In what educational framework will a 4-year-old girl learn that her mother repeated the question? This is the question that has recently occupied the family court in Tiberias. While the girl's father insisted that she enroll in a religious educational framework, her mother wanted her to be educated in a kindergarten close to her home, which includes non-religious children.
Until the parents' divorce, the family lived in a moshav in the Golan Heights with a religious character. After the divorce, the mother moved to another locality, with a secular character, located about half an hour from the locality where they had previously lived, where the father remained to live. In preparation for the start of the new school year, the mother enrolled her daughter in kindergarten in the new community to which she had moved.
In response, the father informed the family court that he insisted that his daughter continue to be educated in the community where he lives and where the entire family lived together before the divorce. This was because it was agreed between the parents, according to him, that the girl would continue to be educated in a religious framework, and not in a secular framework. The father demanded that the court order the girl to remain at home until the dispute between the parents regarding the educational framework in which she should stay is resolved.
Tel Aviv Family Court (Archive), photo: Yehoshua Yosef
The mother, on the other hand, claimed that the father does not wear a kippah regularly anyway and visits the synagogue only occasionally, and that in a joint decision, the couple decided, when they were married, not to observe the Sabbath and to act with "religious flexibility" (not maintaining a religious lifestyle, except for keeping kosher food and utensils at home).
She also claimed that the father had put the spotlight on the educational stream in which the girl would be educated, because beneath the surface hides his true desire – a kindergarten close to the house where he lives.
Harsh criticism of the father. Kindergarten (illustration), photo: Oren Ben Hakon
The family court ruled in favor of the mother and approved the registration of the daughter for kindergarten in the new locality. In his decision, Justice Arnon Kimmelman strongly criticized the father, who did not specify in what way the educational framework to which he wishes to send his daughter differs from the framework to which the mother wishes to transfer the child. "What are the actual values, customs, principles and musings that teach the minors in one kindergarten and deny, God forbid, the minors in the other?" the judge wondered. His conclusion was that the father's concern lay not in the content to which his daughter would be exposed, but in the exhaustion of his ex-wife.
Attorneys Arthur Shani and Omer Eshet, who represented the mother, said: "We are pleased that the court accepted the mother's position that it is in the best interest of the child to continue her studies in the kindergarten where she is happy to get up every morning, and not to move to a distant kindergarten that she does not know and to which the transition is not in her favor, just because of the degree of religiosity of the kindergarten."
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