More than 250 Haredi students in Ashdod stayed home on the first day of school

While hundreds of thousands of students across the country began the school year this morning, Tuesday, as planned, more than 250 Haredi children in Ashdod remained in their homes. These are students of the state-Haredi (MAMACH) Talmud Torah "Merkaz Vizhnitz" and the state-Haredi school for girls in the city, who discovered at the opening bell that a permanent building where they could study had not yet been found for them.

For the families, the central and painful question is simple: where are their children supposed to study? The parents, who seek an educational framework for their children that combines religious studies at a level adapted to the Haredi sector alongside core curriculum studies, claim that they have been managing a struggle against the Ashdod municipality for a long time without an answer. According to them, after the municipality initially claimed they were not even aware of the initiative, the talks reached a dead end.

The parents point an accusing finger at political figures in the city, led by Deputy Mayor and Shas representative Avi Amsalem, who they claim oppose the establishment and expansion of MAMACH institutions in Ashdod and are deliberately creating difficulties for the move. The current crisis is escalating after the students operated last year in a temporary building in the Rabbi Yekutiel Abuhatzeira complex, from which they were required to vacate at the end of the year in favor of the Gur Hasidut.

MK Moshe Tur-Paz arrived at the parents' protest this morning and saw the distress up close. According to him, one of the parents approached him and said to him with pain:

"I am ashamed that you are here and not a representative I chose."

Tur-Paz harshly attacked the conduct surrounding the institutions and claimed that the parents' "only sin" is their legitimate desire for state-Haredi education. He added that Shas blocked the move to open the school in Ashdod despite the high demand, and emphasized the need for a strong education system.

Response of the Ashdod Municipality:

The local authority has been working for some time to find a proper response to the needs of the educational institution and the welfare of its students. The authority has legally allocated land for the construction of a permanent building for the institution, and is currently awaiting approval from the Ministry of Education to promote construction. At the same time, and as a response for the interim period, requests for portable buildings were submitted to the Ministry of Education, with the aim of allowing a temporary solution until the completion of the permanent building.

It should be noted that the institution was established from the outset without the knowledge of the authority and without its approval. Despite this, the authority agreed to recognize it as a MAMACH institution, among other things based on the owners' declaration that they did not need buildings from the authority. In practice, it turned out that the declaration does not match the needs of the institution. Despite the above, and out of responsibility towards the students, the authority is making real efforts to find a solution. However, as of this time, it does not have available buildings that can be made available to the institution immediately. As far as we know, the institution currently rents buildings that it uses as classrooms.