Old-Fashioned Discrimination, New-Style Battle
Introduction
On the first of September, Yael (not her
real name), a 10-year-old student at a Beit-Ya’acov elementary school for
girls, arrived at what had been her school for the past four years. However,
upon arrival this time, she was told to enter her school through a new gate.
“From now on,” the teacher told her, “this is going to be your entrance to the
school.” Later that day, she discovered that her classmates were all of
Sephardic extraction. She was also told she should have no contact whatsoever
with any of her former Ashkenazi classmates. At the end of this first sad day
of school, making her way home full of shame and hurt, she encountered Sarah
(not her real name), her beloved friend for the past four years, and was
shocked to learn that they had different uniforms and different timetables for
arriving at school. Yael’s life, as she knew it, had changed forever.
Yael is one of 180 Sephardic pupils
attending the separate school for Sephardim in the city of
in
story sheds light on the shocking facts regarding segregation in education
within Jewish communities in
I write this article to call attention to this segregation and to propose
innovative ways to combat it, from my unique perspective as a public-interest
attorney representing disenfranchised communities and as a legal scholar
criticizing discriminatory mechanisms through the law.
Discrimination in Education – Israel 2008
Ethnic
discrimination has been a continual struggle for Sephardim in Israeli society
since the establishment of the State of Israel. Upon arrival from their
countries of origin, Sephardic Jews were categorized as “Mizrahim,”
(“Easterners”, or Jews from Arab or Muslim countries) a social and cultural category that was
invented just for them at that time. However, though established in the past,
this category is still meaningful sixty years later. Mizrahim in
continue to suffer from structural injustices. Statistics prove they have a
high unemployment rate, comprise a disproportionate percentage of
prison and social welfare populations, and suffer substantial underachievement in
education. These deficiencies have held steady or even increased over
six decades of statehood. (See Oren Yiftachel, Nation-Building or
Ethnic Fragmentation? Ashkenazim, Mizrahim and Arabs in the Israeli Frontier,
1 Space and Polity 2, 149-169 (1997); Hubert Lu-Yon and Rachel Kalush: Housing
in
Policy and Inequality (1994). Although Mizrahim today comprise a larger share
of formally educated society, recent research indicates that the gap itself
between Mizrahim and Ashkenazim in education has grown in the last decades. See
Momi Dahan, He is (Not) Entitled – Has the Gap in Education Narrowed? in
Education and Social Justice in
– On Equal Opportunities in Education 19 (Samuel Shay et al, 2003).)
A clear example of ethnic discrimination
is revealed in the story that began this article. Yael’s experience exposes the
reality of ethnic segregation that is currently being practiced at a religious
elementary school for girls in the City of
The students have been physically separated within this school based solely on
ethnicity. The school, which was once one school, has now been virtually
divided into two schools, with the Sephardic students separated from the
Ashkenazi5 students and the two groups housed in two isolated buildings.
The school administration has taken steps to further separate these buildings,
using such shocking tactics as building a concrete wall to prevent any form of
interaction between the two groups. Furthermore, the school enclosed the
Sephardic students’ playground area behind a plastic cloth fence (Cloth of
Utah), to conceal any view of them as they played outside. This shunning
treatment recalls the historical treatment of leprosy patients who were sent to
live in separate colonies, or the racial segregation of black students from
white students in the
which was one of the main triggers for the civil rights movement. The
school’s administration has rationalized its actions by going so far as to
stigmatize Mizrahi culture and individuals as suffering from “lower spiritual
levels” than the Ashkenazim.
This repulsive and mentally abusive
treatment towards Mizrahi students has already inflicted profound damage. The
students have expressed deep feelings of pain, discrimination, shame, confusion,
poor self-esteem, and inferiority to their Ashkenazi fellows.
