About 500 students and parents from Beit Yaakov Gilo protested quietly and emotionally on Tuesday morning in Jerusalem’s Gilo neighborhood against the school’s continued split across separate buildings. Parents say the arrangement forces girls to move between distant sites, damages day-to-day functioning, and disrupts the educational environment.
The dispute has been simmering for years. For a long time, the older grades were sent each day to the Beit Vagan neighborhood, despite promises of a permanent building in Gilo. In practice, the younger grades were moved to a Gilo building while the older grades remained in Beit Vagan. For the coming school year, the city plans to move the upper grades to another building within Gilo, but one that is still separate from the younger girls’ site, preserving the division.
The parents’ committee says the issue is not merely logistical. They argue that the split harms school management, the learning climate, and budgets, and they warned that it “tears families apart.” They also said there are already nearby solutions that could unite the school under one roof, but that these are being blocked for “unreasonable political reasons.” The committee said the morning protest is only the beginning and called on Jerusalem Municipality to prioritize the girls’ needs, demanding a permanent unified solution by the next school year.
Jerusalem Municipality said that, as part of preparations for the coming school year, for the first time all elementary-age girls living in Gilo will study within the neighborhood and will not need to leave it. It said that this year grades 1 to 3 study in Gilo, while grades 4 to 8 study in Beit Vagan, but from next year all students will study in Gilo. The city said it has invested millions of shekels in new infrastructure and buildings, and that for the next two years the girls will study in two separate new facilities until a permanent school building, now under construction, is completed in about two years.
