JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel’s attorney general will not bring criminal charges against an Israeli amusement park for segregating Jewish and Arab school groups, despite the fact that segregation is illegal.
Yehuda Weinstein said in a decision issued Sunday that he decided not to prosecute Superland because the Rishon LeZion park issued a public apology and said it would immediately halt the practice.
Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni reportedly had asked Weinstein to decide whether Superland was discriminating against Arab students in the wake of the discovery of the separate days.
Superland said last month that some Israeli junior and senior high schools booking end-of-the-year student fun days requested that events for Jewish and Arab schools be held on different days, in part to prevent friction between the student bodies.
Requests came from both sectors, the central Israel park said, and it followed through by setting aside some separate days in June for the Jewish and Arab schools.
The segregation came to light after a seventh-grade teacher at an Arab school posted on his Facebook page that he had been unable to book a particular date using his own name, but that when he called and identified himself by a Jewish name he was able to secure the date.
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