Democracy? Not in Klal

There's a lot of discussion going on online about the situation in two Bais Yaakov schools in Israel. In a nutshell, there is discrimination going on 1)against sefardim enrolling in one of the schools and 2)against a particular sefardi young girl whom a school refuses to register.

There have been numerous accusations of racism against the schools for discriminating on the basis of the ashkenazi/sefardi differences. Some are up in arms that any school that claims to be "frum" could be discriminatory in such a way. The Israeli Court is now firmly in the middle of the ruckus, having levied fines against a third party based on the school problem.

Let me put in my two cents worth--why does anyone think that yeshivas are bastions of democracy, standing with open arms to welcome everyone and anyone? The two schools in Israel are not showcasing a new phenomenon. If democracy were the guiding principle for school enrollment there would be no call for the pre-admission interviews and investigation that happen before ANY child is admitted to a yeshiva. The schools in the NYC area have for years been refusing entry to some students who apply, some of those refusals based on level and type of religious observance, some of it based on home practices/conditions and some of it based on psychological/educational/social reasons.

Many yeshivas seem to view themselves as homogeneous entities, ones where all the students enrolled are exemplars of whatever philosophy/hashkafa/bent the school was established to advance. They are like factories with production lines: all "items" coming off those production lines need to be identical. The more to the right a yeshiva is, the more this statement is seen as true. Nor, as I mentioned, is the divide strictly one of hashkafah. Let a family have a "problem," or what a yeshiva sees as a problem, and they may deny admission to a child coming from that family. Let a child need educational help/accommodation or special services and that child, too, will be looking for a different school. The attitude seems to be NIMBY--not in my backyard.

Long after the public school system had in place special ed services and resource rooms and on-site providers for students with learning/physical disabilities, the yeshiva system was still hiding its head in the sand. It was first those yeshivas in the middle or more to the left which began offering special services. And even there it wasn't across the board, and still isn't. Children who need extra services may well find themselves being rejected by yeshivas that are applied to.

There's many a parent who has been told: "You/your child will be more comfortable in a different yeshiva," which is yeshiva speak for "We don't want you/your child in our yeshiva." It matters not at all that YOU have chosen a particular yeshiva for your child; what matters is if that yeshiva chooses your child to be one of its own.

So yes, I think what is going on in Israel is a shandah. But the "ideology" that is feeding the problem is hardly limited to those two schools nor to Israel. We've got it right here in the US. If you are looking for democracy in action, don't look at the yeshiva system: you won't find it there.