Children's rights out of the picture

A fantastic blog post focusing on the Haredi commmunity's ignorance

A terrific analysis by Ruth Eglash of Jerusalem Post (actually balanced for a right-wing paper)

We talk about equal rights for women, blacks, minorities, people with disabilities, etc, etc. But it never occurred to me until the Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox people (The Slonim sect) brought this particular case to the Israeli Supreme Court. In sum, the Ashkenzai parents have pulled their daughters out of school because they did not want them "mixing" with others of non-European origin. And Sephardic parents complained that their daughters were being ethnically segregated. This school was financially supported by the State of Israel's Educational Ministry, thus a public school that's supported by Israeli taxpayers. The way journalists had portrayed this incident in Emmanuel, particularly when they described how a Sephardic girl, just because she cannot pronounce "elohei" in Ashkenazic dialect, could not attend the same school as other children despite the government mandate that schools must be open to all. (I would be horrified if this was the truth- right down to speech and dialect?!)

Wow. Just wow. Take out Ashkenazi/Sephardic traditional differences for a minute. These are children that we're talking about. Every child has a right to education, access to knowledge. No matter what. So what if the child has to learn about the science of evolution when s/he has been taught the story of Creation at home. Generally and ultimately, reasonable parents let children decide for themselves how to make of the world around them. Giving children access to a variety of information is the key to critical thinking development. But if a parent is anything like one of those fathers who preferred to go to jail than to comply, then how would one expect his children to develop necessary skills to survive the world? The fathers' argument is simple as this: The world must be strictly confined to exactly what the Torah and Talmud says that every Jew must learn. Children must be raised pure and free of sins. They should not be exposed to the "evils" of secularism and western civilization.

What really infuriates me about this issue is how some parents will purposely keep their children at home to "protect" them from outside sins and evils just so they don't "mix" with the other group. It's also not "Jewish" to separate children by their ethnicity through walls and dress code. What does it exactly teach children about other people? Judaism is an inclusive religion.

Interestingly, it has just been agreed upon that the fathers are released from jail early based on agreement among leaders, including the rabbi of the Slonim community. For the last three days of school year, the school will be unified and the students will learn all about unity. The leaders made a case on the behalf of Ashkenazi parents that it was important to keep the haredi community unified and to keep this particular sect from breaking off. In response, as Jerusalem Post reported, the community will set up its own school with its own funding. I'm miffed.

Jerusalem Post also mentioned that demonstrators held a rally in Tel Aviv to support the High Court's rule against ethnic discrimination in Israeli schools (those paid for by Israeli taxpayers) and on Minister of Knesset vowed to introduce a bill banning ethnic discrimination in Israeli schools.

But, where were the children in this deal? The agreement wasn't made on the children's behalf but rather on the adults'. No one said, "We are going to do these unity classes for the sake of children, not just because of the deal. Children need to learn to get along with each other... blah blah." Instead, the leaders will grumble through the last three days of school just to comply with the court order and then set up their own school over the summer. Is there a lesson to be learned from this whole ordeal? Apparently not from the way things are turning out.

The Ashkenazi children clearly are going to miss out valuable development and skills lessons by attending ethnically segregated schools at their parents' request. They will grow up to be like their parents who just don't seem to have conflict resolution skills or deeper understanding of other groups' customs. Otherwise it's completely racism. I hate to say this, but, haven't these parents learned anything from Nazi Germany?