Ethiopian Jews in Palestine

Egged bus driver to Ethiopian: No blacks allowed

Yedno Verka

Woman recounts humiliating experience in which bus driver told her, 'Kushit, in Ethiopia you didn't even have shoes and here you do, so why don’t you walk?'; Egged to investigate incident

Daniel Edelson

Published: 08.11.09, 22:20 / Israel News

A 23-year-old woman of Ethiopian descent claimed that the driver of an Egged No. 5 bus in Rishon Lezion refused to allow her to board his bus because of the color of her skin.

Speaking to Ynet, Yedno Verka recounted last Wednesday's incident: "As I prepared board the bus, the driver suddenly shut the door. I banged on the glass, but he ignored me. Then a young woman came running towards the bus, and he opened the door for her. I stayed close to her and boarded the bus.

"When the driver saw me he said, 'what, don’t you understand that I don't allow Kushim (derogatory term for black people) on board? Are you trying to smash my door in? Were there buses in Ethiopia? Why don't you walk? In Ethiopia you didn't even have shoes and here you do, so why don’t you walk?' I was shaking all over; I couldn't even speak," she said.

At this point Verka handed the driver the bus fair, but, according to her, he refused to accept it and said, "Kushit hold on, what's your hurry? Since you (Ethiopians) made aliyah you've become arrogant."

Verka said she responded by saying, "You can't treat me this way. Treat your mother this way."

At this point, she said, "He grabbed my skirt and yelled: 'You don’t talk like that about my mother. A Kushit will not talk about my mother like that.' I was afraid he was going to hit me, and explained that I did not curse his mother. But he continued: 'Go back to Ethiopia! You are not even Jews; who brought you all here anyway? You're ruining our country; you are a stupid people.'

Only then did the other passengers intervene and call the driver out for his racist behavior, said the woman, adding that the driver continued his tirade even after she made her way to the back of the bus.

"I told myself that I would not cry in front of him. As we approached the college I rang the bell and got off. I couldn't hold it in anymore and began to weep.

"It was such a humiliating experience, and what scares me most is the thought that he'll continue to act this way. I would sue him had jotted down the names and numbers of some of the passengers, but I didn’t even think about it," said Verka.

Knesset Member Shlomo Molla (Kadima) turned to Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz (Likud), who in turn instructed his office to demand that the Egged bus company investigate the incident and see to it that the driver is punished if it is found that he acted inappropriately.

Egged said in response that it "condemns any expression of racism and services all people, regardless of race, gender and creed. The details of the incident have been forwarded to Egged's control committee for an in-depth investigation. Should the allegations prove true, Egged will act accordingly."

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3760647,00.html

Right of Reply: It's not about racial discrimination

"Radai points out that the public outcry provided unnecessary and inaccurate ammunition for Israel's international critics and enemies."
Excuse me: Your 'israeli' enemies do not need the event of white European Jews on Arab soil discrimianting against black Jews! That pales in comparison with white EUROPEAN Jewry dropping phosphorous from the sky to eradicate Arab Palestinians for no other reason than to eliminate them from their own land so that white Jewry could attain its dream of 'Lebensraum'.

Sep. 5, 2009

Shlomo Goren , THE JERUSALEM POST

Pnina Radai's article "Petah Tikva's 'shanda,'" on September 2 in The Jerusalem Post, was apparently meant, coming from a member of the Ethiopian community, to redirect attention away from the political fallout of the Petah Tikva schools and back to what should be considered the main point: addressing racial discrimination in Israeli society.

However, her words manage to serve, both intentionally and unknowingly, as a concrete if unfortunate illustration of the way that interested parties can hurt the interests and well-being of a certain denominational group, even if those parties include representatives from within said group.

Radai points out that the public outcry provided unnecessary and inaccurate ammunition for Israel's international critics and enemies. What the author fails to realize is that she herself has allowed hype and sensationalism to distort the actual facts of the story, thus precluding people from actually helping those they purport to - that is, the immigrant children themselves.

The article tries to provide some perspective on the whole picture - to wit, the public outcry proves that Israeli society actually opposes racism. But in the very attempt to downplay fears of racism, Radai has fudged something far more basic and important - the schools' decision wasn't racially motivated either!

As has been clearly reported in this paper and others (when one bothers to read the entire stories, and not just feed off the headlines and sound bites), these very schools do, in fact, have Ethiopian students that were freely accepted - when they met the academic and religious criteria.

THE ACTUAL issue at hand was not the ethnicity or race of the students, but rather the ability of these specific students, fresh from an absorption center, with little to no basic education, to successfully integrate in a high-achieving, high-pressure private school (without even addressing the issue of a strictly Orthodox atmosphere that the students are unfamiliar with).

In my elementary school (in one of the state-religious schools in Petah Tikva) in the '80s, there were a few Ethiopian boys. I was not particularly close to them, but they had a reputation for being troublemakers, no doubt due to the problems of integration into quite a different society than they or their parents came from - much harder than my own relatively smooth insertion from the US.

In both my yeshiva and academic studies there were again a few Ethiopian boys and girls - those who despite hardship managed to get through the system and integrate well enough to succeed in high-level academic institutions, to become rabbis and scientists.

I was happy to recently see one of my undergraduate classmates - an Ethiopian girl whom I spent many hours studying with - working on her doctorate in biology. These people have succeeded in overcoming many social and cultural obstacles to properly integrate into Israeli society - and in none of these places did anyone try to impede them from that success when they showed they could make it.

In my generation such success stories are still relatively rare, but all of them seem to hail from the first aliya of Ethiopian Jews (Operation Moses).

Ethiopian integration is a slower process than that of other immigrations, possibly because of the vast cultural gaps. What the new immigrants need most is time and patience, as well as a system prepared to accept anyone who is ready in an unbiased manner - and that system is already in place and active! But time is one of the things that politicians and others don't feel they have enough of to give. It was the government, as well as possibly well-meaning social activists like Radai herself, who vehemently opposed any solution involving separate tutoring, even when this is aimed at helping those students rise up to the level of their peers.

For all these pundits, the principle of immediate forced integration supersedes the goal of helping the students acclimate at their own pace, even as these very pundits bemoan the sorry academic plight of these children. Indeed, it was one of these very schools in Petah Tikva which was pilloried (if not downright libeled) last year for "segregating" Ethiopian students (whom the school had accepted) by giving them private tutoring sessions.

This last fact illustrates another problem with the line adopted by so-called advocates of the immigrant communities. Far from "leaving the immigrants behind" or "rejecting them," it is these religious schools which take in the Ethiopian students and at least try to help them take their first steps toward integration in Israeli society. The hesder yeshiva I learned in established an award-winning "yeshiva prep" program for Ethiopian high-school students, run jointly by Ethiopian and non-Ethiopian alumni. Yes, it involves Ethiopians in a separate program, but the goal to help them along to the point that they can integrate - and it works.

In Kiryat Malachi, mentioned by Radai, where I lived for a year and a half, it is again those religious schools, all staffed by fellow yeshiva alumni, who are giving their all to improving the education of all students in the schools, and of the Ethiopians in particular.

INSTEAD OF decrying an Education Ministry and system that forces all Ethiopians into one branch of the school system (conveniently leaving the rest "pure"), regardless of their own religious choices and preferences (this newspaper recently provided a voice for parents in Shlomi bemoaning the "religious coercion" of a state school with a religious staff), the media, politicians and "social activists" attack that one singled-out branch, the religious schools, for imagined "racism."

How can that motivate any institution to take up the task? How can crying "racism" do anything but distract from the real problems of the immigrants and obstruct honest attempts to help them integrate at a healthy and productive pace, albeit a slower one than today's "instant" culture, not to mention politicians, might want?

