Israel is not America with "separation of church and state" so there is no excuse for this.
Israel Policy Center Defends Young Worshippers Rights
(IsraelNN.com) The Israel Policy Center (IPC), a public policy institute based in Jerusalem, has initiated steps that may take the issue of prayer in Israel's public schools to the courts. The IPC, through its attorney Itzhak Bam, sent letters to the mayor of Ramat Gan and the principal of a school in the city on Monday demanding that high-school students wishing to pray on campus during recess be allowed to do so. If not, the IPC warned, the next stop would be
There is no legislation that limits the freedom of religion of students in non-religious public schools.
seeking relief from the courts.
According to students in the Ohel Shem public high school in Ramat Gan, the administration has been prohibiting them from holding prayers on school grounds during breaks. Among the sanctions imposed or threatened by the school teachers and principal, the IPC discovered, were the prevention of prayers, disallowing students to take necessary exams, and expulsion. The students told the IPC that they were praying the afternoon prayer in empty classrooms and other non-disruptive areas during their own free time. According to Jewish Law, daily afternoon prayers are held in quorams of at least ten men aged 13 and above.
Dr. Yitzhak Klein, Director of the IPC, said, "This regulation violates basic democratic rights. Who would have imagined that it would be in the modern state of Israel that such rules against Jewish freedom of worship would be imposed?"