Female religious army inductees
Female religious army inducteesIllustrative: Courtesy of 'Aluma'

The Chotam organization, which advocates for Jewish values within the Israeli public sphere, attacked the Ministry of Education this morning following a Supreme Court ruling last week obligating funding for IDF-prep programs for religious girls.

Chairman of Chotam, Amital Bareli, asserted that the position of the Education Ministry which was presented to the Supreme Court is contrary to position of the national religious educational system and the values according to which it educates its students.

“The response of the Education Ministry to the petition is no less scandalous. Justice Mintz also wrote in his decision that the Ministry of Education's response is contrary to the values ​​and goals of national religious education, which views National Service as the proper place for girls to make a significant contribution,” Bareli said.

"We regret that the national religious education system acted in the dark against its declared policy and did not stand up to the pressure exerted by pluralistic organizations. We will act in every way to prevent the entry of these organizations into the religious seminaries and into any framework that does not want brainwashing."

Bareli added: "Next week we will demonstrate with the national religious girls at the Ministry of Education with the demand not to impose brainwashing that is inappropriate to their educational world because they want to contribute to the state only within the framework of National Service, in a framework on which they were educated within the educational system."

This morning, the Supreme Court ruling was publicized, according to which the Ministry of Education is required to fund preparatory activities for the IDF for religious girls, just as it finances similar activities for religious boys.

The ruling was handed down by the High Court following a petition filed by attorney Amnon Lorch via attorneys Guy Forer and Debbie Shalit from Yigal Arnon’s office against the Ministries of Education, Defense, the Ministry for Social Equality and the IDF.

Following the filing of the petition, the Ministry of Education published support criteria for military preparatory activities for female students in state-religious education.