Students at the Kfar Pines Ulpana (religious girls' high school) sparked outrage last week after displaying a "Yizkor" (memorial) poster featuring living girls who had left the school before graduating, according to Israeli media.
The poster used wording usually used for fallen IDF soldiers and victims of terrorism, including saying a girl had "fallen" as a junior, implying that she had died.
"How would you react as parents to see a picture of the daughter as if she had died?" wrote the parent of one of the girls in the display on Facebook. "When my daughter informed the 10th-grade teacher at the Kfar Pines Ulpana that she was leaving, all she had to say was 'you'll come crawling back to us'. This condescension, it turns out, permeated the girls of the ulpana."
"If after four years that are supposed to educate, to inculcate high values of choice in life, of purity of character, of accepting the other and their choices, of 'and be very careful for your souls', not only as a rule of caution on the roads, and not only as a cliché, not as a joke because this doesn't make anyone laugh, and it's even disgusting," added the parent in a post that was later deleted, according to N12.
"Instead of education of all the beautiful values of our people, the girls of the Kfar Pines Ulpana expressed insolence and lack of manners, a lack of boundaries, and this is reflected on other levels. All I have left to do is thank God that I took my two daughters out of there."
Abie Moses, national chairman for the Organization of Victims of Terrorism, condemned the display, telling Ynet "Proper behavior precedes the Torah."
"The 'Yizkor' demonstration presented at an official event of the Kfar Pines ulpana indicates a disconnect and loss of values," he said. "We will not let such a display pass that shows contempt and disdain for the memory of those who perished. The directors of the ulpana are the main ones responsible for this and should personally apologize to the former students who were humiliated in public and to the bereaved families of the 24,068 killed IDF soldiers and victims of terrorism."
School stresses it is working to educate girls on the meaning of their actions
The Kfar Pines Ulpana responded to the uproar, stressing that it saw the display as "a serious and very inappropriate act, which was done without thinking and without understanding its meaning and we are in the midst of an educational process with the girls involved," according to Israeli media outlet Srugim.
"We are sorry for the heartache caused to the girls and their families, and we apologize for that and hope that the girls involved will also find a way to apologize to them."
The ulpana claimed that "the event took place in a classroom setting and was organized by the students, without the involvement or participation of the educational staff of the ulpana."