“It Infuriates Me, We Are Jews”: Pushback Against Religious Coercion and Religious Content in State Schools
Back to school in Petah Tikva, Reuven Castro
“The missionary effort to try to introduce prayers and Orthodoxy into secular schools infuriates me. Our basket is full and our Jewish identity is clear, even without the ‘Modeh Ani’ prayer every morning.”
With those words, a father from a kibbutz in the Golan described his anger after his 8-year-old son, a third-grade student at a state school in the Golan Heights, came home with illustrations of a boy reciting the “Modeh Ani” prayer, alongside the text of the prayer from Jewish identity lessons. The father stressed that, as an educator, he is not allowed to enter religious institutions, while the reverse is permitted and even intended to instill an Orthodox Jewish worldview. According to him, this is not the first time such content has been conveyed to the school’s students, and the parents do not intend to stand by and allow directives and outside bodies to change the educational values by which they chose to raise their children.
Following the incident and additional complaints from parents in state education, Itamar Kramer, director of the State Education Guard, sent a harsh letter to the chair of the Pedagogical Secretariat, Dr. Tali Yaniv, and to the head of the Elementary Education Division at the Ministry of Education, Hana Lalush. In the letter, which focuses on the activities of outside organizations that preach Orthodox religious belief in state schools, the organization reports on activities by nonprofits that promote an Orthodox religious outlook in a one-sided manner, under the guise of seemingly innocent educational work on “identity” and “tradition.”
Kramer noted that in the specific case that recently occurred at the school in the north, the activity was conducted by national service girls from the organization Al Ami, following additional cases at the same institution in which content with a clear religious and faith-based character was delivered under the auspices of bodies that do as they please, without proper supervision and without their agenda being examined.
At the State Education Guard, they warn that beyond the specific case, this is a broad problem occurring in many state schools and requires a systemic response.
The letter also clarifies that educational discussion of Jewish identity in all its shades, and strengthening heritage and tradition in line with the state education character, are permitted and desirable, but there is no place for activity intended to promote observance of commandments or change a student’s private beliefs. Kramer pointed out that according to the Ministry of Education’s official policy, based on the conclusions of the Shenhar Committee from 1994 and director general circulars, work on Jewish identity should reflect the range of beliefs in Israeli society and should not promote repentance, focusing on Judaism as a culture “not on the basis of faith and without observance of commandments.”
The organization emphasizes that violating these principles is especially striking given the current policy, since general state schools remain exposed to the entry of bodies with a clearly Orthodox religious character, while the same standard does not apply to the activity of liberal or secular bodies in state religious schools.
Accordingly, the State Education Guard calls on the ministry to intervene in the matter and not leave an ethical vacuum, to clarify the procedures regarding external programs, and to open an investigation specifically into national service girls operating in state schools under the sponsorship of organizations with a declared faith-based agenda.
