Religious girls’ school apologizes for racist blackface video made by students

A religious girls’ high school, or ulpana, apologizes for a racist Purim video made by students a month ago, after it was noticed by the media and roundly condemned.

The video, titled “What if the ulpana was Mizrahi,” shows 12th-grade students at the predominantly Ashkenazi Horev ulpana in Jerusalem wearing blackface and displaying boorish behavior while purporting to imitate students of Sephardi origin.

The school subsequently deletes the video, saying in a statement that its creation had been an “error.” It apologizes for the content, adding that it “was made as satire and a parody” and doesn’t reflect Horev as an institution that “genuinely connects the various sects and parts of Israeli society.”

It adds it will hold discussions to prevent such incidents from happening again.

The students behind the video say the video featured “inside jokes” and was done “out of love and respect for the traditions, music, culture and role models” of Moroccan-descent Jews.

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