Interior Ministry Director General Mordechai Cohen on Sunday approved the Jerusalem municipality's request to transfer the religious public school Brandet to a less desirable building in the city's Neve Yaakov neighborhood.
The purpose of the move would be to give Brandet's current building a to a haredi school.
In essence, the Interior Ministry refused the parents' request to the Education Ministry to prevent the move, allowing the municipality to do whatever the move entails. This permission comes from the court and Interior Ministry - bypassing the Education Ministry entirely.
According to protocol, the Education Ministry must approve decisions relating to where schools are housed, as well as where and when they move.
In their decision, the court accepted the municipality's claim that "at present, there is no justification for issuing the interim order requested by the parents. According to the court, "issuing the requested order may prevent the implementation of this decision, which was intended to improve the conditions of many students, who currently study in an inappropriate setting."
Judge Oded Shaham also ignored the fact that no hearing on the topic had been held, praising the municipality for "investing significant effort and time in order to discuss the issue with the parents" and said that there had been "very intense discussions between the parents and the municipality....there is no reason why any private hearing should be held when making such significant public decisions."
Regarding the inconvenient location of Brandet's new building, the judge said that it was "hard to understand why moving a school to another building in the same neighborhood would constitute severe or irreversible damage." According to him, "the municipality's claim that the haredi school is quickly expanding does not allow for it to remain in its present building."
Brandet's parent council, the Religious Zionist community in Neve Yaakov, the Shaalim organization, and a representative of the local Ethiopian synagogue, sent a letter to the Jerusalem municipality explaining clearly that "the appeal submitted against the Jerusalem municipality and other parties was not submitted with our consent, and the lawyer chosen did not receive permission to represent us on this matter."
"We will continue to speak directly with the Jerusalem municipality and the Education Ministry in the Jerusalem District about the matter and its implementation."
In order to move a school, the law requires at least six months prior notice.
It is not clear why the Jerusalem municipality cannot move the haredi school to the empty campus, and leave Brandet in its current location.
It bears mentioning that the Interior Ministry also pushed Dimona's mayor Benny Biton to gift 101 acres of municipal land to the neighboring illegal Arab enclave of Qasr al-Sir.
The Interior Ministry is headed by Shas MK Aryeh Deri, who was convicted in 2000 of taking bribes and released early 22 months later. Another case against Deri was dropped last year, for lack of evidence. Earlier this year, Deri was interrogated on suspicion of money laundering, breach of trust, theft by a public servant, false registration and tax offenses.