Toddler said banned from daycare for not being Jewish

A family residing in the northern West Bank settlement of Avnei Hefetz claims their local school system discriminated against them by refusing to enroll their toddler in a state-supervised daycare because she is not considered Jewish according to Orthodox standards.

Amit Hai Rubin and his partner, Sarah, a Kenyan national, tell Haaretz that settlement officials and the school’s administration gave them conflicting explanations for their decision to obstruct the enrollment of their two-year-old, Hila.

Rubin says that in March, when he went to register Hila in the settlement’s nursery school, school administrators told him that the family would have to be approved by the settlement’s admissions committee and the fact that their daughter was not considered Jewish would count against her.

Rubin appealed the process to the community’s rabbi, who told Rubin he believed Israeli law allowed state-run religious schools to deny admission to non-Jewish children.

— Tamar Pileggi