A Jerusalem court on Sunday rejected a petition by the Education Ministry for an injunction against the use of a secular school by a hareidi girls' school in Ramat Beit Shemesh. The court accepted the Beit Shemesh municipality's argument that as the owner of the building, the municipality could allocate classroom space as it saw fit.
As school resumed in Ramat Beit Shemesh last week, the friction between secular and hareidi residents of the town did as well, with the Education Ministry issuing a closure order against a hareidigirl's school that was opened on one of the floors of the “Language and Culture School" in Ramat Beit Shemesh.
School officials said that the municipality had made the decision without consulting them. In a statement, the Education Ministry said that “the Ministry considers this attempt to illicitly take over space by the municipality in very harsh terms. The school in question was in operation, and this decision was made just two days before the school year.”
However, the court was very unsympathetic to the Ministry's position. Judge Zvi Segal asked Ministry officials where they proposed the hareidi school move to, with the Ministry failing to respond. A municipality representative, Zvi Keidar, told the court that the city had sought other solutions, realizing that there would be objections to this one, but had been unable to find any other space for the hareidi school. The official suggested that Segal visit the school and weigh the options, but he said this was not necessary.
Keidar added that the municipality had sought to reach a compromise with the Ministry, but that the latter had refused to discuss the matter outside of court. “Apparently we hit a sensitive spot” by allowing a hareidi school to use a secular institution's building. “The Education Minister doesn't come out looking good from this story,” Keidar said.
In a statement last week, the municipality said it “has an obligation and right to ensure that the academic year begins and operates in an efficient manner for all schools from all sectors. The municipality decided to utilize empty classrooms in the Languages and Culture School for use by students of another institution who live in the same neighborhood, where there is no room to set up caravans or temporary classrooms," it added.
“The Languages and Culture School has room for 500 students, but only 140 are enrolled,” claimed the municipality's statement in conclusion.