Radai is right that making what she calls "disgusting acts and less-than-admirable behavior" into political fodder should be avoided. What she gets wrong is that the issue of "discrimination," especially in the context of the Petah Tikva schools, and using such derogatory terms and inflammatory rhetoric is itself nothing but political fodder, used by a mighty array of interested parties: sensationalizing media, sound-bite-seeking national politicians, agenda-pushing local and Ethiopian politicians (let's be honest here) and unfortunately even internal strife among rival religious education institutions.

What should really concern Israeli society as a whole, and advocates of Ethiopian olim in particular, is avoiding, and opposing, the confusion - let alone the substitution - of political interests and principles with the actual best interests and welfare of real people.

The writer is a PhD student at the Volcani Institute in Beit Dagan. He was involved in a number of special programs with Ethiopian olim at various absorption centers.

This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1251804495974&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull

Rights watchdog: After U.S., Israel is least egalitarian country in West

Mon., December 08, 2008

By Tomer Zarchin

The past year has seen a dramatic rise in the number of violent attacks perpetrated by Jewish settlers against Palestinians in the territories. Yet, only 8 percent of the police investigations of settler violence result in indictments. This finding is contained in a new report, published yesterday by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), to mark the 60th anniversary of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The report states that in most instances of innocent civilian bystanders being killed in the territories, no investigation is opened. Also, only a small number of the cases that are investigated result in an indictment.

ACRI reports that in most of Israel's mixed towns, including Ramle, Lod, Acre, Haifa and Jaffa, Arab citizens suffer from discrimination. The infrastructure in the Arab neighborhoods is neglected, public buildings and parks are lacking, there is a poor education system and health and welfare services are insufficient. The past decade has seen an increase in the gaps in life expectancy between Jews and Arabs and also between the center and the periphery. As such, the infant mortality rate in the periphery is double that in the country's center. Moreover, there are fewer hospital beds and doctors as well as less medical equipment per capita in the periphery, as compared to the center.

The report asserts that, after the United States, Israel is the least egalitarian country in the West. Although there has been an increase in the state's revenues from taxes in recent years, the government's spending on social issues has decreased. During the past 13 years the funding of the health basket has been eroded by some 44 percent, while at the same time there has been a 50-percent increase in the rate of personal spending on health, as part of the total public and private expenditure.

The report also found that the economic situation of people with handicaps in Israel is the worst among the Western countries. Their average income is less than 70 percent of those without handicaps, and, in addition, 85 percent of Israeli employers do not hire people with handicaps. Also, 37 percent of Ethiopian immigrants are employed in low-paying jobs, as compared to veteran Israelis. In addition, the report found that the privacy of an increasing number of workers is invaded through their employers' calls for a sweeping exemption from medical confidentiality, the monitoring of phone calls and e-mail, compulsory polygraph tests and the use of surveillance cameras. Moreover, many of the Prison Service facilities violate the basic rights of detainees and prisoners, in part by excessive use of force, severe overcrowding in the jails and poor hygienic and sanitary conditions.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1044434.html

Ethiopian students affair shows prevalent racism in Israel

Last update - 00:31 04/09/2009

By Gideon Levy, Haaretz Correspondent

Tags: Racism, Gideon Levy

All of a sudden, we can say "racism." A shock wave has struck complacent Israeli society. A few dozen Ethiopian children were not accepted to religious schools in Petah Tikva. That is truly terrible, everyone tsked-tsked at the heart-rending picture of Aschalo Sama, a boy without a school. Even President Shimon Peres expressed shock. Everyone is permitted to be shocked; it is politically correct.

Oh, how beautiful we are, how enlightened we seem to ourselves. Look how we fight racism, undaunted and uncompromising. And yet, in a twinkling, this shame will be forgotten, and we will be left with the many other manifestations of society's racism, to which we remain sleepily indifferent.

That's the way we are. From time to time, when the sewage overflows, and the stink spreads everywhere and we can no longer hold our noses, we all cry out against injustice until, once again, the cover is closed. The water underneath continues to froth and stink, but it will be covered and repressed.

It is difficult to know, for example, how many self-righteous and tsking parents would have agreed to register their children in a class with a majority of children of Ethiopian origin. And how many would rent an apartment to an Arab student? But far be it for them to count that as racism. And how many parents are shocked by the nightly selection at the clubs where their adolescent children go for a good time? Routinely, young "others" are excluded - Ethiopians, Arabs, Druze, and sometimes Mizrahim, too. Foreigners are barred for having dark skin, and no protest is heard.

Every day security guards check people entering Ben-Gurion International Airport on whether their accent sounds Arab, and no one complains. That is not racism. It's how we have organized for ourselves an ethical code of double and triple moral standards. We fight against a few manifestations and close our eyes to other, far worse, examples.

The case of the Petah Tikva pupils is the tip of the racism iceberg. Children engender special feelings; shameful revelations about the school system will always yield a scandal. But the very week the country was in a huff over the Ethiopians, Nir Hasson reported in Haaretz that Jerusalem invests NIS 577 a year in a pupil from East Jerusalem and NIS 2,372 in a pupil from West Jerusalem. Four times less, only because of the child's ethnicity. That does not count here as racism. Neither does the fact that East Jerusalem lacks about 1,000 classrooms, only because its residents are Palestinian. No one howls against these revelations, no one is infuriated by them, including the president, who fights against racism.

Now that we can use the term "racism," the time has come to admit our society is absolutely racist, that all its components are racist. The legal system, for example, is no less tainted than Petah Tikva's Morasha school. In many cases there is one law for a Jew and another for an Arab. The Bank of Israel, a state institution no less than the Morasha school, with 900 employees, has always been "clean" of Arab employees except sometimes one or two. Some 70,000 Israeli citizens, all Arab of course, are living in unrecognized villages, without electricity or running water, without an access road and sometimes without a school. Why? Because they are Arabs. Every week at soccer matches we hear racist epithets and chants, the kind teams in Europe are severely penalized for. Here, the referees do not even bother reporting them.

The latest incident occurred last week at the Doha Stadium in Sakhnin in a match between Bnei Sakhnin and Beitar Jerusalem.

And we have said nothing yet about the attitude toward foreign workers, the occupation (the greatest racist curse) nor about the attitude toward Mizrahim since the founding of the state. The list is long and shameful.

When the children of Petah Tikva have all found schools to attend , even though their skin is black, society will not stop being racist. It will return very quickly to business as usual and self-satisfaction. See how there was racism here, we fought it and it disappeared without a trace.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1112050.html

Ethiopian students finally enrolled in Petah Tikva schools

ast update - 04:13 04/09/2009

By Or Kashti, Haaretz Correspondent

Tags: Petah Tikva, israel news

All children of Ethiopian origin were finally placed in various Petah Tikva schools as of Thursday, two days after the beginning of the school year.

Some 100 children had been left out of school when the school year opened on Tuesday due to the religious schools' refusal to enroll them. But all the children were placed over the last three days, after the Education Ministry threatened to cut off the schools' funding.

At about noon, students from Petah Tikva's Amishav neighborhood came home.

"It was fun to go to school at last," said Tadros Ordena, who began first grade Thursday.

"Thank God everything's all right now," said Aschalo Sama's mother, Pirmos. "We got to school, they registered us and I hope there will be no more problems."

City officials said they will check all the schools next week to make sure every child of Ethiopian descent has found a place in a classroom.

However, the crisis may flare again in December, when some 60 additional immigrant children are due to arrive in Petah Tikva.

Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar and Petah Tikva Mayor Yitzhak Ohayon agreed that this group would all be enrolled in various private schools, including both the religious Zionist ones that objected to enrolling the current batch and ultra-Orthodox schools.

The ministry is also considering sending some children from the new group to schools outside Petah Tikva, such as the elementary school in nearby Moshav Nehalim. Ministry regulations stipulate that elementary school students must be enrolled in schools near their homes. But ministry and municipality officials said it might not be a good idea to send children of Ethiopian origin to schools that do not want them.

It is also not clear whether the various private schools will honor their agreement with Sa'ar to take in all of the new group.

"They've already started saying they won't take in more students," one official said.

Most of the Ethiopian students have been enrolled in the city's religious state schools, which compete with the private religious schools.

Municipality officials blasted the Education Ministry Thursday for criticizing a "lack of order" in their data on students of Ethiopian origin, which led to the "discovery," on the first day of school, of 36 children for whom schools had not been found.

"It's not that 36 students were suddenly born," said the head of the city's elementary education department, Sigalit Hillel-Tchernichovsky. "They were all part of the 100 students we reported to the ministry in mid-August. We regret that the Education Ministry placed the responsibility solely on the local government."

The crisis erupted when three private religious schools refused to admit some 50 new students of Ethiopian origin. Last year, they agreed to enroll 25 students of Ethiopian origin. Their refusal prompted the religious state schools to follow their lead and announce that they, too, would not admit any students of Ethiopian origin.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1112394.html

State cuts funds for Petah Tikva schools that banned Ethiopians

Last update - 22:25 30/08/2009

By Or Kashti and Haaretz Service

Tags: Israel News, Petah Tikva

The Education Ministry on Sunday announced it would cut funding for three state-religious schools in Petah Tikva, after they refused to enroll Ethiopian students.

The ministry's decision comes after a parents' committee representing the schools rejected Petah Tikvah's Mayor Yitzhak Ohayon's proposal, which would allow some of the pupils to enroll in three institutions, while others would be absorbed in other schools across the city.

Ohayon on Sunday said that an agreement has been outlined to enroll the Ethiopian students initially banned from some of the city's schools, but that it has yet to be approved by the Education Ministry.

According to the plan - which was agreed upon during a meeting between Ohayon, the principals of three private religious schools and Kadima MK Ronit Tirosh, who headed the Knesset's Lobby for the Advancement of Education - the three schools would enroll 30 students instead of 50.

The plan also calls for 34 additional students to be integrated into state-religious schools in the city and 45 more students to enroll in other schools that are recognized but are not officially state-funded.

Ohayon said that the students would be integrated into regular classes without preconditions. However, documents he presented indicated that the enrollment in the private schools would be in accordance with the "standard way of life" acceptable in these schools - meaning that the schools may decide not to allow the students to enroll.

The parents' committee said the mayor's proposal would continue to divide Ethiopian students unequally among the religious schools in the city.

The committee is still planning to strike the opening of the school year on Tuesday.

Kadima MK Shlomo Mula called the mayor's proposal "shameful and insulting," adding that it essentially "authorizes a racist policy for private schools."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier Sunday that the refusal of Petah Tikva religious schools to enroll Ethiopian students is "an attack on our morals, contradicting our ethos as a country, as a society, as

Jews and as Israelis."

The three private ultra-Orthodox schools in Petah Tikva, Darkei Noam, Lamerhav and Da'at Mevinim have been persistent in their refusal to enroll 100 students of Ethiopian origin.

The PM's comment on Israel Radio came while the former director-general of the education ministry MK Tirosh is to present a compromise to the principals of three Petah Tikva private ultra-Orthodox schools on Sunday, in an attempt to end recent strains over their refusal to admit Ethiopian students.

According to the offer, students of Ethiopian origin would be included in all of the city's religious schools without having to pass admissions tests.

Furthermore, private institutions will place those students in regular classes, and not in "assimilation" classes, as the three schools offered.

The proposal also states that immigrant students would also attend extra curricular classes, meant to support struggling students ahead of their regular classes.

These lessons would become available to all the students who need extra work, and not just those from immigrant families, the proposal says.

Their principals have informed the Education Ministry last week that they would not attend the hearing scheduled in the ministry's director-general office on Sunday.

However, on Sunday the principals added that they did not yet reach a decision on whether to attend the hearing, with a "final decision to be announced on Sunday."

Last Wednesday it was reported that the Education Ministry was preparing to immediately pull all funding for private Orthodox schools that refused to enroll Ethiopian immigrant children, according to various ministry sources.

"These schools will have to come to their senses and decide where they stand vis-a-vis Israeli society," Education Minster Gideon Sa'ar told Haaretz in an interview last Tuesday.

Principals of three private Orthodox schools in Petah Tikva that refuse to enroll immigrant children from Ethiopia said Saturday they would not attend a hearing in the office of Education Ministry director general Shimshon Shoshani today.

The principals of Lamerhav continued, however, to refuse to take immigrant children from Ethiopia into their schools, despite the Education Ministry's threat to pull their funding.

The principals argued on Tuesday that the issue should be addressed with the other private schools in the city, including two ultra-Orthodox ones.

"If all the private schools were invited to discuss the issue, the three principals would come too," they said.

"If the Education Ministry insists on equal enrollment of immigrant children from Ethiopia, then the remaining Orthodox [private] schools in town should also be part of it," one of the principals said.

Israelis must stand with Ethiopian students over school ban

Last update - 12:57 30/08/2009

By Yossi Sarid

Tags: Ethiopian school ban

There is only one subject that doesn't have to be studied, that is best lived, experienced. Math, English, even Bible study cannot be traded for life experience, and doesn't need to be. Civics is the only subject that can and should be put to the test of daily life.

The new school year starts on Tuesday, and we are already being tested. This year we cannot respond as we did last year. There is no rest for the wicked, and the wicked are those who schemed to leave children of Ethiopian descent outside the fence, looking in, longing to be on the other side. Tell it not in Stockholm, publish it not in the streets of Oslo, lest the newspapers of the uncircumcised rejoice.

In two days' time Israeli society may be facing a badly timed window of opportunity, one we never imagined in our worst nightmares but which, to our shame, is before is. It is an opportunity for the entire educational system to practice what it preaches in civics classes.

It is an opportunity for the education system to teach a chapter of immeasurable value in good citizenship, a lesson so important that it could replace an entire year of civics lessons and thereby save valuable classroom hours.

If religious schools in Petah Tikva or anywhere else insist on refusing to admit Ethiopian students, if all of the pleading and threats of the education minister don't help, then every Israeli will have no choice but to identify with the Ethiopian children in whose faces the gate of apartheid has been slammed. No one will be able to make do any longer with admonishments and reproofs.

The entire education system will go on strike in solidarity with the little girl who stands and asks why. There is no value in education for values if one black boy remains shunned and shamed.

A thousand outstanding teachers and ten thousand outstanding lessons would not erase this black mark if we discharge our duty with lip service. The education minister's most recent sermon, in which he said "the most important thing is to strengthen education of Jewish, Zionist, democratic and social values," will ring hollow, worthless and embarrassing.

And so, with public opinion firmly behind us - including including students, parents and teachers - we shall lock the gates of every school. If the Ethiopian children are not allowed in, then we too, all of us, will remain outside with them, until a gate of hope ("Petah Tikva") opens to an Israeli society that is before our eyes becoming ugly to the point that it is unrecognizable, and which we must change.

