Following a court hearing on Sunday, 15 Tammuz, a decision was made to release the Emmanuel prisoners without requiring them to compromise their position in any way, upholding their original demands in the arrangement made based on the stance of gedolei Yisroel shlita.
The proposal put forth allows the current school year to come to an end without court intervention and without mandatory study programs in combined classes as the petitioner demanded. Furthermore, in advance of the 5771 school year, parents will be permitted to open a new "exempt" school based on the guidelines for the Chassidic track.
In accordance with the agreement, joint workshops were held during the final three days of the school year for all girls in Emmanuel schools — the Chinuch Atzmai school, the Maayan Hachinuch Hatorani school and the Chabad school. During this program divrei chizuk were presented on the topics of middos tovos, the value of unity, mitzvas of bein odom lechaveiro and similar topics.
Atty. Mordechai Green approved the arrangement, signing for the Admor of Slonim, while Eli Yishai signed in the name of the president of Shas' Council of Torah Sages. Earlier, in a droshoh delivered on Motzei Shabbos, HaRav Ovadia Yosef reiterated his strong remarks against the petitioners for raising a hand against the Torah and for engendering anti-Chinuch Atzmai incitement. He said Sephardim owe a debt of gratitude toward Chinuch Atzmai, which provided them Torah-based education throughout the years, thereby building up the chareidi sector among Sephardic Jews in Eretz Hakodesh.
According to the proposal, which was eventually accepted by the court, the petitioner's original, oft-repeated demand to impose combined studies and to deny Chassidic track parents in Emmanuel the right to determine who their daughters would study with — based on a set of regulations — was rejected. The arrangement was intended to enable the court to end the affair with an "achievement" in hand. That so-called achievement of a three-day joint workshop was essentially meaningless in terms of influencing the character of the local Chinuch Atzmai school.
The judges who accepted the agreement came to recognize that the principle the High Court had intended to place on the public agenda — that the court has the right to intervene in admissions policies and educational affairs, and to place its power to render decisions above that of daas Torah and rulings by rabbonim — was rejected out of hand by all of chareidi Jewry, as seen in the mass rallies that showed Torah supersedes the High Court.
Representatives of the parents of Chassidic track students said the battle was waged against the High Court's aim to compel chareidi parents to accept rulings by secular courts in affairs affecting education and values — even against their rabbonim. That scheme was met with a resounding "No!"
The current proposal was accepted by the parents' rabbonim in accordance with the position of maranan verabbonon , based on the longstanding principle that gedolei Yisroel alone, without the input of High Court judges, determine the form of Torah-based education.
The prisoners were released with no further conditions, despite inaccurate media reports that parents signed a pledge to uphold the previous court ruling.
The chareidi public in Eretz Yisroel and the Diaspora was pleased with the outcome of the affair, which demonstrated plainly that secular courts cannot subdue the chareidi world in matters of educational values and that the chareidi public joins forces to defend against attempts by outsiders to interfere in sacrosanct matters.
