Testimonies came out this week regarding the deep discrimination faced by Sephardic-haredi girls seeking to enroll in high schools run by Ashkenazic haredim.
L., a 13-year-old student, described the difficulties she has experienced since being rejected from high school.
"I've been at home for six months, since around the exams; we're waiting for something to happen," she described to Channel 13 News.
L. also shared that during the application process, she was asked illegal questions about where her father prays and whether her brothers attend Ashkenazic or Sephardic yeshivas.
"The principal told me that I am 'a complete waste.' and that even if Rabbi Ovadia [Yosef] himself came, she would not accept me," she added. Rabbi Ovadia Yosef was a former Sephardic Chief Rabbi and a revered Torah scholar and authority on Jewish law. He passed away in 2013.
According to L., the educational institution even demanded that she change her family name, which she refused to do.
In another testimony, Michal, mother of a number of children, agreed to the institutions' demand and changed her family's name to something "that would sound more like one of ours and less Sephardic."
"I tried to change it for two children, and it was accepted," she said. "I think I did the right thing for them. They're doing well, they're accepted, they're happy."
At the same time, she expressed pain over the act, saying, "It hurts me that some of my children have one family name and some have another family name. We're the same family."
Yael, mother of two girls who have no school placements, described, "The worst thing I've gone through in my life is to see my daughter sitting at home and silent."
According to Yael, her older daughter was left without a school placement for half a year, which prevented her from being able to register her younger daughter for school.
"My daughter was accepted into four good schools in Jerusalem, but the Haredi Education Department decided to say no," she said. "For what and why would they leave a girl at home for six months? She's a girl who excels in her studies, she excels socially."
Criticizing the proposed separate solutions, she accused: "Why is [Shas chief] Aryeh Deri going to open a Sephardic Seminar Yashan? Whoever wants to create Ashkenazic schools that are for Ashkenazis only can open a private school. If you live off our taxes - schools should not be by ethnicity. The creation of Sephardic-only schools will not solve the problem. Our goal is not to perpetuate the discrimination."
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