If a general strike is too much for some parents who are already preparing their children ready for school, I have an alternative: All the celebrities that Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar invited to teach at schools on Tuesday should devote their remarks to those same children who don't have a classroom, or a teacher, or classmates.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1110949.html

Hearing on Petah Tikva schools' refusal to accept Ethiopian children postponed until Sunday

Fri., August 28, 2009

By Or Kashti

Testimony by principals of three Petah Tikva schools that have refused to enroll Ethiopian pupils has been postponed until Sunday, the Education Ministry said yesterday.

The postponement came at the request of the schools' lawyers, the ministry said in a statement. However, representatives of the schools said the principals had no intention of attending the hearing on Sunday because they felt the results were already clear.

With just four days to the beginning of the school year, most Ethiopian pupils in Petah Tikva still need to find a school that will take them in.

The refusal to enroll the pupils has generated severe criticism, with Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar telling Haaretz that the schools have to "come to their senses and enroll the students or bear the consequences."

The Education Ministry remained staunch on its decision that the three schools - Lamerhav, Daat Mevinim, and Darkei Noam - must absorb the 50 Ethiopian pupils that have recently arrived in Petah Tikva.

"We will take the most drastic steps against the schools that refuse to enroll the pupils, especially where school budgets and licenses are concerned," the minister said.

Sources at the ministry confirmed that if the private schools continue to avoid taking the pupils, funding from the ministry will be withdrawn, and sanctions may lead to the termination of the schools' licenses.

Speaking to high school students later that day, President Shimon Peres said that if he were a student, he would "jump on a bus and go to Petah Tikva to demonstrate against those schools."

He said "the opposition to absorbing those students is a disgrace no person in Israel can bear."

A joint statement from the three schools said that "we invite His Excellency the President to visit our schools on September 1. He will see that our schools have Ethiopian pupils and handicapped pupils as well.

"We recommend that he then go on and visit all other 40 schools in Petah Tikva, where he won't see a single new-immigrant child."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1110758.html

Rabbi Amar: Can't compromise in Ethiopian students affair

Chief Sephardic Rabbi tells Education Minister he can't halachicly approve proposal to integrate Ethiopian students in secular Petah Tikva schools with supervised religious curriculum. Parents protest in city as Education Ministry looks for alternative solution to enrolling 109 students day before school year starts

Yaheli Moran Zelikovich

Published: 08.31.09, 11:29 / Israel News

Sephardic Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar told Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar on Monday that from a halachic perspective he cannot authorize the plan to integrate Ethiopian immigrants into the public education institutions in Petah Tikva.

Sa'ar proposed integrating the Ethiopian students in all state schools in the city, including secular schools, while placing them in a special framework belonging to the state-religious stream, that will enable rabbinical supervision of their curriculum, including extra classes in Jewish studies.

Controversy

Funding of Petah Tikva schools refusing Ethiopian students cut / Yaheli Moran Zelikovich

Education Ministry suspends funding of three of city's private religious schools following continuous refusal to accept Ethiopian pupils. Headmasters rebuff criticism, regrets 'use of personal agenda to drag school system into chaos'

Full Story

While the exact halachic reason was not disclosed, Amar's refusal is believed to stem from the conversion procedure Ethiopian children undergo, which stipulates that they must attend religious schools only.

The core requirement for conversion – observing mitzvahs – dose not apply to children under the age of 12 and 13, for girls and boys respectively. In such cases, the rabbinical courts are allowed "conversion discretion," meaning it is up to the religious judges to decide whether or not a candidate will undergo conversion.

According to a source familiar with the particulars of the process, attending a school "which educates it pupils on Judaism and to observe the Torah and mitzvahs" is a must.

Alternative sought

Following the rabbi's response, the Education Ministry announced it is looking for alternative solutions to settle the affair, and enable the integration of 109 children that have yet to be enrolled in any of the city's schools, just hours before the school year begins.

The ministry said a decision will be made in the matter during the day. Meanwhile, the Petah Tikva parents committee has threatened to strike against the city's schools if a solution is not found.

Sa'ar's proposed compromise came after the Parent-Teacher Association in Petah Tikva rejected Mayor Yitzhak Ohaion's offer, which was reached on Sunday with the school directors and states that the immigrant students will be entered into regular classes, without admission tests, in all of the city's educational establishments, according to their place of residence.

According to the compromise, each student will get a personally-tailored advancement program which will be funded by the Education Ministry and is aimed at minimizing learning gaps within classes.

Sunday night, Sa'ar ordered the Education Ministry to cut off government funding for the three Petah Tikva private religious schools which refused to enroll Ethiopian students.

In response the schools said they were considering petition to the High Court of Justice against the decision.

Meanwhile, Monday moring some 100 pupils and their parents blocked traffic in Petah Tikva in protest against the refusal of private religious schools to accept Ethiopian students.

Police on the spot did not take action to prevent the traffic disturbances. The protesters carryied signs emblazoned with slogans such as "Enough with racism" and "Enough with discrimination."

Elad Rubinstein and Kobi Nahshoni contributed to this report

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3769662,00.html

Funding of Petah Tikva schools refusing Ethiopian students cut

Yaheli Moran Zelikovich

Published: 08.30.09, 23:30 / Israel News

The Education Ministry announced Sunday that it will cut off government funding for the three Petah Tikva private religious schools which refused to enroll Ethiopian students.

The government funds between 55% and 70% of the schools' budgets. The unusual decision was made after a ministry hearing held for the three headmasters, but the Education Ministry is still looking into the legal aspects of its ruling, ahead of a possible High Court appeal by the schools.

Impasse

Petah Tikva PTA rejects compromise on Ethiopian pupils / Raanan Ben-Zur

According to deal struck between mayor, school directors city schools to admit Ethiopian students, 30 of them in three religious schools which refused to take them in. Immigrants to study in regular classes but will receive personally-tailored programs. PTA: No equality in agreement

Full story

An official ministry statement said that, "The Education Ministry insists all three schools accept the students according to their original placement, as ordered by the City.

"The Ministry has informed the school that it will be willing to significantly aid in their integration. In any case, the ministry will continue to meet the Ethiopian students' needs and integrate them in the school system."

The statement also said that the ministry found it "unacceptable" that Ethiopian pupils had to undergo an interview process prior to enrolment.

Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar spoke of the schools' refusal last week, saying his ministry "will not accept any excuses made to justify what appears to be racism… These schools are obligated to enroll Ethiopian students."

Sunday saw Sa'ar ask Chief Sephardic Rabbi Shlomo Amar to oversee a special program allowing rabbinical supervision of the curriculum, aimed at integrating Ethiopian students in the city's state schools.

Only five state-religious schools out of Petah Tikva's 20 religious schools have agreed to enroll Ethiopian students. The others – some religious-Zionism schools, some Orthodox schools and all private institutions – have done their best to avoid it, despite their government funding.

The schools' headmasters issued a joint statement: "The City is responsible for the placement of students in elementary schools and we accepted it. Mayor Yitzhak Ohayon was able to broker a solution which included the majority of educational disciplines in the city and we abide by that solution.

"We regret that some would use their personal agenda to drag the Petah Tikva school system into chaos."

The schools added that they will seek legal action meant to overturn the decision. "We will exhaust every legal option in the matter. We are positive we are right," said the statement, adding that the decision not to enroll the students was pedagogical and does not warrant the revoking of government funding.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3769509,00.html

Petah Tikva's 'shanda'

Sep. 1, 2009

PNINA RADAI , THE JERUSALEM POST

The recent frenzy over the refusal of three Petah Tikva private schools to admit Ethiopian students has generated much outrage across the political and religious spectrum. Former education minister and seasoned news commentator Yossi Sarid wrote in Haaretz, "Publish it not in the streets of Oslo, lest the newspapers of the uncircumcised rejoice" and claimed that the gates of "apartheid" were being slammed in the faces of Ethiopian children. He accused the religious school system of discrimination and claimed "there is no value in education for values if one black boy remains shunned and shamed," calling the parents' associations of the schools "wicked" for not wanting the students admitted. MK Ahmed Tibi (United Arab List-Ta'al) claimed it was an example of the "plague of racism," while President Shimon Peres called the whole fiasco a "disgrace."

