Parents block entry of Palestinian assistants at Holon daycare center

Parents blocked the arrival of four Palestinian staffers at a daycare in Holon on Tuesday, claiming the women, from East Jerusalem, were not sufficiently qualified and were brought in without their knowledge.

The Na’amat organization, which operates the Odem daycare center in the Tel Aviv suburb, denounced the parents’ blockade as shameful racism. The organization said later Tuesday that the daycare would not be opening the next day in protest over the actions of parents.

The incident was first reported in a Facebook group called Holon Forum, which included a response from Na’amat, as well as one from a parent protesting against the workers.

Parents arrived at the daycare in the morning and stood outside for hours to prevent the assistants from entering. According to the post, parents had previously been unaware that the four women had been hired.

“A disgrace,” said Hagit Pe’er, chair of Na’amat, in a statement and noted that workers at the kindergarten felt so threatened by the parents that they activated a distress button to call for help.

“Racism and discrimination of any kind — not in our school,” Pe’er declared and vowed to protect the rights of all Na’amat workers regardless of ethnicity or religion. “It is astonishing that it is even necessary to clarify this in Israel of 2022.”

Pe’er said that the Palestinian women told Na’amat that they did not intend to continue working at the daycare out of fears for their own safety. She also said that one of the three age groups in the daycare is slated to close next week due to a manpower shortage.

Noy Levi, a mother who participated in the protest, said that the four workers were brought to the daycare on Sunday, according to the Facebook post.

Levi claimed the workers do not speak Hebrew and had not undergone any security background checks. She further claimed they did not possess any qualification for taking care of children and had not undergone a social assessment.

According to Levi, the daycare manager and parents were not informed of the developments in advance.

“We were casually informed that they had spent a whole day with our children in all the daycare classes,” she said.

Levi claimed that on Sunday the four Palestinian women “whispered in the bathroom and throughout the day laughed at everything that the veteran daycare teachers told them to do.”

She said that when parents approached the kindergarten supervisor with their concerns they met with “imperviousness and zero empathy.”

Levi said that parents had succeeded in preventing the women from entering the premises and intended to stay on guard “out of fear that they will bring them back as soon as we leave.”

Walla reported that Na’amat said the Palestinian workers would be trained on the job as is the case with other workers, and that there were other employees who do not speak Hebrew, including some from Ukraine.