Haaretz’s Or Kashti on the rightwing religious takeover of the Ministry of Education
http://mondoweiss.net/2015/09/rightwing-religious-education
I think one of the most fundamental aspects of the Israeli education system is segregation. Maybe people abroad don’t realize how the degree to which the education system is segregated. It is segregated into 37% secular Jewish, 20% Arab, 25% ultra-Orthodox and 18% Orthodox. Just for comparison, 20 years ago secular students made up 70% of the system.
The decision of separation is one of the earliest laws in Israel. It passed in 1953, just five years after independence. This law granted huge autonomy and authority to the religious community. This autonomy we can see not only in economics, but mainly with questions of how we teach and what it included and excluded from curriculum. It’s not this minister or that minister. It’s granted and fully affirmed by Israeli law.
The third group which has become increasingly prominent over the last 25 years are the ultra-Orthodox Jews. We are speaking about a very varied and cluster-like organization. They are all Orthodox, whether they are Ashkenazim or Sephardim. They have gained momentum since the beginning of the 1990s, when the ultra-Orthodox parties gained influence in the Israeli government. Now they comprise 25% of first grade students in Israel. The vast majority of these ultra-Orthodox pupils receive 100% from the state, though some of them get a bit less – around 75%, and a few get even less, in exchange for broader autonomy not to teach sciences or similar subjects.
The fourth group is the Arab population. If you talk to an average Israeli Jew, he’ll tell you all Arabs are the same. So I must apologize for combining Muslims, Christians, Druze and Bedouins, but it’s not my fault – this is the view of the MOE. For the MOE, they are all Arabs; they are all non-Jews, although there is a bit of internal debate within the MOE. The non-Jewish group comprises 20-25% of the population.
I want to postscript this OP with a grim reminder of how there are attempts to stifle freedom of thought by those that want to silence any criticism against Israel. It happens often, and there are some unscrupulous individuals in the world that want to label anything critical of Israel human rights abuses, illegal settlements, destruction of Palestinian or Bedouin property...even murder of Palestinians as either hate speech or anti-Semitism.
They can't win against BDS. They can't win against peace. They can't win against history.
But they will try to do everything in their power to attempt to silence the truth.
