Teacher claims political persecution

Yisrael Shiran Petitions High Court: Yuli Tamir preventing my employment.

By ELIE LESHEM
arafat and rabin 224.88 (photo credit: GPO [File])
arafat and rabin 224.88
(photo credit: GPO [File])
Yisrael Shiran, a teacher who used to be the principal of the Moria-Barkai School in Haifa, on Sunday submitted a petition to the High Court of Justice demanding that he be allowed to return to his former position following a sharp plummet in the achievements of students at the school. In 2000 Shiran won a lawsuit against the Education Ministry after he was unlawfully suspended from his post for statements to the effect that studies dedicated to the Rabin assassination should not necessarily include the study of his "heritage". Shiran claimed that while the assassination itself was considered a reprehensible act by almost all Israelis, Rabin's actions, and especially the signing of the Oslo Accords, were not embraced by a broad enough consensus to warrant its inclusion in the curriculum of all Israeli schools. Then transportation minister Yuli Tamir and Aharon Zbeida, head of the Haifa district in the ministry of education, wished to suspend Shiran following his remarks, launching what Shiran's lawyers call "a personal and political smear campaign" against him. According to the current petition, when the Moria-Barkai School expressed their wishes that Shiran return to "rescue" the school, Zbeida put his foot down and prevented the school from hiring him. According to Shiran's lawyers, since 2000 Shiran has continued to teach in many schools- without encountering any objections on the part of the Education Ministry. Shiran's lawyers claim that many parents to students in the school have pulled their children out of the institution, with many more threatening to do so, following the Education Ministry's decision to prevent his return. "The education minister and the Haifa district are jeopardizing our children's education for the sake of…a personal and political settling of scores against an outstanding teacher," Shiran's attorney, Nitzana Darshan-Leitner, said. "If the ministry had no objection to his employment in the Orot Etzion School in Efrat…then it can have no objection to him being employed by a school in Haifa." "In the past, Tamir has attempted to obtain personal gain from the teacher's objection to the teaching of the Oslo Accords," she added. "The teacher, [however], was cleared of all allegations, and was allowed to return to his job after he was awarded compensation." "The time is ripe for the Education Ministry and [Tamir] to learn a lesson in good citizenship and just proceedings," she said.