Eritrean children were separated from the rest of their classes at kindergartens in the Tel Aviv area, a report by Channel 13 claimed on Wednesday.A journalist from Channel 13 interviewed an Eritrean woman from Tel Aviv who claimed that her child was among the children segregated from the other children in the kindergarten.The woman, who has a five-year-old girl with special needs, said her daughter regularly asks why she is separated from the other children who are not Eritrean."My daughter all the time asks 'why are we separate?' Why are brown and white separated?" the Eritrean woman said in the interview."At the kindergarten my daughter goes to, there are two places... a place below for Israelis and a place above for only Eritreans. Why? Why is my daughter separated? It hurts my heart. I want her to feel like all other people, like Israeli children," her mother said.There are tens of thousands of African migrants in Israel, mostly from Eritrea and Sudan. Many are asylum seekers and refugees fleeing difficult situations in their home countries.The Municipality of Tel Aviv denied the claim that segregation occurred at kindergartens in the city:"No municipality in Israel deals with such a large number of children of immigrants, and no municipality invests in their future like us. Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality strongly supports education close to home. All attempts worldwide to disconnect a child from his neighborhood have failed.
Therefore, registration for educational institutions is carried out in accordance with place of residence. In several neighborhoods in the south of the city, the vast majority are children of immigrants - a fact which also explains their proportion in educational institutions.
In specific cases of language impairment - such as in kindergartens mentioned in the report - children are divided according to their mother tongue for professional and therapeutic reasons."