However, the elementary school in
Emanuel is only one of many in the Beit-Ya’acov chain of schools which
discriminate, on a regular basis, against their Sephardic students vis-à-vis
their Ashkenazi classmates. Moreover, similar allegations have recently been
made, and confirmed, concerning other ultra-Orthodox schools in such places as
Beitar-Elit, Elad and Jerusalem, where students were required, in their
registration forms, to supply seemingly irrelevant details regarding the ethnic
origin of their parents and similar data clearly aimed at collecting as much
information as possible to enable the school administration to build an ethnic
profile of prospective students. There are even cases where students who had an
Ashkenazi father and, consequently, an Ashkenazi surname, but who physically
resembled their Sephardic mother, were not admitted to the Ashkenazi class,
whilst their friends with similar ethnic profile who bore a more “European”-like
appearance were found eligible to attend this same Ashkenazi class.
This “separate but equal” mentality –
which was long ago declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court -- tries
to justify giving different groups of people separate facilities or services by
claiming that each group still receives an equal quality of service.
However, this mentality and practice are far from being equal; on the contrary,
it promotes a distorted perception of the ‘other’ and only perpetuates separation,
racism, abusive treatment, culturally-based notions of ethnic hierarchy and,
most of all, immense pain.
One of the most troubling facts about
this discriminatory apparatus is its institutionalized character. Although
Beit-Ya’acov schools are considered an informal independent school system,
separate and different from
formal state school system and operating with educational autonomy, the Beit
Ya’acov schools in fact enjoy official recognition by
Ministry of Education and receive a substantial portion of their annual budget
from the state’s coffers. In other words, not only does the Ministry of
Education refrain from interfering with the discriminatory practices of these
schools – on the excuse of reluctance to interfere with these communities’
autonomy – the Ministry even finances this discrimination with Israeli
taxpayers’ money.
The Legal
against Discrimination in Ultra-Orthodox Education
The traditional path – too little, too late
The phenomenon of ethnic-based discrimination in
education system has yet to receive appropriate public or legal attention, as
would be expected of a society that clings to the ideal of equality as
does. The few legal battles fought thus far on this issue have centered on
administrative courts, where the defendants were the local authorities where
the discriminating school was located, and the plaintiffs had asked the court
to declare the criteria for admission to these schools as being discriminatory.
Based on facts proved before it, the administrative high court has ruled in the
past that the quota system which then governed Beit-Ya’acov Schools (permitting
no more than 30% of students to be of Mizrahi origin) was in fact prohibited by
law, and that the local authorities should be held responsible for enforcing
the anti-discrimination laws in their community.
In response, the schools eliminated the quota practice as a formal one, and
embraced a new practice based on meritocracy alone, which “miraculously” resulted
in no more than 30% of Beit-Ya’acov students being of Sephardic origin,
It was obvious that a different legal course of action needed to be taken.
That is where the
joined by the Achoti organization, stepped in.
The New Legal Agenda
Tmura (means both "change" and "exchange" in
Hebrew) is a nonprofit organization that offers pro bono legal representation
to disenfranchised minorities in Israel, including women, Ethiopian Jews, and
Mizrahim, on issues ranging from education to housing and land distribution, to
rape, sexual offenses and violence against women. Achoti (My Sister) was
founded by Mizrahi feminist social activists seeking to bring social justice
issues to the center of public discourse and to enhance women’s solidarity.
Tmura --
which was founded by and employs only attorneys who are graduates of ISEF’s
scholarship and leadership training programs-- has an agenda of reform.(ISEF –The International Sephardic Educational
Foundation, seeks to narrow Israel’s wide social and economic gaps by providing
equal access to higher education for capable young Israelis from disadvantaged
communities.)
The organization maintains that
social wealth should be redistributed using private market principles,
internalizing the high costs of discrimination and reframing it as financially
unprofitable behavior for the discriminating parties. Using the private tort
law mechanism, Tmura compels governmental organizations and
corporate bodies to face the individual who has suffered discrimination in the
courtroom, to acknowledge the unfairness of its policy, and to pay for its
harmful consequences -- thus ultimately inducing these organizations to seek a
better, non-discriminatory solution.
In the Beit Ya’acov School case, the
purpose of our intervention is to stop the discrimination immediately, so that
all students may learn fairly and equally together in the same classroom.
