Extortion In London Girl Schools: “Girls At Home Crying”

Sixteen girls from the local Chareidi community in Golders Green London, have not been accepted to any of the local girl schools. Two of local Rabbonim that have assisted young boys in getting into chaderim at the beginning of the year, took upon themselves to resolve issue as well.

Three local schools are quarreling amongst themselves, each claiming they don’t have room for additional students. One of the school told the Rabbonim and Askanim who are involved, “If you want us to accept 6 out of the 16 girls, we are demanding 150,000 pounds” equivalent to about 700,000 Nis.

The other two schools claim that they have no room, but if the first school takes in 6 students, they will accept the rest.

The community in London is appalled on what is going on, and some are claiming that it’s a case of extortion. One parent whose daughter has not been accepted to school told “Bechadrei Chareidm”, there is no problem with the girls, it’s just an opportunity for a certain school to squeeze money. It is not a story of parents with a smartphone, it’s a game off the back of very young girls who are sitting at home and crying”.

The parent further shared, “at first they told us weird stories; of lack of space, then they claimed that the girls suffered from severe social problems. When we proved that all the allegations were false, they said that the girls would be accepted, but it all depended on the school that was asking for money.

Where do they expect the Rabbanim and Asaknim to bring them such an enormous sum? Should we scratch the walls? It’s like what would happen in the past, when a Poritz would throw a Jew into a pit, and would only release him when he received money.”
“Bechadrei Chareidim” was also notified that Rabbonim from the community, Harav Halperin Shlit”a and Harav Greenberg Shlit”a, met with the school principals and demanded that the torment of the girls stop. The principals responded that they would do everything in their power to rectify the situation.

“Bechadrei Chareidim” contacted the headmaster, that allegedly asked for money to accept the girls, and asked for a response.

The headmaster did not respond.

After waiting 12 hours for a response, “Bechadrei Chareidim” published the story.
After the story received much publicity the headmaster sent a response to “Bechadrei Chareidim”, “Let’s see if you have the courage to publish my response: Thank you for asking me to respond to your article. After reviewing your website, I came to the conclusion that your site is not ‘news’ nore ‘Chareidi’, and we do not wish to respond to the article you published. The people that read your site, and others that like it, are not looking for the truth; so let them believe whatever you feed them”.

“Bechadrei Chareidim” was told that there doesn’t seem to be a way out, other than giving in to the demand and paying the 700,000 NIS.

One of the Askanim involved shared with the writer of this article that, “the headmaster claims that he needs the money to open up new classes and hire new teachers, that’s why he is asking for the money”.

The British Jewish media was shocked to discover the story-which “Bechadrei Chareidim” exposed- and tried to get a response from the Chareidi community, and the school that is demanding the money.

As of now, none of the school’s faculty members agreed to comment.


A number of parents whose girls attend the three schools told “Bechadrei Chareidim”, “people here are sacred to speak with the local media because they fear that their name will leak out and their daughters will be thrown out of school. But they have no problem to be interviewed by the media in Israel”.

After the first article was published, dozens of parents and Askanim contacted the writer of this article and asked that he not relent from pursuing this story.

This article is a translated synopsis of the two articles that appeared on this story.

Translated By Eli B.

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