Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Right Down to the Racism

The Israeli government is locked in a battle with ultra-orthodox families at a religious academy who are defying orders to desegregate the program. The renegade parents are Ashkenazi Jews who object to having their daughters (it's an all-girls school) attend class with Mizrachi peers:
"No court ruling or Education Ministry decision can bring the two groups together," an Immanuel resident said Wednesday. "It's like putting Americans and Africans together. They can't study together with such huge mental differences," he said.
[...]
"It's a disgrace to this place, the ministry must intervene to stop the segregation once and for all," the father of one Mizrahi student said. "The Ashkenazis think they're more intelligent than we are, but what really bugs them is our skin color."
Yeah, that about spells it out. Kudos to the Israeli government for standing firm on this (they're threatening to prosecute the parents for violating mandatory school attendance laws if they don't send their daughters back to the now-integrated academy).

1 comment:

joe said...

On the one hand this is good news.

On the other hand I basically see all K-12 (or equivalent) private schools as segregationist, at least the religious ones. And that's without getting into separation by gender.

On the third hand as I understand the demographics in Israel, in a few decades every school will be an ultra-orthodox academy. (Obvious exaggeration.)