They studied across the street in a rundown residential building. We didn't know their names; we didn't even look at them. They were transparent. We had the same unsightly uniform that hid our budding womanhood as they did, since we all studied at the same well-known seminary for ultra-Orthodox girls in Tel Aviv, with the entrances across from each other. Nonetheless, it was as though the legendary Sambatyon River that cannot be crossed passed through the street. They never visited us - not in the library, not in the gym, not in the schoolyard. Nor did we ever go to them.

What did we know about them, we who studied in the main, spacious building of the seminary? We knew only that they were "Sephardi." In our class of 40 there were a handful of such girls, but they were of distinguished lineage - the daughters of rabbis and heads of yeshivas - so the fact of being Sephardi didn't count against them. This was how the perception of status was inculcated into us: We in the prestigious track of academic studies were educated to be Jewish teachers and mothers. The Sephardi girls on the other side of the road, as was made clear to us through overt and implied messages, were preparing themselves for a contemptible trade: sewing or office work. We accepted this as a fact of life.

Inferior branches

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That was years ago, says Yoav Laloum, who recently founded a nonprofit organization to combat ethnic discrimination in the ultra-Orthodox education system. Since then, he says, "racism has only become stronger in ultra-Orthodox society." A 28-year-old graduate of ultra-Orthodox yeshivas, who is currently studying law at the ultra-Orthodox campus of Ono Academic College, Laloum thinks the independent education network for girls, Beit Yaakov, is run like a monopoly. Laloum says that schools in the network receive funds from the government that no private institution can compete with, so the ultra-Orthodox Sephardi population is dependent on them.

"The principals insist on maintaining an Ashkenazi majority that will give them control," says Laloum. "With various excuses, they tend to keep Edot Hamizrah girls [with families from Muslim or Arabic countries] away, by setting quotas, opening inferior branches for Sephardi girls near the more prestigious one, or setting up separate classes for Sephardi girls in trailers in the schoolyard."

The big racist ritual begins in the summer: Every year, hundreds of girls entering the ninth grade don't get accepted at seminaries in Bnei Brak and Jerusalem - a process that has been repeated annually for more than a decade. By the middle of the year these humiliated girls still aren't in school; most give up and go to other schools because they have no choice. A few stay at home and lose out on an entire academic year, and sometimes more. Discrimination has recently been evident even in the first grade, not just in the seminaries.

In the ultra-Orthodox city of Elad, near Rosh Ha'ayin, the only Beit Yaakov school in the city rejected 70 Mizrahi girls this year. The registration list appear to provide decisive proof of discrimination: Nearly 100 percent of the 90 Ashkenazi girls who applied were accepted, as opposed to only half of the 140 Sephardi girls. However, only two families petitioned the Administrative Court on the matter. The rest of the parents withdrew under social pressure, since those who filed the petition have "sinned twice": They appealed to the civil authorities and are airing their dirty laundry in public.

A few years ago, the cry for help of the parents of the rejected girls reached ultra-Orthodox leader Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, whose committee on education-related complaints has been operating for several years. Unlike in the past, this year the committee used its authority, for the first time, to announce in August that there would be no ninth-grade Beit Yaakov classes in Jerusalem.

Under the pressure of a strike, which lasted for three weeks, the principals agreed to let another 200 Mizrahi girls attend the Jerusalem seminaries. But even after classes began, says Laloum, about 100 additional pupils were left without a place to go: "It's a weak committee. The girls register in January already. They have to take care of the problem then and not wait until the last minute."

Four years ago, the father of one ninth-grade girl went to the Association for Civil Rights in Israel. As a result of his obstinate struggle, ACRI managed to prove in May of this year that the seminaries were practicing discrimination, by instituting a 30-percent quota for girls of Mizrahi lineage. The petition was filed with the Jerusalem Administrative Court.

Judge Yehudit Tzur ruled that the Education Ministry is obligated to supervise school registration. In August ACRI requested a contempt-of-court order against the ministry, which it claimed had not implemented the ruling. The request was rejected a month ago, after the ministry responded by explaining its efforts to change the registration procedure. It is not clear, therefore, why the phenomenon still exists.

Parental anger

ACRI's victory has paved the way for other parents to turn to the courts. This year three separate petitions (one by Laloum) were filed in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa regarding discrimination against Mizrahi girls. This trend indicates maturity and perhaps a recognition that the line has been crossed.

The parents' anger and humiliation now has a name, a face and an address. Until now, none of the parents dared to expose the situation, out of fear that they or their daughters would be harassed or that their children's marriage prospects would be harmed. But Laloum gives interviews and allows his picture to be taken, saying, "I'm not afraid of them." "They" are the Ashkenazim.

