The only mistake made by L.—a secular young woman from central Israel —was that she was pregnant and unmarried. As a result, she was fired from her job as a nanny at two ultra-orthodox schools. The reason she was given: she became pregnant in circumstances unsuited to the religious viewpoint adopted by ultra-orthodox education. Within a few days, she filed a suit with the Labor Court asking for LE120,000 in severance pay…
The suit claims that L. obtained her job two years ago at an independent ultra-orthodox educational institution, even though she is a secularist. She was given a job at two schools, one for boys and the other for girls.
At the beginning of last academic year, L. went to the school director and informed her that she was pregnant. The suit claims that the director was shocked by the news and asked L. if she had married. L. replied in the negative, adding that she intended to keep the baby. According to the suit, “L. proposed that she start wearing a head covering and a wedding ring, but the director immediately informed her that she must leave her job. About three weeks later, L. received an official dismissal notice, saying that her dismissal was the result of ‘inappropriateness due to ideological reason.'”
In the following months, L. went repeatedly to her workplace to note that her dismissal was illegal. She asked to be reinstated immediately, but was rejected. L. went to the official in charge of the women's employment law at the Ministry of Industry claiming that her dismissal was arbitrary, the direct result of her pregnancy.
During the hearing conducted for her at the Ministry of Industry. The independent educational institution responded, “The pregnancy was not the reason for the dismissal, but the conditions in which the pregnancy occurred. The circumstances of the pregnancy are not appropriate to the religious viewpoint adopted by the educational institution.”
The official in charge of the women's employment law, attorney Rivka Makover, rejected the school's claims, saying that L. must be immediately reinstated in her job. Nevertheless, L. did not go back to work. As a result, she filed a suit with the Tel Aviv Labor Court through the Naamat organization. Among her claims is that this constitutes religious and gender discrimination. |