Tvunat Yaakov, a school in Jerusalem's Ramot Alef neighborhood, is set to start using ten classrooms in the neighborhood's government religious school — where enrollment has plummeted — following a decision by the Court for Administrative Affairs in Jerusalem.
The parents of hundreds of students petitioned the court after city hall issued an unprecedented decision to grant the use of the classrooms to a school in Talpiot, though the majority of parents at the school in the neighborhood, located at the far end of the city from Ramot, were adamantly opposed to the move and condemned the municipality's attempt to impose such a long commute on their children.
The decision by Judge Dr. Yigal Marzel adhered to previous rulings against changing the Jerusalem Municipality's decisions on allotting classrooms to Tvunat Yaakov, which is recognized but unofficial, but the judge lashed out at city hall's failure to solve the problem of classroom space for hundreds of students at the girls' school.
"For unclear reasons and despite these stances," wrote the judge in his decision, "as well as the difficult situation at Tvunat Yaakov and its need for a building, which is not subject to debate, the municipality in effect decided at the beginning of July of this year to make the building available to Ahavat Yisrael, a school from Talpiot, effectively neglecting the stances it took in giving support to Tvunat Yaakov and giving inadequate attention to the pressing situation at Tvunat Yaakov, claiming that this is an official school in need of the building in question.
"The entire claim falls under the [view] that the municipality has no obligation toward an unofficial school and in effect disregards its declared intention to integrate Tvunat Yaakov classrooms, which was possible in light of the size of the building as well as Ahavat Yisrael's lack of a need for all of the classrooms in the building. In effect, within a matter of days the municipality changed its decision and policy, switching from an integrated plan of transferring a portion of Ahavat Yisrael to Tvunat Yaakov, to a claim that Tvunat Yisrael has no right [to classroom space in the building] at all."
At this stage Judge Marzel launched into an attack on the municipality's conduct in handling the issue. "What about Tvunat Yaakov and its students?" he asks. "And what about the stances and the agreements made? And what became of the municipality's plan to have both schools share the building temporarily? What about the request pending a decision by the Allotments Committee? And what about the fact that last year, with municipality approval, [Tvunat Yaakov] students were in the building and all agree they have no alternative building? And how will they have time to make arrangements for the rapidly approaching school year? I have not found an answer to this in the material before me or in the claims made by the respondents. At the same time, these considerations had to be taken into account based on the circumstances of the issue as part of the whole of the municipality's considerations when making a decision on the matter."
The judge, in an exceptional move, decided to intervene. Although he could not interfere with the building allotment process, he was attuned to the students' plight — they currently study in eight classrooms located in a separate wing of the local government religious school — and demanded that the municipality allot 10 classrooms in the 18-classroom building. He noted that the school in Talpiot should have been allotted only as many classrooms as were needed, in this case six, though Mayor Nir Barkat ordered Tvunat Yaakov to clear out the classrooms in use by July 1, leaving hundreds of students with no viable alternative.
Following the court decision, Tvunat Yaakov is now preparing to make use of another two classrooms, in addition to the eight where they are currently studying, thereby providing a partial solution to the space problem at the school.