Additionally, we seek compensation for the school’s Mizrahi students for the
shame and disgrace they have endured.
We are therefore working on several
simultaneous legal planes. First, we have sought an immediate injunction
against the school, to compel it to eliminate all sorts of discrimination to
which the girls are subjugated. Second, we have asked for immediate
government intervention to reassign government funds allocated to the school;
those funds would henceforth be administered by a nondiscriminatory
professional committee appointed by the Ministry of Education. Additionally, a
formal complaint was filed with the police, demanding the immediate enforcement
of laws strictly and clearly banning any discriminatory practices at the
school.
In my opinion, it is the duty of Israeli
courts to set a precedent in such cases and bring about systemic change with
the goal of abolishing discrimination of this kind. Such rulings would
encourage others from this community to come forward and fight this
discrimination, which has gone on far too long. The religious community should
no longer feel its practices are beyond the reach of
legal system.
The Main Difficulties in Using the Legal System
The main problem in combating
anti-Mizrahi discrimination in the education system is that this discrimination
is largely hidden, and there is little or no public awareness of this issue.
While the situation at the Beit-Ya’acov school in Emanuel has supplied concrete
evidence of the larger problems within the education system, using this case as
a “model case” imposes some other difficulties which are unique to this
specific case.
The ultra-Orthodox community is usually
an extremely closed society, with many issues kept inside the community and not
addressed in
state secular courts - especially issues of discrimination against minorities
(women and Sephardim). In the past, Tmura representatives have
proposed to the leading rabbis of this community to take these issues to court;
however, these suggestions were repeatedly rejected, as this community regards
courts as illegitimate agents of a secular system whose very existence this
community opposes. However, in the Emanuel case, Tmura and Achoti have,
for the first time, been given permission by Sephardic rabbinical authorities
to take this very disturbing issue to a secular court due to its severe
circumstances. It is indeed rare for the rabbis of the community to grant
permission to take this issue before a secular court. Therefore, it is obvious
that this opportunity for an action is rare and precious.
One last objection to legal recourse as
a solution to discrimination is its inherently limited social impact. No single
court case can change such deeply embedded practices. Therefore, in addition to
taking legal action, public awareness about this situation has also been raised
through a strategic campaign, which climaxed with a demonstration against both
the Ministry of Education and the leadership of the Beit-Ya’acov Schools, held
in the very heart of
ultra-Orthodox neighborhood.
Epilogue
Yael’s story is not hers alone; it is
not even the story of her 180 classmates; it is rather the story of many
Sephardic pupils in
today. Discriminatory practices against them within the educational system are
not limited to the ultra-Orthodox community. The mainstream Orthodox
educational system is also regularly accused of discriminatory practices,
mainly vis-à-vis Ethiopians but also Sephardim. With Ethiopians, the
segregation is more blatant, as was recently demonstrated in the case of
“Yeshurun” School in Petach Tikva, where four Ethiopian girls were totally
separated from the rest of the students. Yet with regard to Mizrahim, more
subtle practices are also common. For example, the “Zeitlin” Middle and High
School for Girls in Ramat-Gan maintains de facto separate classes for the
“different” girls. At the prestigious “Nativ Meir” Yeshiva in
for boys, the number of Mizrahi students never exceeds a certain low
percentage. Similar practices have even been found at some of the top schools
in the state secular school system, where such discriminatory practices are
truly impossible to trace and combat effectively, since from a legal
perspective, it is of course easier to fight against the more blatant and
traceable ones.
Within
education system, the Mizrahi community has been deprived over the decades of
full and equal opportunity for education, resulting in low achievements and an
absence of leadership within the community. This reality calls for concerted
action to ensure that future generations of young Mizrahi Jews in
do not grow up with the negative impact of discrimination on their future;
rather, we need to educate and cultivate strong leaders within their
communities and ensure that they enjoy the true equal protection of the law.
This struggle can serve as another breach in the wall, leading to an equal and
fair society for all
citizens and strengthening
long-term sustainability as a whole.
