Are Israeli Jews racist? The answer is that in far too many cases, yes. They are. And it doesn’t seem to matter whether they are religious. Chances are they will have bias against certain ethnicities and/or the skin color. The prejudice that exists is not innocuous. It has a serious negative impact on the economic, social, and educational welfare of entire groups of people.
What about prejudice against Charedim by secular Jews. Are Charedim the most despised? The answer is... not really. Charedim did fairly well in an experiment conducted by Yedioth Ahronoth:
An Ethiopian, Arab, Russian, strictly Orthodox, Ashkenazi and Sephardi man of the same age group and same educational background were sent by Yedioth Ahronoth to look for a job, find an apartment and enroll a child in kindergarten.
And the results were dismal. The secular Ashkenazi Jew did best of all, as might be expected. Second best was the Sephardi. Third was the Charedi followed by the Russian, Ethiopian, and Arab in that order. As the article then informs us, the Arab had a 70% rejection rate which is understandable under current conditions in Israel. But “…more than half of the calls made by the Ethiopian representative, Senbato Tamanu, resulted in a refusal and dozens contained derogatory remarks.”
It is so sad that a Ethipoan Jews, who were so despised as Jews in the land where they and their ancestors were born, raised and lived for many generations, now come to Israel and are treated no better, by fellow Jews whose own ancestors in Europe were just as hated by their own fellow citizens there, if not worse. That their status as Jews is a matter of Halachic debate, doesn’t detract from this problem. No one was biased because of their Halachic status. They were biased against skin color.
Prejudiece in Israel seems to be in full bloom. The venues for this experiment were varied and included Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa, Bat Yam, and Holon. Only Holon proved to be prejudice free.
So what about Charedim. How do they do in the prejudice department? Not very well.
In an unbelievable display of prejudice, a child whose grandparent was Sepahrdi was turned down by a Charedi Talmud Torah in Bet Shemesh.
That’s right. I said grandparent.
The child’s father is completely Ashkenazi. Only the mother’s father is Sephardi. That was enough of a reason it seems to reject this child. He apparently was not pure enough for this Charedi school. He had a stain in his genealogy. This is oddly reminiscent of another era where people were sent to their deaths because of such a ‘stain’. Having one Jewish grandparent was a death sentence. This school has the same standard for admittance. They apparently require the same level of purity in their school.
The mother’s heartfelt plea was to no avail:
“I begged the principal. I explained that my child is truly Ashkenazi and looks exactly like his father. Our son also speaks Yiddish, but nothing helped,” the mother said. “They explained to a friend of ours that they didn’t want to ruin their Talmud Torah with ‘damaged goods’.”
Damaged goods. Is that what my grandchildren are? Damaged goods?! They too are 25 percent Sephardi. I’m glad my grandchildren didn’t apply to that school.
Of course the principal completely denied this when Keneset member Meir Porush investigated it. He was petitioned by several other parents who experienced the same rejection. The principal claimed that the child was rejected only because the enrollment was at capacity and they simply had no more room. Right! Of course that’s what happened. All the Ashkenazim applied first. The Sepahardim were all late. (…wink wink!)
Now I’m sure that not every Charedi school has this kind of discriminatory policy. But that any do shows that it exists at a significant level. How pervasive is it? I don’t know, But to which ever level it does exist, it ought to be completely eradicated. There is simply no excuse that God’s chosen people have any degree of prejudice against fellow Jews or anyone else for that matter. No mother should ever have to go through what this mother did.
