A group of religious Zionist students from the city of Ramat Gan has been at home since the beginning of the year. The reason: the municipality refused to sign the students’ permission to study in a school they wanted outside the city, now the municipality plans to place the students in an ultra-orthodox institution, which is expected to cause an uproar in the city
The group of students who graduated from the religious state elementary school in Ramat Gan requested to continue their studies at a religious Zionist school “Le Merhav” in the city of Petah Tikva which is identified with the ultra-orthodox public and is under the supervision of the ultra-Orthodox district of the Ministry of Education, but the Ramat Gan municipality refused to sign a permit required for foreign studies and the 13 students who graduated from Ramat Gan elementary school have remained at home since the beginning of the school year, this against the background of an ongoing conflict between the municipalities.
During the past month, the students waged a legal battle in which they turned to the court in Tel Aviv demanding to force the municipality to allow them to study at the ultra-orthodox institution in Petah Tikva, the students argued in court that there is no similar response in the city of Ramat Gan that is suitable for them and compatible with their religious lifestyles.
The judge of the District Court in Tel Aviv, Judge Erez Yakuel accepted the parents’ claim that they have the right to determine the type of educational institution their children will attend, but rejected the petition that demanded to force the municipality to allow them to study in the city of Petah Tikva and was based on the argument of the Ramat Gan municipality that there are ultra-orthodox institutions in the city that can provide an answer to female students.
With the verdict, the group of boys decided to study at the high school yeshiva in the city, while the three girls demand from the municipality to be placed in the ultra-Orthodox school ‘Khorev’ which is under the management of the independent education for girls, in the city. Now the municipality is expected, at the request of attorney Hagai Kurzweil, to issue a placement for female students to the ultra-Orthodox school ‘Horev’ and will place the school administrators in a complicated situation.
Meir Kurzwil, the father of one of the girls, told ‘Bahadari Haredim’: “We think that in children’s education there should be no compromise and every student should study in the place that best suits him religiously and in terms of outlook. The court also agreed with us, but refrained from obliging Ramat Gan to allow us to study outside The city as long as there is an ultra-orthodox institution in the city. Therefore, we applied to enroll in the Horev institutions, since this is the least bad for us and from our point of view. We hope that they will also consider the Zionist values that we want to instill in our daughters and show sensitivity on the issue.”