Despite the outcry, the response to the three schools' decision to bar Ethiopians has shown that Israeli society rejects racism. Among the 200 protesters who arrived in Petah Tikva on Monday were activists from the religious-Zionist youth group Bnei Akiva and from the No'ar Ha'oved Vehalomed youth movement. The knee-jerk reaction of some to use this as yet another reason to bash Israel and try to inform the European press about it to scream "apartheid," shows that some don't actually care about the Ethiopian children - they are only looking to embarrass the state. The actual story of what occurred is more nuanced.

THE SCHOOLS in question are private religious schools, and the Ethiopians in question are children of new immigrants, who were only recently reconnected to Judaism. Private schools here can choose what to teach, but the majority of their budget is derived from the government. There are many groups associated with what has happened in Petah Tikva, and each has a different interest. The private schools want to safeguard their status as elite institutions while the parents' organizations don't want a big portion of Ethiopian pupils admitted to just one or two schools since it would cause the schools' overall level to decrease.

And since these children are relatively new to Judaism, the only way for them to strengthen their faith is to study in a religious environment. The Sephardi religious leadership, under whose auspices these families were brought back into the Jewish fold and which has consistently campaigned on behalf of their aliya, demands that these children go to religious schools to continue to be considered Jewish. The government support for these schools means the schools must provide equal opportunities.

Another issue is that every school that accepts new immigrants receives a government bonus. Private schools, because they have additional private funding, do not have the budgetary constraints of normal schools, meaning they don't actually need to take in these immigrant children.

IT IS a tragedy to reject students based on ethnic, economic or other criteria. There should be no flexibility on this issue. One cannot take the government's money while rejecting Israeli citizens.

The real problem is not just these schools, but the general lack of consensus on this issue as a whole; numerous schools manipulate the situation regarding Ethiopian children, and only because this was a big group did the media become aware of the scandal.

In fact the problem is widespread where poverty-stricken Ethiopians are concentrated, such as in Kiryat Malachi. The students already face major hurdles; they are learning Hebrew, face economic problems and feel they do not belong in society. For them, religious schools are seen as a way to provide a deeper connection to Israel and Judaism.

The only way for them to succeed is to give them motivation, rather than leaving them behind and rejecting them. Society as a whole and the government in particular have performed admirably on behalf of these children.

Rather than trying to make political fodder of the disgusting acts of a few parents' associations and the less-than-admirable behavior of school principals and municipalities, it's essential to draw a line in the sand and send the message once and for all that no discrimination will be accepted.

The writer arrived in Israel in 1984 with Operation Moses and is involved in numerous social change organizations on behalf of the Ethiopian community.

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Petah Tikva Orthodox schools refuse Ethiopian students

By Or Kashti, Haaretz Correspondent

Tags: Ethiopian Israelis

At least 100 students of Ethiopian origin in Petah Tikva do not know what school they will be attending in the fall, with the opening of the school year just two and a half weeks away. The uncertainty stems from the fact that the city's private schools with an ultra-Orthodox or national Orthodox bent have refused to accept children of Ethiopian origin.

Much of the funding for the private schools comes from the Education Ministry and the city. Education Ministry director general Shimshon Shoshani said Wednesday that the schools that continue to refuse to enroll the children will be fined and may have their licenses suspended.

A few days ago the Petah Tikva municipality told the city's private schools that they would need to enroll about 70 students of Ethiopian origin. Another 30 students were to be enrolled in the public Orthodox school system, where most Ethiopian-Israeli students go. However, sources at the ministry and municipality said conversations with officials at the private schools indicated that they would refuse to enroll the children.

Administrators at the city's public Orthodox schools said they would not accept the 30 children as planned.

Sources familiar with the situation said that around 150 to 200 students of Ethiopian origin are to go to school in Petah Tikva.

According to a senior city official, the private schools "told us specifically that they do not intend to register the new students. It's clear to everyone that the response to the enrollment instruction would be negative, but we had to go public with it to allow the Education Ministry to begin the process of imposing monetary fines."

The Education Ministry was unable to provide figures on the percentage of Ethiopian-Israeli children in Petah Tikva in the coming school year and suggested that the municipality would have the figures.

Numbers obtained from various sources vary widely. Sources in the official (public Orthodox) system say their schools have an enrollment of between 10 percent and 100 percent of children of Ethiopian origin. The entire student body at the public Orthodox Ner Etzion school is Ethiopian-Israeli after the other children's parents enrolled them elsewhere over the past two years.

Even among the private schools, enrollment of Ethiopian-Israelis varies. Private schools with a less strict ultra-Orthodox bent take in more Ethiopian-Israelis (7 to 8 percent), while private schools of the Zionist ultra-Orthodox stream enroll as little as 2 percent.

"We demand an egalitarian and balanced division of immigrant absorption in the city," said the chairman of the citywide parents committee for Petah Tikva's public Orthodox schools, Nir Orbach. Orbach indicated that the private schools make themselves attractive to parents "for example by having no immigrant integration at all, while we fight every day to survive." Orbach said that if the private schools did not take the children, "we will shut down the school system in the city."

Hakol Hinuch, an association working for educational reform nationwide, warned that it would take the case to the High Court of Justice to force the private schools to increase their number of Ethiopian-Israeli children. In a letter to Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar, Hakol Hinuch's legal adviser Aviad Cohen wrote that the case was one of "improper discrimination from a moral point of view, in opposition to fundamental principles, both Jewish and democratic."

According to Hakol Hinuch's executive director, Rabbi Shay Piron, only a few weeks ago the private schools had demanded 100 percent of the funding they are entitled to according to the so-called Gafni law, and that "now it turns out that they are willing to take part in zero percent of public obligations, like helping to absorb immigrants."

In response, Yigal Amitay, representing the private Darchei Noam school belonging to the Zionist ultra-Orthdox system, with a student body of 600, said the school had accepted 14 Ethiopian-Israeli students. "As for the coming year, we will accept anyone who suits the Torah-focused atmosphere and the intensive level of studies at the school. All students the city refers to us will be examined," Amitay said.

Haim Freulichman, the chairman of the association supporting another of Petah Tikva's private ultra-Orthodox schools, Da'at Mevinim, said that "we have accepted and we will continue to accept students of Ethiopian origin. Everything is coordinated with the municipality."

The figures show that Da'at Mevinim enrolled only about seven children of Ethiopian origin.

The other private schools declined to comment for this report.

The director of an organization of representatives of Ethiopian-Israeli community groups, Dani Kashun, said that "the struggle is focusing on the fact that the schools have to enroll our children. A refusal to do so is discrimination. This is not a community problem only, but one with broad implications - today it's immigrants from Ethiopia, tomorrow it can happen to any other community."

The Education Ministry said Wednesday: "It is the obligation of the local authority to assure the enrollment of all students living in its jurisdiction. The ministry will demand that the students also be enrolled in the 'recognized but unofficial schools.' If this is not done, the ministry will take all the educational and administrative steps at its disposal."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1107230.html

Petah Tikva religious schools reject kids of Ethiopian immigrants

Last update - 18:37 02/09/2008

By Haaretz Staff and Channel 10

Tags: Israel, Petah Tikva

Close to two million children went back to Israeli schools on Monday, but not all of them managed to make it into the classroom.

