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Sep 1, 2025
maybe Israel needs a civil rights movement to desegregate schools
Today, in honor of the first day of school, many politicians spent time visiting schools around the country.
MK Moshe Gafni (UTJ), spent the morning in Bet Shemesh at a ceremony for the opening of a new school building. Interestingly, despite the visit by Gafni, a lot of the schools (I think specifically seminaries) in Bet Shemesh did not open due to some tens of young women who were not being allowed to attend school. I dont know the exact story but it seems some of these young ladies were left out, as is unfortunately not uncommon. The municipality placed them all in varying existing schools, but those schools refuse to accept them due to ostensibly, overcrowding, and maybe other reasons. This is happening in Jerusalem as well with about 400 young ladies, and maybe in other places as well. Because of the situation, many of the seminaries are not opening as scheduled, or they are opening for all grades not including 9th grade.
MK Gafni commented calling on Shas to open more schools for the sefardi young ladies. Gafni said Shas should open more schools so your girls will have a place to study without needing to crowd into "our institutions" that are growing and do not have enough space for everyone.
Shas retorted back saying Shas's objective has always been establish educational institutions for the glory of the Sefardi community, and thank you to Rav Gafni who clarified how important it is that Shas continue to be strong and independent and how they cannot rely on any other party to take care of them.
Besides for the general disgrace of politicized education due to educational institutions being party affiliated and controlled by political parties, this back and forth is describing clear and blatant segregation and institutionalized discrimination.
In this exchange I think Gafni actually has the upper hand in his comments, sadly, because the exchange shows that Shas has not created enough institutions for its people, or they are creating the institutions but the people are still trying to send their kids to ashkenazi schools, so either Shas has done a poor job of it or the people just dont want to buy the segregation Shas is continuing to sell.
Shas and UTJ both need this as they both build themselves on the backs of segregation and differentation. While one can argue that today it makes no difference if one is sefardi or ashkenazi, we are all Israeli, they need that old distinction. Today there is no difference. The kids today did not grow up in Poland's shtetls or in Yemen or Algeria or in Germany or Lithuania. They all grew up in Israel learning more or less the same or very similar curriculums, living and playing together in mixed communities. Those distinctions perhaps made more sense two and three generations ago when when people were getting off the boats from different parts of the world. Distinguishing today between people whose grandparents and great-grandparents were born in Lodz or Fez is simply blatant racism and segregation.
Perhaps we need a civil rights movement to desegregate schools like the USA in the '60s...
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Labels:
discrimination,
education,
haredim,
Moshe Gafni,
racist,
school,
sefardim,
Shas,
UTJ
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Where my son lives in Karmei HaNadiv (just got back from our first visit, such a nice growing community, BH!) the Rov of the shul insists on special occasions that the whole mixed Kehilla daven together to create that Achdus (they have one Shul with Sefardi and Ashkenaz minyanim). I was fortunate that one of the Shabbosim I was there the Rov’s son had his aufruf so rather than have the separate Ashkenazi and Sefardi minyan, everyone was together. They also made a celebration for all the new students, the first graders who were starting school, all the kids and parents together, all celebrating. It was beautiful. My granddaughter also started Gan, and it’s all mixed, new Olim, Israeli Ashkenazem and sefardim, Ethiopians (who have some amazing stories!). My son said the Rov there sees this way of doing things as a way to “bring Moshiach closer by active Achdus for all” (no, he’s not even close to being a Lubavicher). Maybe there is hope!
ReplyDeletenice
DeleteNice to hear a nice story for a change 💛
Deleteor there is still ashkenazi envy? kvct
ReplyDeleteIndeed, they're still trying to get into schools that don't want them.
DeleteI'm not sure you can accuse Shas of participating in the segregation. They would probably take any Ashkenazi who wanted to be admitted. That they're segregated is more a reflection on the Ashkenazi charedim.
ReplyDeleteApart from the obvious racism ("They're not smart enough to be in our schools"), the UTJ people have another big problem with Sephardi charedim: They don't cut off non-charedi relations. You have a Sephardi classmate, you go to a simcha of hers, and there are some non-charedi people there...the kids may get ideas.
The Southern states pretty much ignored the Supreme Court ruling about desegregation. They only did so when Nixon began cutting off education funding.
ReplyDeleteIt's almost like the Chareidi leadership read Der Strumer's description of Jews as a "How to" manual.
ReplyDelete