Israel's Ministry of Education Approves Ashkenazi-Only School in West Bank Settlement of Immanuel

Israel’s Ministry of Education announced on Wednesday (25 August) that it will approve the opening of an Ashkenazi only private school in the West Bank settlement of Immanuel, to resolve the segregation issues surrounding the community’s Beit Yaakov girls' school. The private school will not be state funded.

"Ashkenazi" refers to Jews of European origin and the Beit Yaakov girls' school system belongs to the Ashkenazi ultra-orthodox education system in Israel.

The ultra-orthodox school and settlement community received much attention and a Supreme Court ruling following the classroom segregation of Ashkenazi and Mizrahi girls, those with Middle East origins. The Ashkenazi parents insist that they are not racist, but want to keep the classrooms segregated - as they have been for years - on the grounds that the Mizrahi families are not religious enough, reported the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. The girls also wear different color uniforms.

The Israeli Supreme Court rejected the parents' argument and ruled that parents defying the integration efforts would to be jailed. In June 2010, 100,000 ultra-Orthodox protestors gathered in Jerusalem in support of continued school segregation.

"I am going to jail with great excitement and joy over the support we've received... We are making sure our children get the best education possible," said one of the fathers in support of segregated schooling. Parents carried signs reading: "prisoner sanctifying the name of heaven."

The Ministry of Education’s recent decision to open a new, private school, came after weighing "the wants of the parents to educate their children in an educational framework of a religious Hassidic community," the Ministry said in its message to the Supreme Court.

“No court ruling or Education Ministry decision can bring the two groups together,” an Immanuel resident said. “It’s like putting Americans and Africans together. They can’t study together with such huge mental differences,” he added.

Baghdad-born Sammi Michael, Israeli author and President of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, has been a strong critic of the Ministry’s decision to allow further segregation in schools.

“Let us imagine for a moment a school, say in Germany or Britain, which puts up a separation fence for “religious” reasons, as the Immanuel racists claimed, and compels the Jewish students to wear a uniform of a different color. What a ruckus we would be raising!”