s Classroom׳ Wars The religious right’s attempt to overtake secular education in Israel

June 2017 Israel’s Classroom Wars 2

In June 2017, Molad published an in-depth report on the infiltration of religious nonprofit organizations - ideologically affiliated with the religious right and politically aligned with party – into Israel’s State school system. The report was covered extensively in the Israeli press and generated a heated public debate. While the report itself is currently available only in Hebrew, the following introduction provides relevant context and analysis. The introduction is followed by some key findings from the report.

Introduction

„They will take over the children, and far removed from current habits, which their parents possess, they will bring them up in their own ways and laws„

Plato, Republic1

This report is the outcome of an investigation by Molad into the means by which a small group of Israelis – who see themselves as the country’s spiritual and political avant-garde – have undertaken to reshape the national, cultural, moral and civic identity of the general Jewish public in Israel to suit their worldview. To that end, this group has chosen the State school system (i.e., the general public schools, attended by 60% of students) as the target of an organized takeover, which it justifies on the grounds that the children of the secular majority in Israel are suffering from an alarming depletion of values and identity2. Based on a simplistic, superficial understanding of global trends and processes within Israeli society, many on the religious right assume that Jewish identity and Israeli patriotism cannot be sustained without the ideological foundations of religious . For example, this is how Itay Garnek, the director of a prominent organization dedicated to re-educating secular Israeli children, describes his mission: Israel’s Classroom Wars 3

“The postmodern age poses various challenges to the identity of the individual. While progress has made the world a global village, the advantages of the culture we live in are countered by significant flaws, chief among them being loss of identity. There is profound ignorance of the values and fundamental concepts of Jewish culture – sadly, across all sectors of Israeli society. To counter this lack of knowledge and weakening of identity, centers for Jewish identity have been established throughout the country. They offer activities in more than 800 preschools, primary schools and high schools, for children and teens from all walks of Israeli life.”3

When Granek laments public ignorance of Jewish culture, what he is really railing against is that most Israelis do not accept the interpretation of Jewish culture proffered by . One does not need to read between the lines to realize that, according to Granek, the moral corruption that he sees in Israeli society stems from the fact that most Jewish- Israelis are secular. The Jewish culture that he wishes to instill in the public does not include the likes of Spinoza, Mendelssohn, Bashevis-Singer, Nelly Sachs, Freud or Arendt. The rich Hebrew culture that has developed in Israel and elsewhere over decades of intellectual and creative output is equally ruled out as a solution for the loss of identity that Granek believes is rampant. By definition, the only worthy Jewish identity is religious Zionism. Ahad Ha’am, Berdichevsky, Yosef Haim Brenner, Leah Goldberg and Hanoch Levin cannot fill the “moral void” that, according to Minister of Agriculture on behalf of the Jewish Home party, Uri Ariel, is plaguing secular Israel. Yet neither can the Chazon Ish, Rabbi Shach, Abraham Heschel or Abraham Geiger model a healthy Jewish identity. Only religious Zionism can provide a sustainable Israeli identity – despite this community’s failure to inspire even its own younger generation.4 Indeed, the battle that is waged today in Israeli classrooms under the banner of “Jewish identity” is actually a battle over the meaning of Israeli identity. According to the worldview that Granek and his associates are working hard to promote, even if the general public does not join the fold of religious Zionism, it must at least acknowledge the spiritual, moral and, ultimately, political superiority of this community and allow it to run the country.

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The assumption that Jewish Israelis are in a moral crisis stems from the failure of religious Zionism to fulfil its ultimate goal – settling the land of Greater Israel and, above all, instilling faith in this messianic vision in the public at large.5 The settlers were supposed to be an avant-garde that would enthuse the masses; fifty years on, they remain a small minority. Public opinion polls, as well as the general response to dramatic political moves, have shown time and again that the Israeli public does not share the messianic worldview of the settler movement. The leaders of the religious right see the public indifference to the theological meaning of Jewish statehood – manifested primarily in willingness to forgo territory for worldly gains such as security or a healthier economy – as unequivocal proof of an identity crisis in need of fixing.

The rapid infiltration of dozens of religious Zionist organizations into the State school system must be understood in the context of the longstanding effort to ‘settle in the hearts’ of the public, which the settler movement has been trying – and failing – to bring to fruition since the 1980s. The idea of settling in hearts (rather than, or alongside, settling the land) was born of the religious Zionist sector’s disappointment when the public was prepared to relinquish land as part of the peace treaty with Egypt. This disillusionment continued to grow throughout the peace process with the Palestinians, the 2005 disengagement from Gaza, and the evacuation of illegal outposts in the . At least since the shock of the withdrawal from Sinai in 1979, the settlers have lived in fear of the day that their massive project to reclaim the West Bank (and, formerly, Gaza) will be annihilated, due to what the religious right sees as materialism, self-interestedness and downright indifference on the part of most Israelis. As far back as 1984, Yoel Bin Nun, a of the messianic settler movement , wrote:

“The domain in which outcomes will be decided is the hearts of the people and the public-political mood. That realm may be tougher than land and construction, but it is where the decisions will be made, nonetheless… The main conclusion I drew from the destruction of Yamit6 was that we cannot succeed without support from the vast majority of the people… It is ridiculous to assume that any number of people [i.e., settlers] or houses can serve as a guarantee.”7 Israel’s Classroom Wars 5

