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Porush heads to temporary bureau
Photo: Avi Moalem

MK Litzman: We won't be deterred by High Court

United Torah Judaism holds faction meeting outside prison where parents who refused to obey court ruling are jailed. MK Gafni: Vast majority of Supreme Court judges, Tel Aviv University professors Ashkenazi - so we must check for racial discrimination everywhere

Five members of the United Torah Judaism faction gathered Monday at a tent outside the Maasiyahu Prison, where the fathers of Emmanuel students who refused to obey a High Court ruling are jailed.

 

Deputy Education Minister Meir Porush has been using the tent as his bureau for the past few days.

 

Deputy Health Minister Yakov Litzman said he was undeterred by the High Court demand to probe statements made by ultra-Orthodox officials against the judges.

 

"If the court thinks that it will shut us up with this threat, it is wrong. We won't be deterred and we'll say everything. We won't hide it," he said.

 

Litzman continued to criticize the court, saying "we will tell exactly what we've seen and heard. We won't hide it. Those who were present at both discussions and heard the judge's remarks immediately saw the judge's impatience. He should self-examine himself. A judge must be fair and decent – and that didn't happen. The court realized that it made a mistake, not just by sending them to jail but by abandoning the children as well."

 

MK Moshe Gafni (United Torah Judaism), head of the Knesset's Finance Committee, said, "The (court) included everything in one miserable ruling. Where (Supreme Court Justice) Edmond Levy sits there are 14 more justices, and they are all Ashkenazim. Ninety-three percent of Tel Aviv University's faculty is Ashkenazi. So if we want to examine whether the Sephardics are discriminated against, then we must check all the systems for racism," he said.

 

Gafni also addressed Likud's continued silence, saying "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not taken a stance on the affair, and neither has the education minister (Gideon Sa'ar). In the State of Israel Sephardic yeshiva students are imprisoned for racism. It's unbelievable. "

 

Porush said he believed the secular public, as well as the media, also support the ultra-Orthodox community's position. "The conclusion is that we will be understood only if we take to the streets and protest. Only then people will understand that there is no racial discrimination, because the (all girls' school in Emmanuel) accepted Sephardic students," he said.

 

UTJ Chairman Menachem Eliezer Moses told Ynet prior to a faction meeting held in the tent that "leaving 293 children without parents is a mega terror attack."

 

Moses told the faction members, "It is symbolic that this act (sending Emmanuel parents to jail) took place in the Russian Compound (site of detention center in Jerusalem), because such acts were prevalent in Bolshevik Russia."

 

Likud member Moshe Feiglin, who also visited the tent, condemned racial discrimination but justified the parents from Emmanuel. "What right does the state have to tell these parents - or any parent for that matter - how to educate their children? When the state begins to tell me how to educate my children, this is Stalinist democracy. I am not here for the haredim, I am here for freedom," he said. 

 


פרסום ראשון: 06.21.10, 15:14
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