The Associated Press reports from Jerusalem:

Parents of European, or Ashkenazi, descent at a girls’ school in the West Bank settlement of Emanuel don’t want their daughters to study with schoolgirls of Mideast and North African descent, known as Sephardim.

The Ashkenazi parents insist they aren’t racist, but want to keep the classrooms segregated, as they have been for years, arguing that the families of the Sephardi girls aren’t religious enough…

Most of the demonstrators were men wearing the long beards and heavy black clothing typical among ultra-Orthodox Jews. “The Supreme Court is fascist,” said one poster.

Esther Bark, 50, who has seven daughters, said the issue is keeping the girls away from the temptations of the modern world. “To suddenly put them in an open-minded place is not good for them,” she said.