Comptroller urges action against classroom ostracizations after girl takes own life
Matanyahu Englman says education minister must fix schools’ failings on matter; mother of 13-year-old Adva Weinblum: ‘Is it not enough that we lose our children to war?’
State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman on Sunday called on Education Minister Yoav Kisch to act against ostracization among schoolchildren, a week after a 13-year-old girl took her own life after being shunned by classmates.
Adva Weinblum plunged to her death “wearing white, like an angel,” following “a difficult ostracization by her classmates for many years,” and lack of adequate response from her school and municipality, Englman said in a letter to Kisch.
In a statement, Englman said: “It’s incumbent on the education minister and education system to fix the failings and work to prevent similar incidents.” Englman noted his office had in 2022 written a report on protecting minors online, which he appended to the letter to Kisch.
The comptroller recommended Kisch form a committee to probe the circumstances of Weinblum’s death and recommend preventative measures. He also urged the minister to meet with parents of affected children, including Adva’s mother Zameret Weinblum Ovadia.
The comptroller said he had paid Weinblum Ovadia a condolence visit in Acre on Sunday. The mother, he said, told him she had “contacted school authorities continuously in recent years to request proper assistance for her daughter, and was ignored and even treated disrespectfully and unprofessionally.”
Englman, who also leads the State Ombudsman Office, said in a statement that ombudsman officials who accompanied him on the condolence visit would assist Weinblum Ovadia, and another affected mother who was there, in lodging complaints against the authorities who had failed their children.
The second, unidentified mother, said to be from the Haifa area, saved her daughter at the last minute from suicide, following the girl’s yearslong ostracization by classmates, Englman said.
The mothers, he added, “expressed, heartbroken, their unbearable sorrow, presented the need to codify the ostracization issue, and made meaningful recommendations” such as erecting billboards to inform schoolchildren on the matter, and ensuring educators work proactively to identify and assist children at risk of being shunned.
Standing with Englman on the spot where her daughter died, Weinblum Ovadia asked: “Is it not enough that we lose our children to war, that they now must return their souls to their creator because the school doesn’t care when other students abuse them?”
In December, the Knesset reported that some 4% of schoolchildren had been shunned by fellow students. Ostracizations were said to be roughly twice as common in Arabic-speaking schools than in the general public, and to have targeted boys slightly more than girls.
