ith school confroversy, secular vs. haredi
tensions in Israel reach boiling point.'
Leslie Susser
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Jerusalem
T
he showdown between the Israeli
Supreme Court and the parents
of students at a haredi Orthodox
school found guilty of discriminatory
practices against Sephardic girls has
brought already strained secular-religious
relations in Israel to a fever pitch.
A remark by Supreme Court Justice
Edmond Levy that the court's decisions
are not subject to rabbinical approval went
straight to the heart of the matter, with irate
haredi demonstrators declaring that if they
had to choose between the court and their
rabbis, the rabbis always would come first.
The fundamental argument over
whether the courts or the rabbis have the
ultimate authority reflects a longstanding
clash between Theodor Herzl's vision of a
secular democratic state for the Jews and
haredi notions of a Jewish state subject to
rabbinical law.
For secular Israelis, impugning the
authority of the courts means anarchy. For
the haredim, overriding rabbinical rulings
means perverting God's will.
The latest angry confrontation between
the state and the haredim began with a
ruling by the Israeli Supreme Court in
April ordering a school run by Ashkenazi
Slonim Chasidim in the West Bank
settlement of Emanuel to stop excluding
Sephardic girls from their regular classes.
In the state's view, the practice consti-
tuted a form of intolerable segregation and
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June 24 • 2010
violated basic principles of equality and
human dignity. The offending Beit Yaakov
school agreed to more mixed classes.
But rather than comply, the Ashkenazi
parents started their own school next door.
They argued that the segregation wasn't
ethnic, but religious. The Sephardic girls,
they said, came from homes less strictly
observant than their Ashkenazi daughters
— for example, homes with television
sets and Internet connections — and they
didn't want their daughters influenced
by those who were less religious. They
said Sephardic girls were welcome at the
Ashkenazi-dominated school if they met
the standards for stricter religious obser-
vance.
The court ordered the parents to send
their children back to Beit Yaakov or face
fines. The parents ignored the court order
and didn't pay the fines. The court found
them guilty of contempt and ordered that
they be sent to jail for an initial two-week
period to reconsider their position.
Amid defiant singing and dancing, 35
of the 38 fathers went to jail last week. The
mothers failed to report for their prison
terms on the grounds that they needed to be
home to look after their younger children.
The Slonim Chasidim say that in a true
democracy, they should have the right to
educate their children in any way they
please.
In the chasidic account, the parents' going
to jail was presented as a form of martyr-
dom, showing up the inhumanity, lack of
values and wanton persecution of the haredi
Orthodox by the secular Israeli state.
Secular Israelis see things quite differ-
ently. Many regard the Emanuel school
case as a reflection of a much wider phe-
nomenon, that of the haredim milking
the state for funds without accepting its
authority or performing the ultimate duty
of Israeli citizenship: army service.
Haredi schools are largely state funded
but do not teach the country's core cur-
riculum. The secular press in Israel has
been inundated with articles blasting the
haredim for defying the state's authority
while tapping into its budgets for health,
education and welfare.
Nowhere else in the world would haredi
Jews have the temerity to behave this way,
the secularists say, nowhere else would they
defy state law or mock the Supreme Court.
"Don't give in to Emanuel;' the liberal
daily Haaretz exhorted in an editorial.
"We must not surrender:' echoed jour-
nalist Yair Lapid, who reportedly is on the
brink of launching an anti-clerical succes-
sor party to Shinui, the party once led by
his late father, Yosef "Tommy" Lapid.
The Orthodox-Sephardic Shas Party was
more ambivalent. Shas was created in the
mid-1980s to combat Ashkenazi discrimi-
nation against Sephardim, so it may have
been expected to take up the cause of the
Sephardic students and families. But to
do so would have seemed like siding with
the Supreme Court, which is anathema for
Shas.
Its spiritual leader, Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef,
resolved the dilemma by coming out
against discrimination, but more strongly
against taking the case to the Supreme
Court.
"Anyone who appeals to the secular
Orthodox Israelis in Jerusalem protest
a court order requiring haredi parents to
send their daughters to an Emanuel school.
courts will have no share in the world to
come," Yosef declared.
Other recent rulings by the Supreme
Court have compounded the strains
between the haredim and the state as
well as a string of violent clashes between
haredi demonstrators and police.
In mid-June, the Supreme Court ruled
against state stipends for married yeshi-
vah students on the grounds that similar
stipends for married university students
were abolished in 2000.
The ruling was seen as a major blow
to the haredim, many of whom choose to
study Torah rather than work for a living.
This exempts them from mandatory army
service.
The haredim also clashed recently with
police during demonstrations against
building on sites where ancient bones are
believed to be buried.
For its part, the Israel Defense Forces
is considering launching a new plan that
would allow more yeshivah students to
enlist, and more yet to join the labor force.
Yeshivah students currently must remain
in school until middle age in order to stay
out of the army.
Meanwhile, with the basis of Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's govern-
ment a strategic alliance between Likud
and Shas, government ministers have had
very little to say on the Emanuel school
brouhaha for fear of upsetting their haredi
coalition partners. ❑