Apartheid regime in disguise. Take a look at the way you're treating your Arab population. Apartheid in its ugliest form. School segregation is nothing.

Right.... Well, anyway, the official education system is definitely against such actions - so the school can be punished for what they did - if it's indeed true that the background of the kids had something to do with it.

i am todaly not agry with the goverment and schools atitiod!!if we want them to develop' to became "israelies" to make them doctors and succesful people we have to make them fell part of as!!put the in regular classromes' if the will be only with themselfes'in their nighberhood they wonWt develop never!! chelenge them!make them be inspierd///they are sooo good and it so anoying that this is the sitioation!

....what the ethiopians face nowadays the jemenite jews were facing the same racist behaviour from the "great europeans" in the sixties and seventies in israel!! Shame on you!!!!

"LaMerchav" is an elite school that doesn't accept all applicants, ashkenazi, sephardi, or ethiopian. If the girls don't have the same background and education as the other students, why is it so unreasonable to think that they might need a year of special, private classes in order to catch up? It's not like they were shoved into one decrepit classroom with 40 other Ethiopian kids while the other girls had 20 to a class. They have a private class with four kids to a teacher. Unless the school is planning to keep this up as long as the girls are enrolled, it doesn't sound at all like racism to me, but rather like a way to help the girls catch up academically and socially. Keep in mind they are not necessarily the only Ethiopian girls in the school, just the only ones lacking the same religious background that the other girls have.

So because one school makes one questionable decision means that there exists a country-wide, intentionally racist plan akin to Apartheid?

Is Ynet suffering from Jimmy Carter syndrome where anything connected to Israel must be branded apartheid? This is racist incident where those responsible should be relieved of their jobs. If this story is true, then the incompetence is only surpassed by the "sinat hinam". If this is supposed to be a religious then it obviously needs a major overhaul of its employees. Racism affects us every day and must be addressed. Apartheid would mean that the Knesset passed legislation segregating classrooms by color. The Knesset never did this, so it is not apartheid. With this headline Ynet has contributed to propagating a lie.

I haven't heard of separate classes of any kind in the secular public schools. The trouble comes from the religious schools. They separate Ashkenazim and Sefardim, Ethiopians and everyone else, girls and boys, ad nauseam.

Although our liberal friends censor anything they do not like or is to close to the truth, in their selfloathing they never let us down. Now this happens to be a religious school and we all know how our liberated hellenist friends think about that. Also to quote that piece of work Tamir who allows their childeren to run around without education for months is not realy the smartest thing to do. If we are going to talk about apartheid, how come jews are not allowed to live in arab towns here. How come our esteemed arab citizens do not serve in the army, but receive all state benefits. Most unlikely our liberal friends will question these things , even more unlikely this will pass their liberal minded censors. Another day off our utopian democratic hellenist state.

Ethiopia must take back its citizins to homeland

1) this newspaper has a tendecny to take these wierd remote cases and then present this as this is something that happens alot 2)i highly doubt this is race motivated because i can very easily see this class doing this to secular kids

All Jews are equal but some jews are more equal than others. By the way ask the white jews if Ethiopian students smell bad as well?

I find it rather humorous that whenever the Jews use the holocaust card we are looked down upon but blacks can still use the race card for whichever situation they fit. I do not agree that the girls should have been accepted to the school and then isolated due to their insufficient observance. But coming to the irrelevant conclusion that this is because they are black is irrational. Shouldn't Ynet be focusing on more important news than stirring the race pot?

... it's your kind of semiotic crap that Israel-bashers have so much fun using to prove we are a terrorist state (because we dare to target-kill terrorists). if there were more ethiopean girls, it would have been mentioned. the fact is that the religious sector (not religious people, i hope) have been doind all they can from day 1 to disenfranchise these people. this is just one, more blatant example. if the ministry officials are shocked and discussed, i think you can afford to be so too. i only hope that yuli tamir - who i understand is one of the more comparitively decent politicians we have - will finally realize that she is heading a ministry that is failing so dismally in every aspect of its operation that she will quit - if only as a gesture.

If these kids need extra help, what could be better than a group of 4? Did anybody ask the school what their goals in this were? sounds to me that the school was stuck between a wall and a hard place. These kids were religiously/socially/academically not on the level of the rest of the class; if the school refused to admit them, they would be accused of racism, apartheid, etc (sound familiar?) What the school therefore did was to work on getting these kids on to a level where they could be integrated. Sounds good to me!

This typifies our "Datiim" -religious ones. These young girls will be good enough to serve in the army but mustn't be allowed to "contaminate" our "own". Obviously the faith of the datiim is not very strong if they fear four girls from a different background and different cultrue. Imagine if Lithuanians were black!

May we all be damned if this article is true. Any talkbackers who dare say otherwise will have me to confront. Jews are not racists for if they are they will have to drop the title "JEW". However some are as this article so clearly shows. Damn those racist bastards.

YNET - what a disgusting headline that just gives ammunition to our enemies... The jews are hated by the far right, islamists and the far left ... why add fuel to the flames?

This is not apartheid; it’s simply a case of these girls not fitting in due to their lack of observance. Why an observant school should admit them in the first place is puzzling. However for them to suffer the degradation of being separated is not acceptable.

Apartheid has a very specific meaning & applies to policies practiced by the South African gov't. to maintain a white minority domination of the country. It is not applicable anywhere else & should not be used as a synonym for racism, ethnic discrimination, etc. This is exaggerated language to say the least. I'm sure that Ethiopians suffer from various forms of discrimination but it is hardly appropriate to call it "apartheid" - I see every day groups of young people or soldiers & there is usually an Ethiopian member of the group. I see young people playing basketball & there are always Ethiopians playing on both teams. I often see mixed couples as well. This is hardly what one would call "apartheid" .... Articles like this should be judged with a degree of caution since we are certainly not given all the facts & there is a definite tendency to sensationalism in our media not to mention a certain bias to indulge in "Israel-bashing" -

But secular kids should go to non-religious schools. Religious schools are for children of religious homes only and may not be mingled with non-religious children.

kids involved! How could this go on? Something must be done for the kids.

Terry get's it absolutely right - as usual

secular schools. But then again religious families are afraid that their kids might learn that there is a world outside their own and we couldn't have that.

I am ashamed, I am angry, I want to go to the school and shake every single teacher until they learn respect. If I were their parents I would take them to court for their obsenity. They need to be put on a ducking stool for their ignorance. My heart goes out to the family, and every family that suffers such diabolic treatment. YUG, I am so ashamed and angry that a so called religeous institution can act to (or am I too nieve?)

First of all when the school system started, the ARABS themselves did not want to mix the school curriculum. Their towns are separate. In towns like Haifa, Acco, where their is an anti-racial community they often attend the same schools. Our universities are operated on a multi- cultural society, even to the extent that Pals attend our universities. There was a complaint from them that their students could not go to Univertiy in Israel, they failed to mention that NONe of the students could attend because of a strike. So who deals in spitting racialism?