my thoughts on the Immanuel issue in Israel

after a few sleepless nights sounding off my thoughts on the Immanuel affair in Israel to countless online discussion boards and talkbacks, i am finally taking my own advice and putting all this down on a blog. ... somehow, i got involved in all of this because i have two boys currently in yeshiva in Israel ... and the original demonstration was held right outside the front door of my middle son's yeshiva .... while my older son actually went on the demonstration... so what else can i do but be involved .... i'm the mom...

so... these were the issues: in Immanuel, two girl's schools, one Hareidi, the other Sephardic.... a parent from the Sephardic girls school complained that the Hareidi girls school was discriminatory towards the Sephardic girls, first by building a dividing wall between the Hareidi daughters and the Sephardic daughters... and then by moving out of the building altogether ... the reason was that the Sephardic girls and families practiced a lower level of observance ....

the Sephardic parent took these complaints to the Shas party, which is part of the Knesset... from there, this whole issue somehow got turned over to the secular court ... which then pressed charges against the Hareidi parents who withdrew their girls ... accused them of 'racism' and placed prison sentences on 67 Hareidi parents for not returning their girls to the Sephardic girls school ...

the newest update - after almost 10 days - Boruch Ha-Shem! - is that Rabbi Ovadia Yosef and the Slonim Rabbi have agreed on a deal.... and hopefully resolved the entire issue without having the parents continue their prison sentences. a link to this is here: http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/immanuel-parents-in-israel-today-it-s-the-rabbis-who-decide-not-the-courts-1.298550?localLinksEnabled=false

over the course of the past week, the entire affair affected me so much that there were nights i couldn't sleep. here is what i posted today (on http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/immanuel-parents-in-israel-today-it-s-the-rabbis-who-decide-not-the-courts-1.298550?localLinksEnabled=false) to voice my relief at the compromise: "Boruch Ha-Shem! G-d bless Rabbi Ovadia Yosef and the Slonim Rabbi, and may their efforts to create peace and harmony among all Jews, regardless of their 'temporary galut nationality', be blessed"...

and here is a previous post about my thoughts on the controversy in general... before today's agreement: "in view of the upcoming three weeks...i just want to remind us all that this Sephardic/Ashkenazi issue is a mere 2000 years old at most …. all of these new “Jewish nationalities’ occurred during this current Diaspora...

during the first golus, we all went down to Babylon, which is in Iraq … which (ironically) would have made the entire Jewish nation ‘Sephardic’…

prior to this current golus there weren’t any of these current ‘Jewish nationalities’ ….. there wasn’t a Sephardic or an Ashkenazi in sight …

Jews haven’t gotten along for way longer than the current golus …. actually the reason we got into this current golus in the first place was directly the result of maklokos… sinus chinum… and loshon hora ….in other words: a lack of loyalty and camaraderie … a lack of ‘brotherly love’…

and what were our excuses then?"...

wishing everyone an easy three weeks... and an easy fast .... and may Ha-Shem turn the mourning of this, our final three weeks and Tish B'Av, into rejoicing and overwhelming joy with this year's arrival of Moshiach .... amen...