Several Ethiopian families say their children were refused entry by Petah Tikva schools, having been told by administrators that there were too many of their kind.

everal religious schools in Petah Tikva came under fire last year for refusing to enroll dozens of Ethiopian children. Because many are in the midst of an obligatory conversion process, they must attend religious schools, some of which reject them, claiming they are not sufficiently Jewish.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1017211.html

Segregation at Petah Tikva religious school

Last update - 21:38 08/12/2007

By Haaretz Staff and Channel 10

Tags: Ethiopian Jewry, Petah Tikva

Haaretz.com/Channel 10 daily feature for December 5, 2007.

A religious school in Petah Tikva may be more suited to the American South of the 1950s than to 21st century Israel.

It was recently discovered that four Ethiopian girls enrolled in Lamerchav Elementary School are learning in complete isolation from their peers.

They study in separate classrooms, have their own recess time and are even reportedly given daily cab fare so as not to ride home on the bus with other students.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/931557.html

Ethiopian immigrants earned half as much as all other Israeli Jews

Last update - 00:31 05/04/2007

By Moti Bassok, Haaretz Correspondent

Ethiopian immigrants earned half as much as all other Israeli Jews in 2006, according to a Bank of Israel report that will be released next week.

While the average income per capita among the Ethiopian community averaged NIS 2,000 a month, the rest of the Jewish community averaged twice that amount. The report also reveals that Ethiopians earn less than the Arab population in Israel, which earns an average of NIS 2,700 a month.

According to the report, 52 percent of Ethiopian families in Israel are poor, constituting 16 percent of the total number of families who are living below the poverty line.

Because a large portion of the Ethiopian community is uneducated and lacks professional skills, a majority of its members are unemployed. Those who do find work are employed through human resource contractors, and thus earn low wages and are eligible for minimal social benefits.

Some 40 percent of those immigrants who are of employable age do not have an education which exceeds elementary school level. Only 56 percent of Ethiopians are part of Israel's work force, as opposed to 76 percent of the entire Jewish population.

Half of the Ethiopians earn less than NIS 22 an hour, well under the median salary in Israel, which is NIS 34.5 an hour, according to the report.

The median salary among immigrants from the former Soviet Union is also comparatively low, currently standing at NIS 25.2 an hour, according to the report.

The lack of education among the Ethiopian community does not bode well for the future. Large portions of children of Ethiopian background study in technological schools, boarding schools, special education institutions and religious schools.

The percentage of school drop-outs is also high. Only 44 percent of Ethiopian high school students pass their matriculation exams, as opposed to 57 percent among the general population.

The Ethiopian immigrant community reached 106,000 at the end of 2005, of which 33,000 were born in Israel. According to the report, the state invested some NIS 400,000 in the absorption of each immigrant between 1994 and 2003.

While the report does note significant progress in the integration of Ethiopian immigrants into Israeli society in recent years, many demographic characteristics hinder this process.

For instance, the average Ethiopian family has a comparatively large number of children, and usually they are cared for by only one parent, or by elderly people.

Since the majority of Ethiopian families live in disadvantaged neighborhoods, the report recommends that immigrants try to spread out across the country and create new communities.

The report also recommends that affirmative action policies in the public sector be expanded and that schools with a large number of Ethiopian Jews receive extra funding.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/845435.html

For Ethiopian-Israelis, the problem isn't school, it's work

By Amiram Barkat

In 1998, Yitzhak Dessie became the first Ethiopian immigrant to pass the Israeli bar. During his seven years as a lawyer, Dessie has repeatedly encountered incredulity from veteran Israelis. "I frequently hear from people the statement, `Say, are you really a lawyer?' Even now, when people see me at the supermarket wearing a white shirt and black trousers, they're certain I'm the security guard."

Dessie heads Tebeka, an organization that provides legal aid to Ethiopian-Israelis. He believes that attitudes toward this segment of society will change substantially once there are dozens, even hundreds, of Ethiopian-Israeli lawyers. As a step toward realizing that vision, Tebeka has launched an operation aimed at helping law students of Ethiopian origin find employment. Together with the bar association, Tebeka is trying to place students in temporary jobs at leading law firms, and is offering training in areas such as court appearances and English skills.

Some 120 Ethiopian-Israeli students are enrolled in law schools throughout the country, and Dessie hopes that at least 15 of them will find work through the project.

"We think that familiarity with large, established firms will pave the way for Ethiopian-Israelis to reach key positions in Israeli society," Dessie says.

The media dwelt this week on several tragic stories involving Ethiopian immigrants, underscoring again the terrible plight of many Ethiopian immigrants. This led Ethiopian-Israelis to complain to the Knesset Immigration and Absorption Committee that the media always depicts the community in negative contexts of crime and distress, while never presents the areas in which they have been recording accomplishments.

One such area is higher education. More than 3,000 of the 95,000 Ethiopian-Israelis have academic degrees, while some 2,000 attend post-high school institutions.

However, job market figures remain gloomy. A Central Bureau of Statistics 2003 survey found 26 percent unemployment among Ethiopian immigrants, compared to 11 percent for the entire country. More than 90 percent of those working had blue-collar jobs.

CBS has no data on the employment of Ethiopians with higher education, but recent studies have shown that most suitable job offers have come through affirmative action efforts. Director of the Israel Association for Ethiopian Jews, Batia Eyob, says that graduates have been employed in part-time jobs at low wages. The 1997 government decision that the Civil Service Commission would hire 17 Ethiopian graduates each year has not been implemented until now.

Ono Academic College thinks that one obstacle to absorbing Ethiopians in the private sector is the type of academic degrees they pursue. "The fact that the social background of the Ethiopian-Israelis did not permit them to study the most advanced mathematics for the matriculation prevented them from getting into popular programs like law and business administration, and forced them to turn to impractical majors like Hebrew literature, geography, or German," vice chairman Doron Haran says.

In cooperation with the Jewish Agency, the Kiryat Ono school decided to open up the law and business departments to Ethiopian students and offer them scholarships. Today there are 120 students in both departments - more than at any other university or college.

"The program's success exceeded all expectations," Haran says. "We found that the students who completed the program were on as high a level as veteran Israelis, even though their admission requirements were lighter."

The problem arises when Ethiopian graduates begin looking for work. A new study just completed by the Adva Center tried to discover why. "What we found is that the Ethiopian-Israelis are simply not hooked into the right channels," says director Barbara Swirski. "They don't have the social connections, and they aren't sufficiently familiar with the rules of the game."

Adva conducted some 30 in-depth interviews with employers, bureaucrats and activists in the Ethiopian community and found that Ethiopian-Israelis mostly seek work where their friends are already employed - security companies, buses, home-health care, and temporary work. Entire sectors, such as banking and finance, hardly employ any Ethiopians even though there is no shortage of suitable candidates.

Adva concluded that without initiatives to introduce Ethiopian-Israelis to private employers, they will remain stuck.

Attorney Eyal Rozovsky of Haim Tzadok & Co. is among the only law offices trying to make that connection happen. Rozovsky thus far has trained six articled clerks. The latest one, Amira Amara, will start working there next week as a licensed lawyer.

Rozovsky believes the main thing keeping Ethiopians out of law firms is their lack of networking ability, since many veteran Israelis find work while still in law school due to their connections.

"The Ethiopians don't have a daddy who can pick up the phone to his buddy, a lawyer, and arrange an articled clerkship for him," he says.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=583890&contrassID=2&subContrassID=4&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y

Labor MK: Put Ethiopian children in secular schools

By Ruth Sinai

Placing Ethiopian immigrant children in religious schools "has greatly harmed the group's integration into the wider society, and has left them a coerced religious sector," Labor MK Ophir Pines-Paz said yesterday.

