the sefardic community from better jobs and advancement in the universities, business and government. It is the secular Israeli culture. It is sheer turnspeak for the secular Israelis to heap the blame of discrimination on the religious.
Again, look up “Judicial Activism” in wikipedia
In any event, problems in religious education system are for the religious leaders to work out.
It is simply an attempt by the Israeli Supreme Court to change the status-quo and set precedent by ruling in area that it has never ruled before.
The Justices said quite clearly that the Israel Supreme Court is answerable to no one, no Gadol, not to halacha (also not to the Knesset). NO ONE can can oppose their authority and their is no appeal.
Unbounded judicial authority, which ventures into questions of politics or religion is a threat to any nation.
Mr. Boose: I’ll be quite clear- I’ll put you down without bothering to answer your question. You seem pretty bent on berating your own Frum brethren, to go ahead and call them discriminators, before you analyze the facts on the street. I don’t believe this reflects to positively on your character or your agenda. Noone ever called home-schooling discriminatory . Until you. And the anti-religious Israeli High Court. It’s you and them. Clear enough?
Yup, and the courts in Israel are so integrated (LOL)???? How two-faced can you get?
Baal Boose (#1)Your cooments are a breath of fresh air. Although I suppose there must be cases of disadvantaged Sfardi children who are not be appropriate for the yeshivas at issue, the racial overtones and excuses are embarrassing.
In the United States Sfardi and Ashkenazic bochrim learn together in Yeshivas without a scintilla of problem. Moose613 is on the money when he compares the Ashkenazi parents’ protestations of “cultural differences” to those of White parents in 1956 Little Rock.
The “Protestant/Catholic” comparison made by student613 is absurdly ignorant – as is his further comment that Catholicism and Protestantism are the “same religion” – I only hope his knoweledge of Yiddishkeit and the larger umbrella of “Judaism” is not as lacking as is his knwledge of Christianity . . . if not, he’ll be writing that the Masoriti in Eretz Yisroel and Agudath are the same religion!