As a Doti Leumi SEPHARDI with head covering, I find these Haredim a disgrace to AM YISRAEL. Why do they divide our chidren from learning. Is it because they have different shades over than ivory! SHAME ON YOU. For this reason we have Grads, Kassamim, and HURRICANES in this world...MHashem will not senf MASHIACH if Jews continue to divide. ENOUGH !!!!

What a deep thought! You must teach philosophy or something. (The above was sarcastic, in case you didn't realize.)

This article is wrong on many points. First, the school is really bordering on a dati neighborhood. It's true that there are a few buildings that are hardei and border on the school. Those buildings were built pretty recently - after the rest of Givat Sharet was built, and it was not haredi, aside from Nahala Umenucha which was a 100% haredi neighborhood. What goes on there is fine, no one interferes. Here, they want to basically encroach on regular areas, and force these areas to live according to nachala umenucha standards. Finally, there was no promise about the school being for boys. That's just another piece of misinformation being distributed by the mayor.

...if the extremist Charedi sector wins this battle, though, and vote for the pathetic mayor we've got for another candidacy of five years, then we won't have much of a city left.

It's a poorly written article, because it's not clear why they're fighting. It does say that "at first" the Khareidim were upset that the building was going to be used by people who didn't live in the neighborhood. But then it's not clear what the problem was after that.\ It says something about the opposition being to girls using the school? Did I understand that right? But why is there opposition to girls using the school? It would be okay if it were boys? Not clear.

The school borders an area where some of the most extreme charedim live. It also borders a large national religious neighborhood. Some charedim feel that the presence of girls - who dress modestly according to the school's dress code, but not according to charedi standards - would be an affront. The extremists want these little girls out of their sight - even if it means forcing them to bus out of their neighborhood to a school far away. Unfortunately, the mayor - associated with the ultra-orthodox party Shas - is "not taking sides" ... despite the fact that this campus was zoned for a girls' elementary school well before the apartments in which the extreme charedim live were built. The national religious community is up in arms, and plans to use all legal means to ensure that the school year at Orot Banot opens peacefully.

maybe nachshoni ought to start again: please tell us what, why, where, when and how.

connections to build the school and the school was promised to Orot for the girls from the beginning, why would we need another boys school? ..The boys school is right next door and it is no way a Charedi aria, in fact the boys school next door is used on Shabat as a Shul for the Dati Leumi community. This is not an issue of Torah Law because all the children come from very religious homes and the girls who will learn there are dressed modestly. It is an issue that Bet Shemesh Bet is turning into the 2nd Meya Sharim and the Charedim are spreading further out taking over more and more of Bet Shemesh. People in BS are feeling very threatened, and rightfully so, if this type of stuff is allowed to go on. We will strike and show our Mayor that closing the school because he is afraid that the children will get hurt is not the solution but the cause. Perhaps the Mayor should provide protection and arrest any and all law breakers. Wouldn't that be a better obvious solution? And this issue came up just after all the demonstrations about RBS Gimmel being built for the Charedim.

The school was previously contested by the Chareidim and the court agreed that it should be given to the Dati Leumi Orot schools. The school is next to three Dati Leumi neighborhoods and three apartment buildings inhabited by extreme Charedim from nearby Ramat Bet Shemesh Bet. There is no Chareidi neighborhood next to the Orot schools.

It is nice to know that Apartheid is doing well in Israel. Segregation in transport, beaches, schools etc- you are doing well.

I'm with the Dati Leumi on this one. The, hopefully minority, Chardi should not be allowed to dictate such things. In their own areas they can have a say, but on a border like this, the behavior of those who will go all the way to stop others is not acceptable.

Do these Charedim believe that violently rioting, disturbing jewish girls from learning, acting with such hate and malice- is that what they think their Creator wants? That at the end of their lives, at the Pearly Gates, they think their Creator will say, "Gee, that was great when you acted like maniacs, screaming, violent to those little school girls who were on their way to learn torah, you really made them upset and cry and feel rotten about life, wow, way to go!" Is that what they think, or are they so selfish and self-involved that they think noone in the world matters to the Creator,- and that Halacha has no place in their world, just their crazy Chumrahs that have no basis in halacha or Kavod Habrios or Derech Eretz or Chillul H-sh-m- these things have no bearing in their lives? Don't they know that this behavior the last time around lead DIRECTLY to the destruction of the Bait Hamikdash?

It is a very sad state of affairs to read that there is a faction of radical Haredim who are trying to ban a group of little elementary school religious girls from getting an education because they don't feel that they are important enough to educate, and because these religious little girls might have skirts one inch too short for their tastes. THESE ARE LITTLE GIRLS!! How sexually exciting do they really think they are? And why is the fact that their windows face a haredi neighborhood a problem? This ideology and behaviour smacks of extremism and should not be tolerated anywhere in the State of Israel. Jewish Taliban anyone???

You ask an honest question, and extremest answer as though they speak for G-d. This is not a light. this is not humbleness, this is not kindness. Jew against Jew this is not good. It makes all of us who look similar ,who have light seem dimmer. We must have more Emunah for our true light to Shine brighter and say enough, enough, enough. No more being a bully time to be a true Jew who stands for Jews. Especially little girls who are no harm to no one.