December 28, 2012

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (JTA) — A Belgian court ordered a Jewish school for girls to admit two boys or face heavy fines.

If the Benoth Jeruzalem school in Antwerp fails to admit the boys, it will have to pay $2,600 for every day that the two boys are not allowed to study there, a Belgian judge ruled on Dec. 21, according to the Gazet van Anwerpen, a local paper.

Joods Actueel, a Belgian-Jewish monthly, reported that the father of the boys was Moshe Friedman, an anti-Zionist Orthodox Jew who participated in a conference of Holocaust deniers in 2006 in Tehran, Iran. The paper said no school in Antwerp would admit his children.

In an interview with ATV, a Belgian television station, Friedman said the refusal to inscribe his boys into a school for girls was an act of “revenge” by the Jewish community because of his “opinion and good contacts with world leaders.” He added he had no choice but to inscribe the boys there because he needed them to go to a Jewish school.

The report did not say why Freidman chose a school for girls instead of one of Antwerp’s many schools for boys.

The director of Benoth Jeruzalem school told Gazet van Anwerpen that a decision on how to proceed will be made next week.

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