A petition was filed on Tuesday, 17 Tammuz, with the Jerusalem District Court in its capacity as the area administrative court against Jerusalem City Hall plans to hand over an empty school building in Ramot to the Rappaport School and a high school affiliate for the 5771 school year. Petitioners maintain the building was already promised to a beis yaakov, explaining the latter is using caravan homes for classrooms. The over 600 page petition [including attachments] alleges City Hall’s decision was reached by including factors that may not be entered into the process, resulting in blatant discrimination against the beis yaakov, the daily HaMevaser reports. There are also accusations of a conflict of interests by the mayor.

Area parents working with chareidi MKs and askanim began their battle weeks ago, pointing out the mayor’s decision is contrary to Ministry of Education guidelines, previous court decisions and standing policy in Jerusalem City Hall.

The PTA of Ramot Aleph explains the local beis yaakov population has grown significantly and at present, girls are learning in shelters and basements, hallways, makeshift rooms and the situation is simply unacceptable. In the neighborhood, 300 girls are already registered to enter first grade at the start of the coming school year. A similar situation holds true for the Imrei Melech Talmid Torah, serving lower Ramot Aleph, with students found in many makeshift situations due to the severe shortage of classrooms. In the case of the talmid torah, there is no solution on the horizon.

One of the petitioners, R’ Yeshayahu Horowitz explains that for reasons that remain unclear, Mayor Nir Barak plans to bring children from all over the capital to fill the school when Ramot Aleph simply lacks classrooms for the local residents, setting the stage for chaos. Horowitz adds that making things worse, in order to vacate the building for all the new students in line with the mayor’s plan, 8 beis yaakov classes that have already been using the vacant school will be ousted, compelled to move to caravans.

Horowitz decries the situation, stating it is simply unacceptable and the chareidi community is repeatedly humiliated, compelled to use substandard classrooms, even if one compares chareidi classrooms to schools in Gaza, and while there are available buildings, some hundreds of square meters in size, the chareidi children must remain in the degrading situation.

Attorney Asher Axelrod is representing parents of the boys and girls from chareidi mosdos. He also serves as the head of the Israel Bar Association Jerusalem Branch. According to Axelrod, some 1,700 children are stuffed into 20 classrooms and an additional 20 sheds, portable structures, basements and shelters, but the mayor nevertheless insists on bringing in a school that has 11 or less children in each room, a school in which 80% of the pupils leave outside Jerusalem and from periphery communities. He adds there are also a number of other buildings with waning populations serving the dati leumi and chareidi leumi populations, questioning the wisdom and justification to single out the largest and fastest growing sector, the chareidim.

Legal experts believe the mayor’s involvement represents a conflict of interests, since he is personally involved with individuals affiliated with Rappaport.

HaMevaser adds that prior to the filing of the petition, parent representatives were invited to meet with the mayor, but they state he failed to provide an acceptable explanation for his actions. They point out that he actually contradicted himself by citing examples involving Ramat Eshkol and Bayit Vegan, for in those neighborhoods; the buildings were indeed allocated to neighborhood children, not schools with a student population from another neighborhood or city.

Due to the urgency of the matter at hand, the court set a date for a hearing in the coming days.

(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)