Tuesday, September 01, 2009

Ethiopian education

There is an absurd situation in Petach Tikva in Israel regarding the education of Ethiopian children. Some 60 Ethiopian girls are being denied an education because of ridiculous rules established by the Chief Rabbinate.
It seems that because the Jewish bona fides of the Ethiopians were not sure (they were separated from the main developments of Rabbinic Judaism for centuries) the Chief Rabbinate ruled that all Ethiopian children must go to religious schools. What is most disconcerting is that the Education Minister at the time accepted this dictate, and concurred that all Ethiopian children should be educated in religious schools and not public schools.
Now the religious schools, as you might imagine, are run by various religious organizations of varying degrees of orthodoxy. In Petach Tikva there happen to be three such schools that are private and independent (although subsidized by the state). There have been problems for some years over the entry of Ethiopian girls to these schools and this year the three schools decided not to allow entry of any Ethiopian girls because they have found them not to be up to the standards of education and adherence to Jewish orthodoxy that they require.
This has led understandably to an accusation of racism. Namely, the private religious schools are being accused of excluding the girls because they are black. Of course, the various pricipals deny this and refer to their different cultural background, but to many it smacks of the same exclusiveness that allowed private white clubs in the US to exclude blacks for a long time based on their cultural differences and not their color. This was ruled unacceptable by the US Supreme Court and all such private clubs were integrated. Now there is a similar move afoot to "integrate" these private Jewish religious schools.
But, the schools have struck back by pointing out that they do not discriminate against blacks as such, and they have had no such problems with Ethiopian boys who are much more orthodox in their culture. So now there is a standoff between the three schools and the Education Ministry. The Mayor of Petach Tikva worked out a compromise with the three schools to each take a number of the girls, but the Ministry rejected this as inadequate, and has threatened to remove the schools' subsidies, thus making them effectively bankrupt. Finally at the last moment the issue was resolved and the three schools will open with Ethiopian kids attending each one. A secular educational group has gone to court to overturn the original decision of the Ministry of Education denying Ethiopians education in secular public schools. This complex issue includes elements of religion, race, culture and education, that is perhaps typical of the complexity of Israeli society.

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