The High Court ruled today that the new Hot Lunch law need not be applied to schools that do not teach the accepted national curriculum.
Deputy Welfare Minister Avraham Ravitz (United Torah Judaism) was among those who was infuriated by the ruling. He said that Israel's legal system is being led along a path of "racism that has no place among cultured nations. This ruling strengthens our struggle against the Supreme Court, which occasionally bends over backwards to isolate observant Jews, turning them into citizens with unequal rights."
The fast-growing city of Beitar Illit, south of Jerusalem and just west of Gush Etzion, has no public schools, but boasts schools of several hareidi-religious streams. Among them are Hinukh Aztmai (Agudat Yisrael's Indpendent Education network), Ma'Yan HaHinukh HaTorani (Wellspring of Torah Education of the Shas Party), and smaller, less recognized ones.
The city recently brought a law suit demanding that the Hot Lunch law be applied to all the educational systems in the city that feature a long school day, and not only those that are semi-official.
Deputy Chief Justice Mishael Heshin turned the city down cold. "If the parents of these children choose not to send them to the public educational systems," he wrote, "but rather to education that is provided in non-public institutions, let them not come with complaints about not receiving a hot lunch."
The new hot lunch law is being tried out, as of this year, in 34 localities throughout the country. Children in these towns and cities now spend five 8-hour days in school each week, instead of six 5-7 hour days. In return, and for a subsidized price to parents of several hundred shekels a year, children are treated to a daily hot lunch in school. The exact price varies, depending on the socio-economic status of the town and the parents.
The ruling leaves more than 2/3 of the town's children without coverage under the Hot Lunch law. Close to 2,600 of Beitar's pupils study in the three recognized streams - public-religious, Hinukh Atzmai and Ma'Yan - while another 5,400 study in other schools.
The Court's decision was attacked, surprisingly, by MK Yuli Tamir of the left-wing Labor Party. "It is not reasonable for the State of Israel to recognize the educational systems, on the one hand, but at the same time to withhold hot lunch from the children," Tamir said. "Children don't have to starve merely because of decisions made by their parents or by politicians."
Beitar Mayor Yitzchak Ze'ev Pindrus, who became Israel's youngest mayor when he was elected four years ago at the age of 30, said he was promised that the law would be applied in all 32 of the city's schools. "There is no connection between the contents of the curriculum and the very need of a child for lunch," he said. "There is no justification in discriminating between students on the background of a child's family, philosophy, and curriculum."
Even Yossi Sarid has been quoted in the past as saying that such a decision would be "anti-Semitic." Beitar officials quoted the former Education Minister, a leader of the left-wing Meretz Party, as having said at a joint Education-Finance Committee session in the Knesset,
"I have no obsession with hareidim, and certainly not against the children of hareidim. An Education Minister must be color blind; children are children. It is inconceivable that in one place all the children should eat, while children of hareidim who are not to blame for anything, who have not yet even voted, and who were merely born into a hareidi family... What is this?! Even in anti-Semitic countries they don't make distinctions of this sort. This is anti-Semitic; we must not differentiate among children!"
Other reactions:
MK Moshe Gafni (United Torah Judaism): "As far as the Supreme Court is concerned, a hareidi child can remain hungry throughout the day... Chief Justice Aharon Barak repeatedly says that the hareidim should support the Supreme Court because it is the protector of the minorities and the weak - and now comes along [this ruling] and proves that [that this is not true]."
MK Roman Bronfman (Meretz) praised the ruling, saying it "puts and end to the hareidim's attempts to milk the State. The right to have a hot lunch is only for those who fulfill the obligation of studying the [agreed-upon] educational curriculum like everyone else."
MK Eli Yishai, leader of the Shas Party: "This ruling creates an anti-Jewish apartheid. The Supreme Court has turned the hareidi pupils into Class B students. The Court continues to create unnecessary splits in the Jewish Nation, approving discrimination on the basis of religious belief."
MK Effie Eitam (Religious Zionist Renewal) said that the decision will lead to a "disengagement" of the judicial system from hundreds of thousands of religious and hareidi Jews who will no longer have trust in the system. "The ruling will also strike a great blow at dozens of religious-Zionist institutions that wish to maintain their independence in terms of content and values," Eitam said.
The city of Beitar Illit has already appointed a legal team to review the decision, and plans to submit an appeal for another hearing in an expanded forum of High Court justices.