I received the following from Manhigut Yehudit.

Re-education in Israel's Courts
-- A 15 Year Old Girl remains in Prison

Re-education is the application of coercive techniques to change the beliefs or behavior of one or more people, usually for political or religious purposes. Re-education is generally associated with dictatorial regimes or religious cults. But it is alive and well in Israel's court system.

Oriyah Shirel is a 15 year old girl who lives in Hebron. She is a typical "settler" teenager, busy with school and social events while devoting much of her time to help strengthen the Jewish hold on the Land of Israel. A week and a half ago, Oriyah was arrested at a demonstration in the Jewish Quarter of Hebron. Initially, no charges were pressed against her. The judge ordered to free Oriyah on bail. Oriyah refused to take part in the farce. "I did nothing wrong," she said, "and there is no reason for me to sign on bail and thus recognize the court system that consistently fights against me and my ideals." The judge sent Oriyah back to her jail cell.

Oriyah was held in jail for the next week with no charges pressed against her. In other words, any citizen in Israel can be arrested for no reason and held in jail indefinitely simply because he does not recognize the authority of the court system. "If you sign and recognize our authority," the judges essentially explain, "you can go free. If not, we have methods to help you to understand." In Oriyah's case, those methods included revoking her rights to speak with her parents on the phone and eventually separating her from her friends and sending her to a filthy solitary cell in a prison reserved for drug dealers and other sordid characters. The bottom line is that Oriyah, a minor,
was imprisoned to force her to change her opinions and ideals. In plain English, that's called re-education.

After Oriyah was in prison for a week, the prosecution came up with a charge sheet. Oriyah was charged with unruly behavior in a public place. The police claimed that they had a video proving the charge. Oriyah and her father (Manhigut Yehudit's Educational Director, Dovid Shirel) insisted
that Oriyah did nothing wrong.

"Furthermore," they added, "the court is not neutral, but rather has an agenda of its own. The court's agenda is to fight against our ideals and to coerce us to accept its worldview. While we have simply our Jewish faith on our side, the court has an entire system of judges, police and prisons to force us to accept its dictates. There is a struggle today in Israel between those people who want a Jewish state and those who want it to be totally secular. The place for that struggle is not in the courts. The court has no authority to force its agenda upon us."

In an unexpected turn of events, the prosecution admitted that they had no video or any other means to prove that Oriyah had committed a crime. Nevertheless, the judge ruled that Oriyah will remain in prison until she is willing to sign on bail. With astounding candor she wrote that:

1. There is no direct proof that Oriyah did anything illegal.




2. The reason for Oriyah's imprisonment is her refusal to recognize the authority of the court.




3. Oriyah will remain in jail until she signs on bail.

The honorable judge's written decision concurs in black and white with Oriyah's claim. The name of the game is re-education.

Oriyah is now back in prison. Not because she committed a crime. She is there simply because the court's re-education project has not yet been successful. Oriyah is a strong girl and has a solid support system of family and friends. With G-d's help, she will be fine. What is not fine is the fact that Israel's ruling elite is using the court system to oppress and re-educate Israel's Jewish majority.

One of Manhigut Yehudit's major goals is to replace Israel's judicial oligarchy with true Jewish justice. We will continue to explore this issue in an upcoming article.

Click here for a live interview with Dovid Shirel, Oriyah's father.