He is now collecting complaints and appealing for help from Knesset members and public figures, and he even participated in a Knesset Education Committee discussion last week. Laloum's public activity began after his own daughter wasn't accepted to first grade this year at the Beit Yaakov school near his home. He petitioned the Jerusalem Administrative Court against the school, located in Givat Shaul. The declared reason for her rejection, says Laloum, was immodesty on the part of her mother and failure to meet the school's "spiritual regulations."

Laloum argues that the "regulations" are an illegal fabrication and, moreover, are not applied in the case of Ashkenazi families. He has no objection to schools that select pupils based on religious principles, but says the criteria must be transparent and pupils must be accepted on an egalitarian basis and in accordance with Jewish religious law.

He notes that the real reason the school rejected his daughter is that it already has a 60-percent majority of girls from Mizrahi families. "This is an area where there is a clear majority of Sephardim," he says. "If they would accept all the Sephardi girls, there would be 80 percent Sephardi girls in the school, and that was not to their liking."

According to Laloum, the problem is that there are no defined school-registration zones in the ultra-Orthodox education system - a situation which he plans to fight. He ended up compromising and sending his daughter to a different Beit Yaakov school. "I didn't want her to be educated in a school that practices discrimination," he says.

Lack of alternatives

Yoav Laloum has a lot of self-confidence, a well-developed Mizrahi consciousness and some of the quixotic nature needed for an anti-establishment struggle like this one. He says he doesn't want any favors from the Ashkenazim - but then why is he insisting on sending his daughter to their school? "It's not their school," he says. "These are institutions that get a budget from the state. I, and all the other parents whose daughters weren't accepted, are funding them."

The apparently chronic problem of discrimination stems, among other reasons, from the lack of other girls' schools on the same high level as those affiliated with the Beit Yaakov network, Laloum explains. Boys, in contrast, have quality Sephardi institutions; he has sent his son to one of them. "I say that a Sephardi who sends his son to an Ashkenazi Talmud Torah school or yeshiva high school or post-high school yeshiva is doing him a great injustice," he declares.

At the age of 7, Laloum relates, he underwent an experience that shocked him and ultimately had a major influence on him. "We moved from the north to Jerusalem," he explains. "The first week we went to school, to register. The principal told my father to his face: 'I won't let your son in because you're frankim [a derogatory word for Mizrahim].' My father was a simple man, who had become religious on his own. That was the only time I saw him cry. Really, with tears."

He adds that "when I was little it was possible to put your finger on the phenomenon, because they said it to your face," but today the principals don't admit to the parents that the reason for rejecting pupils is based on ethnicity, and they generally justify their decision by saying the girls or their families are not on a suitable religious level. Nonetheless, parents say they are asked to write the mother's maiden name on the registration form, along with the grandparents' names, to remove any doubt in cases where the name doesn't reveal the family's origins.

It's no coincidence that Laloum chose to study in Sephardi yeshivas; indeed, he studied at the flagship Sephardi yeshiva, Porat Yosef in Jerusalem. "It's not that I didn't get accepted to Ashkenazi yeshivas - I didn't want to," he says. "I never understood my friends who went there, and all their fawning to the Ashkenazim."

Shas' failure

Laloum looks refined in his fashionable glasses, like one of the young followers of former Shas head Aryeh Deri in the good old days; indeed, he was one of his supporters. Since Deri has been out of the picture, though, Laloum stopped seeing himself as a member of the Sephardi Shas party, although his highest spiritual authority has always been the movement's spiritual mentor, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef.

Laloum thinks Shas has failed. "It set up schools for a different population, not an ultra-Orthodox one," he says. "Instead of going into the main education system and fighting discrimination, Shas leaders cooperate with the Ashkenazi principals, and that's how they make sure their own girls will get into the seminaries. After all, they won't send their daughters to the education system that they established."

Without backing from a religious authority, Laloum says he knows he has no chance of survival, so he established a nonprofit organization called Youth of the Halakha to wage the war against discrimination, with the support of his rabbi, Yaakov Yosef, the eldest son of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. The younger Yosef, who looks surprisingly like his father, recently issued a ruling giving all parents whose children are not accepted by an educational institution permission to appeal to a civil court. Speaking on the ultra-Orthodox radio station Kol Ha'emet (Voice of Truth), the younger Yosef called for combating discrimination against Mizrahi girls.

Laloum promises that in the next few years there will be more and more appeals and lawsuits. "There are some young, assertive parents who are ready to stand up for their rights," he says. The parents in Elad, for instance, demanded that the municipality provide them with educational services for their daughters - books and instruction - until the court rules on their case.

Minister in the Finance Ministry Meshulam Nahari (Shas) offered this response: "With respect to the fight against discrimination, the movement [Shas] does not believe in waging its struggle in the media or in the courts, rather via behind-the-scenes activity and through provision of an educational alternative. For this reason Shas has created elementary schools of a high level, which are also suitable to the Haredi population that is affiliated with the central stream. There are also enough good Sephardi seminaries associated with Shas. The choice of Shas' leaders with respect to frameworks for children is made according to residential location and educational style."