Day School Won’t Admit Boy Whose Mother is Not Halachically Jewish

A Jewish day school here has refused to admit a 13-year-old boy because his mother is not halachically Jewish.

The board of the Jewish Maimonides Lyceum, the only Jewish secondary school in Amsterdam, has stated it will not admit Aram Bruckner for the upcoming school year despite his parents’ desire to give the boy a Jewish education. The school denied Bruckner admission last year also. The boy’s father, Robert Bruckner, said he will present his son for admission despite the board’s statement. He has already initiated legal proceedings to force his son’s admission.

The father filed suit in the Amsterdam Lower District Court which ruled in favor of the school. He then appealed to the Amsterdam Higher District Court which ruled that the boy must be admitted because barring him would be tantamount to racial discrimination, a punishable offense under Dutch law.

The court also ruled that for each day the boy is not admitted, the school must pay a fine of about $500.

The Maimonides Lyceum appealed the second ruling to the Supreme Court which will not hear the case for at least a month. In the meantime, the school has filed for an injunction to reduce the fines.

Local press has given considerable attention to the Bruckner story, depicting it as an example of Orthodox Jewish rigidity. One Amsterdam daily ran an interview with Aram in which he said he wanted to attend the Jewish day school because he experienced much anti-Semitism during the six years he attended a village elementary school in the province of Voralsberg in Austria.