Due to the Chief Rabbinate's strict conversion requirements, the majority of Ethiopian children attend state religious schools.

"No ethnic group or immigrant group is required to study in one system. We need to stop discriminating against the Ethiopian sector and to endlessly find faults with their Jewishness," Pines-Paz said in initiating a bill to facilitate secular education for Ethiopian children.

This week, a state religious school in Petah Tikva was found to have isolated four second-grade Ethiopian pupils from the other children, teaching them in a separate classroom and scheduling their recess at a different hour. The school reportedly said the Ethiopian children were not religious enough to mix with the other children.

"Although it is very late, the time has come to redeem the [Ethiopian] sector from the isolation that was forced upon it," Pines-Paz said.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/931204.html

Ethiopian pupils still waiting for a school where they can learn

Sep. 2, 2009

Abe Selig , THE JERUSALEM POST

More than a dozen pupils of Ethiopian origin had yet to be accepted by any school in Petah Tikva on Wednesday, despite a widely praised, last-minute agreement between the Education Ministry and the city regarding the placement of over 100 such pupils in a number of schools.

Ministry officials said they might not have the problems sorted out until the start of next week.

Additionally, the ministry and municipality had conflicting information as to the number of pupils still in need of placement. While the ministry said that 16 first graders were facing "admission difficulties," the Petah Tikva Municipality put the number at 20.

Ministry officials also said that the problem was not that the schools were refusing to admit the pupils, but that there were discrepancies between the municipality, the schools and the ministry, regarding the lists of pupils and where they were supposed to be enrolled.

On Tuesday, Education Ministry Director-General Shimshon Shoshani, along with municipality officials, said that some children had been sent to the wrong school by mistake, while some of pupils' families complained of language difficulties.

Under the agreement, which was reached during a meeting between Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar, Petah Tikva Mayor Yitzhak Ohayon, and Shoshani, 30 of the 108 Ethiopian pupils in question were supposed to begin their studies on Tuesday at the three "recognized but unofficial" religious schools that had been reluctant to admit them - Lamerhav, Da'at Mevinim and Darkei Noam.

An additional 18 pupils are set to begin studying in those semi-private institutions as well when they arrive in Petah Tikva in the coming weeks.

The remaining 60 pupils, who are expected to arrive in the city throughout the school year, will be admitted to semi-private schools in accordance with Education Ministry assignments.

Additionally, the city and the Education Ministry said they were to appoint a joint task force to examine the implementation of the pupils' enrollment and the general integration of Ethiopian pupils in the city's schools.

It was unclear what role, if any, that task force was playing in helping sort through Wednesday's confusion.

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'We must all ask forgiveness from the Ethiopian community'

Sep. 2, 2009

Rebecca Anna Stoil , THE JERUSALEM POST

As more than two dozen Ethiopian students in Petah Tikva still awaited placement in one of the Dan-area municipality's schools, discrimination against Ethiopian students took center stage at the Knesset on Wednesday for the second time this week.

Both during a special plenum session and an emergency session of the Committee for Children's Rights, MKs discussed the phenomenon of discrimination within state-funded schools, as well as possible solutions to the problem.

"We all must ask for forgiveness from the Ethiopian community in Israel," said Committee Chairman MK Danny Danon (Likud).

During the early afternoon plenum discussion, Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar found himself in the unlikely position of receiving congratulations from opposition MK Haim Oron (Meretz) regarding his handling of the situation in Petah Tikva thus far.

"The specific crisis in Petah Tikva is an annual ritual," said Sa'ar during his response to Oron's comments. "The same three schools in Petah Tikva did absorb the pupils; the problem now is with other schools. This is horrifying. I told the Supreme Court a few months ago that regarding schools that refuse to absorb students who have immigrated from Ethiopia, I will utilize the two tools that I have at my disposal against them: their budgets and their licenses."

Sa'ar and Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin engaged in a side conversation on the Knesset speaker's podium in which both expressed their opinions that the educational crisis in Israel was a strategic threat, and that - according to Sa'ar - "education in my eyes is more important to security than tanks or any one specific airplane."

Hours earlier, organizations of Ethiopian immigrants, Education and Welfare Ministry representatives, and representatives from various local governments and the National Council for the Child all participated in the urgent committee hearing to address the situation in Petah Tikva.

Members of the Ethiopian immigrant community testified that their own children had refused to go to school after they heard about the situation in Petah Tikva, where schools are still facing off against each other and the Education Ministry in order to absorb as few Ethiopian children as possible.

Kassahoun Wanda of the "North America for Ethiopian Jews" organization said that the situation was not limited to Petah Tikva, but that similar and even more serious cases of discrimination could be found throughout the country. Wanda said that at the Yeshurun School in Rishon Lezion, 75% of the students are of Ethiopian origin and at the Rashbi School in Be'er Ya'akov, 100% of the students are Ethiopian.

Danon told The Jerusalem Post that initial testimony indicated that in the case of the Yeshurun School, the Ethiopian students were bused in from other school districts in the city to attend.

"The committee sees discrimination on the basis of skin color as an ethical crime that must be combated, and recognizes that the problem of absorbing Ethiopian students at educational institutions is a system-wide problem that exists throughout the country," Danon concluded.

Danon said that, in light of the different data presented by municipalities, the Education Ministry and immigrants' advocacy groups, the committee would commission a study to be carried out by the Knesset's own research department to better understand the problem as well as possible solutions.

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MKs line up behind Ethiopian student issue

Sep. 1, 2009

Rebecca Anna Stoil , THE JERUSALEM POST

As lawmakers search for headlines amid the deadly political silence of the summer recess, Ethiopian pupils' search for places in Petah Tikva schools emerged as the push-button issue on Monday, with MKs taking turns speaking in more and more strident terms during the hourslong Education Committee meeting discussing the topic.

Both individual legislators and entire Knesset factions discovered that the topic might pay political dividends, and parties and ideological allies found themselves rent asunder during Monday's grandstanding.

The most salient split came within Kadima, where MK Shlomo Molla - the house's sole Ethiopian member - faced off against party colleague MK Ronit Tirosh, the architect of Sunday's failed plan to resolve the crisis in Petah Tikva. The party line adopted by Kadima chairwoman Tzipi Livni - who was present at both the small protest held before the committee hearing as well as for the first half of the meeting itself - is closer to that of Molla than that of Tirosh.

There is little love lost between Livni and Tirosh, the former director-general of the Education Ministry, who was one of the lawmakers most closely identified with Livni's rival for the Kadima leadership, MK Shaul Mofaz.

But Livni was at pains on Monday to emphasize that her newfound, enthusiastic support for the well-being of Ethiopian immigrant students was anything but politically motivated.

"When I heard Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar say that he intends to act, I took a principled decision not to turn the topic over to the political playing-field," Livni said during the committee meeting. "The role of the opposition is not just to fight against the government, but also to fight for what is right - and if the government is doing the right thing, we must support it."

Earlier this week, Mofaz also emphasized his support for the Ethiopian pupils, during an Israel Radio interview in which he revealed that he has for years worked behind the scenes, together with his wife, to aid immigration absorption efforts.

In the Likud as well, even the usually-obstreperous freshman MKs were unanimous in their support for Sa'ar's draconian threats against the three Petah Tikva schools that had been accused of refusing to accept students of Ethiopian origin. MKs Tzipi Hotovely and Carmel Shama both complimented the minister's attempts.

