Gedolim Digging In Heels On Racist Policies?
I will preface this post by saying that I have no idea of the reliability of the website I am about to link.
The article, on the site HydePark, seems to be quoting sources close to Rav Elyashiv as saying that he is considering adopting the "Chok Satmar" - meaning, that he is considering adopting the decision that the Satmar Chasidim follow of not accepting any government funding toward their school system. According to the article, this is in response to the Israeli High Court ruling I wrote about here, which addresses the quotas that Beit Yaakov schools apply to the number of girls of Sephardi origin who are granted admission.
I am not jumping to conclusions of whether this is true, but I would like to hear if anyone has more information on this.
(HT)
The article, on the site HydePark, seems to be quoting sources close to Rav Elyashiv as saying that he is considering adopting the "Chok Satmar" - meaning, that he is considering adopting the decision that the Satmar Chasidim follow of not accepting any government funding toward their school system. According to the article, this is in response to the Israeli High Court ruling I wrote about here, which addresses the quotas that Beit Yaakov schools apply to the number of girls of Sephardi origin who are granted admission.
I am not jumping to conclusions of whether this is true, but I would like to hear if anyone has more information on this.
(HT)
posted by orthomom at 8:08 PM
14 Comments:
Racism is a strong word and I would like to know why it is justified in this context. I am asking out of ignorance not out of knowledge. I would like to be more informed on this issue.
Is the school system in question private or public?
Is there a separate and equal Sephardic school system?
Are there laws in Israel that prohibit this type of 'selection'?
Do the Sefardim allow ashkenzim into their schools?
How much money do these schools take from the Israeli government?
Is there a justifiable rationale behind the selective criteria?
We don't expect them to take in chilonim or others that are different and would pose a hardship to the teachers and affect the homogentiy of the scholl body, do the Sefardim present the same type of issue?
Thanks
Racism is a strong word and I would like to know why it is justified in this context.
It's French.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Racism is a strong word and I would like to know why it is justified in this context.
As I mentioned in the comment section of my previous post on the subject (which I linked in this post), I consider discrimination against a group of people due to their being of a different origin to be a form of racism.
This is an old story. There has been a long history of complaints leveled against the Ultra-Orthodox Israeli school system that they discriminate against a whole segment of the community based only on the vagaries of their birth.
Separate but equal is still not good enough and public or private is irrelevant. It's plain racism and let's stop making excuses. If R' Elyashiv indeed adopts an opinion like this, it's high time we realize that he is no longer mentally fit to lead Klal Yisroel.
I am far from PC, but the comments from #1 just disgust me.
I think we should all fear the Litvish schools taking the opinion of Satmar and refusing government support. Guess who will be asked to pick up the bill?
Please disregard my post..i misread.....Thought it was about the USA.
Guess who will be asked to pick up the bill?
Who cares who is asked? People are free to say no.
I heard a story attributed to R' Chaim of Brisk. He was big on insuring there were chesed programs to make sure the poorest were taken care of. One man had his family refuse to take charity out of pride and actually did die of starvation. People were naturally horrified and wondered what they had done wrong. R' Chaim, noting that it was this own person's refusal to ask for food that was the problem, said it was not what we did that killed him but his pride.
There is government support - with strings attached of course. If people don't want to use government support they are free to come to you (in another country). You are free to object to their choice or to place your own strings. If they will not respect your choices or you do not respect theirs, then just don't give.
They will only starve if they choose it themselves.
Let's put it this way, anon. If the schools reject funding, there will be crys from Rabbonim for help and collections in nearly ever Agudah type shul, and people will once again forget that our own infrastructure needs funding too.
Sure, people choose where they give. But, the marketing is the impetus for giving, and everyone seems to be able to market except our own backyards.
If we choose to be lemmings its our fault; not theirs.
Of course it is our fault. We keep most of our money local, but we don't deal with the meshulachim like most of our friends.
The pressure to give is tremendous if it is staring you in the face. Why invite the pressure?
Is it racism if the schools base their acceptance on "race" but have a different motive to it? Meaning, they do not accept only litvishe to be mean, or because of superiority complex, but rather bc they feel that the chinuch they offer is best when applied in a specific home setting, which is not found in most sefardi homes?
It would be different if the sefardi community had their own similar school systems, but speaking as a resident of Israel, I see firsthand that they don't. And the fact that they are denied acceptance leaves many fine Jewish girls who did nothing wrong embarassed and with no school to attend in when september comes. If the reason is because schools feel they don't offer chinuch applicable to sefardi homes, which I would find hard to understand, then who is worrying about setting up more schools for those girls? And in that case, why accept any sefardim at all? The attitude of many Israeli ashkenazim is racist, whether it's legal or not. People are subjected to suffering, and that is not Torah chinuch.
I to live in israel for 22 years. and yes this is racisem from the first degree. they say that they dont except sfardim because they have born characters of less inteligent and of less behaivor then of their ashcanazi brothers. it is a shame for a prestigious yeshiva to have more then 10% sepharadi students. and the gedolim are mostly backing all this, but the sephardim should be also blamed from their moping around all these years and feeling bad for themself. let them start their own yeshivot[or at least1 good yeshiva!!!!] that compete with the east european ones.where ashkinazim students will be waiting to be accepted. but if they dont succeed in creating that then perhaps the ashkinazi scholls really do have a good reason not to want the sfardim.... ps: just as no american complains ''why doesnt harvard univercity doesnt except students with low brain activity and dont pass c on their most simple math test... vehamavin yavin
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