On the national religious front, however, the fight - as in Kadima - pitted lawmakers usually seen as natural allies against one another. MK Michael Ben-Ari (National Union) blasted racism against students while defending recognized non-official schools' rights to screen students before entry and to block applicants who do not fit in with the school's ideology.

Meanwhile, MK Uri Orbach and Education Committee Chairman MK Zevulun Orlev, both from Habayit Hayehudi, said in strident terms that admitting the pupils was part of the schools' duty to Zionism, and that absorbing immigrant students was a privilege and not a burden.

Shas - which runs one of the three schools in question - has been working within the Ethiopian community for years, and spokesman Ro'i Nachmanovich emphasized on Monday that the debate surrounding the Petah Tikva schools was not reviewed for its political relevance but on its halachic merits by Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar. In Shas, Nachmanovich pointed out, Ethiopian immigrants have been included for years.

In the last Knesset, MK Mazor Bayana became the first Ethiopian representative from Shas to the parliament, and he is the next candidate on the party's candidates list, ready to replace any Shas lawmaker who resigns. Furthermore, within Shas institutions, said Nachmanovich, "there are a number of Ethiopian rabbis who are teachers, both for the Ethiopian community itself as well as for the community as a whole."

"I'm very happy to see such political mobilization on this subject," Molla said. "Apparently politicians finally realized that this is a situation that needs to be discussed. And maybe my presence contributed to it. Now people see that there is a real representative of the community who talks about topics beyond initial absorption."

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Rabbi Ovadia Yosef threatens Shas principals who refuse to accept Ethiopians

Sep. 1, 2009

Matthew Wagner , THE JERUSALEM POST

Shas spiritual mentor Rabbi Ovadia Yosef threatened Monday to fire any school principal from Shas's school system who refused to receive Ethiopian students.

In parallel, Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar announced that it was forbidden to send Ethiopian students to secular schools.

"If I was brought into this world only to help the Ethiopians that is enough for me," Yosef said Monday morning, during a meeting with Amar in his home in Jerusalem's Har Nof neighborhood, according to Amar's spokesman.

Amar's spokesman said that Yosef ruled that it was forbidden to integrate the Ethiopians in secular schools because many were Falashmura who were still in the process of converting to Judaism.

"If one of those children comes before a rabbinical court to convert and he or she does not know anything about Judaism it will be problematic," said Amar's spokesman.

Yosef, considered the greatest living Sephardi halachic authority, was the first top-tier rabbi to recognize certain groups among the Ethiopians as full-fledged Jews. Many have been integrated into Shas's Maayan Hahinuch Hatorani school network.

"Anyone who refuses to accept Ethiopians should get up and go home," Yosef said, according to Amar's spokesman.

The spokesman said that in an agreement that had been reached with the Petah Tikva municipality, Shas's schools would help absorb the Ethiopian students.

The meeting Monday morning was attended by Interior Minister Eli Yishai and Construction and Housing Minister Ariel Atias.

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Deal reached on Ethiopian olim

Aug. 31, 2009

Abe Selig and ron friedman , THE JERUSALEM POST

After weeks of uncertainty and just hours before school opened for the year, an agreement was reached on Monday night on the placement of Ethiopian immigrant children in three "unofficial but recognized" Petah Tikva schools, where a racially charged fight over the admission of the pupils has been brewing since the beginning of last month.

Under the agreement, which was reached during a meeting between Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar, Petah Tikva Mayor Yitzhak Ohayon and Education Ministry director-general Shimshon Shoshani, 30 of the 108 Ethiopian pupils in question will begin their studies on Tuesday at the three semi-private schools - Lamerhav, Da'at Mevinim and Darkei Noam.

The pupils will be assigned to the schools by the Education Ministry, without any prescreening by the schools allowed.

An additional 18 pupils will also be assigned to these three schools when they arrive in Petah Tikva in the coming weeks.

The remaining 60 pupils, who are expected to arrive in the city later on in the school year, will not be assigned to the state-religious schools, but only to "unofficially recognized" schools, with assignments to be made by the Education Ministry. This could include haredi schools, though this was not specified.

Additionally, the Petah Tikva Municipality together with the Education Ministry will appoint a joint task force to examine the implementation of the pupils' enrollment and the general integration of Ethiopian children in the city's schools.

"The agreement that was reached represents the principles that we have made clear concerning [the pupils'] absorption into the three institutions," Sa'ar said on Monday night. "And we plan on following the way this is implemented on the ground."

The decision came after a heated Knesset Education Committee meeting held earlier in the day, in which accusations of racism over the schools' reluctance to enroll the pupils dominated the discussion. Opposition leader Tzipi Livni of Kadima and the Likud's Sa'ar both sharply criticized the conduct of the Petah Tikva Municipality and the semi-private schools.

"This concerns not only the three schools that have, for a long time, been deceiving the entire educational system. For years, racism has developed here undeterred," Sa'ar said at the meeting, adding that nobody had addressed the issue.

"We've come to the point where today there is a school, Ner Etzion, which only Ethiopian students attend," he continued. "This is how we are dealing with immigration to Israel in 2009 - a school which, in my eyes, is a type of ghetto. This is what we've come to."

Ohayon also spoke at the committee meeting, but was roundly condemned by the crowd. At one point, MK Shlomo Molla (Kadima), himself an Ethiopian immigrant who has been an outspoken supporter of the Petah Tikva pupils, called the mayor a "racist."

Before the committee meeting, Molla had spoken to a group of protesters who gathered in the Rose Garden opposite the Knesset, telling them that while he appreciated Sa'ar's leadership, the time had come to "take away the three racist schools' licenses."

"A step has been made at the right direction, but it is not enough," Molla said. "This is battle over a principle and we have to say enough is enough! No more discrimination!"

But the most raucous protests of the day took place in Petah Tikva, were roughly 300 people, mostly members of the city's Ethiopian community, took to the streets to protest against the schools.

The crowd, made up of men, women and children, blocked traffic on one of the city's main streets, carried signs and chanted "Stop Racism!"

Eventually, a police riot squad, accompanied by a Border Police unit, was brought in to remove the protesters from the road, allowing traffic flow to resume. Five demonstrators were detained for questioning.

After being removed from the street, the protesters made their way to city hall and continued their demonstration in the empty parking lot. The crowd converged on the main entrance to the building and banged on the metal barricade blocking the doors and on office windows. Some of the protesters took their anger out on an air conditioning unit that was ripped from the wall of the building.

The Ethiopian protesters were joined by members of the Hano'ar Ha'oved Vehalomed (Histadrut) youth movement, high school students from the city's state-religious schools and members of the general public.

Despite the protesters' repeated requests to enter the building and talk to those in charge of student placement, they were not allowed in. The protest's organizers vowed to return on Tuesday and for as long as it took to rid the city of racism.

"If the leaders aren't punished for their racism, we will upset the whole city," said Nadav Kalala, chairman of the all-Ethiopian Ner Etzion school parents committee.

"This is just the beginning, you haven't seen anything yet. We will not allow the private religious schools to run the city," said Dani Kassahun, director of the Representatives of Ethiopian Jewish Community Organizations.

But after the agreement was reached on Monday night, Kassahun told The Jerusalem Post that he was cautiously optimistic.

"We appreciate the education minister's initiative here, and his courage to come out and threaten to take harsh steps [against the schools], but at this point, we are going to wait and see what develops on the ground.

"If this is just lip service, and if the pupils don't end up being enrolled as this agreement says they will, we'll keep on fighting until they do. But if everything works out the way it's now supposed to, this agreement will absolutely be a solution to the problem."

Jerusalem Post staff contributed to this report.

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