Rabbi Yaakov Ariel, an influential religious Zionist leader, wrote in 1986 that “one of the most painful disappointments in the battle for Yamit was that so few [Jewish-Israelis] who do not define themselves as religious took part”.8 In 1990, Meir Harnoy, who headed the Samaria Regional Council in the early 1980s, wrote an article titled “Without the Hearts of the People, We Won’t Have the Heart of Samaria”.9 In 1992, Bin Nun warned his friends again: “If the people of Israel identify with our mission, the number of houses will not matter; and if, Heaven forbid, they do not want our settlements, numbers will not help.”10

Disappointment with public indifference to the plight of the settlers was to recur when the were signed in the 1990s, and again when the religious right underwent a reckoning following the withdrawal from Gaza in 2005. In the months prior to the withdrawal, the country was flooded with orange ribbons symbolizing opposition to the disengagement plan. The campaign against the plan was waged under the slogan, “We have love and it will triumph” – a tribute to the belief of the pro-state school of religious Zionism that “engaging” with the general public or “settling in their hearts” would avert the disaster. According to researcher Eitan Alimi, the strategy of the Gush Katif Action Committee was “to fight for the hearts of the people, engage with the people, engage with the Israeli public as an alternative to the disengagement.”11 In a document published in June 2004, the committee noted that “the real power lies with the masses… [the movement] must disseminate the notion that it is broadly supported by regular Israelis”.12

The high point of the public protest, in which hundreds of thousands participated, was a mass march from the town of Netivot in southern Israel to the Kisufim checkpoint on the border with Gaza. The goal was to get tens of thousands of activists into the Gush Katif settlement bloc, which was already under military lockdown, to prevent evacuation with sheer presence. The march was stopped by security forces about halfway, at Kfar Maimon. The activists remained there, surrounded by forces, for three days, at which point the heads of the Yesha Council (the umbrella settler organization), together with an ad hoc forum of rabbis, ordered them to disperse. The decision to leave rather than confront the security forces was a watershed moment in the fight against the disengagement, and in fact in the entire history of religious Zionism in Israel.13 In keeping with the characteristic approach of settler movement mainstream, the dramatic decision at Kfar Maimon combined the principle of avoiding division among Jews (Rabbi Drukman: “If I threaten the cohesion of the People of Israel, I threaten the as a whole”) with the tactical-instrumental considerations not to Israel’s Classroom Wars 6

turn the general public against the settlers. (Pinchas Wallerstein: “If the People of Israel hate us – we will lose all of Judea and Samaria”).14 For many on the religious right, dispersing the march proved that the settlers and their supporters lacked the power to shape reality without massive public support. As Eliashiv Reichner wrote, four years later:

“The march that was supposed to proceed from Kfar Maimon in the direction of Gush Katif was given the tribal name ‘To the rescue of our heroic brothers’. It epitomized the painful reality – that, in the end, the fight against uprooting Gush Katif mattered only to the religious Zionist sector. The symbolic bonfire around which we gathered in Kfar Maimon was nice and warm, but without breaking through the boundaries of the tribe, there was no chance of breaking through Kisufim checkpoint. The people who were there, at Kfar Maimon, created an uplifting religious Zionist atmosphere, but it was the masses who were not there that decided the outcome.”15

The sense of isolation and betrayal that permeated the religious right after the disengagement was captured in a particularly poignant passage by Rabbi Benny Lau, an influential religious Zionist leader:

“On Thursday, the 27th of Av [September 1st], a national funeral service was held at the HaMashbir square in for the dead of Gush Katif who were uprooted from their resting place. On my way there, I passed through the pedestrian walkway on Ben Yehuda Street. Just three minutes away, but it’s like you’re in another world. Not the world of versus the world of Jerusalem. In downtown Jerusalem, nearby, visible, within earshot. The eulogies being read out on loudspeakers could clearly be heard along the street, but the cafes stayed open, the buskers kept on playing, and hundreds of young men and women Israel’s Classroom Wars 7

reveled with each other. In the square, the sons and daughters of religious Zionism were milling about, with almost no sign of Haredi Jews or the secular public. It was an internal affair, held by a group convinced that they are on a mission on behalf of the public – except that the public doesn’t know it. That was just one of many episodes in recent months. The struggle to settle the Land of Israel has become an in-group matter, and those fighting for the Land of Israel have become a threat to the free, democratic, humane state of Israel. As if the residents of Gush Katif were not sent there from the very heart of the Israeli consensus, but from some odd messianic space. What does a passerby think? Their life is not my life, their dead are not my dead, their dream is not my dream.”16

As Lau captured so evocatively, the religious Zionists see themselves as emissaries of the people – yet are slowly realizing that the people are not following in their footsteps. That is why, in the twelve years that have gone by since the disengagement, the religious Zionist establishment has increased efforts to sway the general public in favor of its messianic mission. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that State schools have been targeted: mass indoctrination usually begins with the most susceptible members of society – children and teenagers.

As described in this report, Israel’s Ministry of Education has left the teaching of content related to Jewish values and identity in State schools to ideologues on the religious right. The significant leeway afforded to these nonprofits within the State school system is a gross breach of the fundamental agreement on which the Israeli education system is based. In the 1950s, soon after the state was established, the education system was divided into four relatively independent streams, in order to meet the needs of Israel’s four major communities: State schools, State-religious schools, ultra-Orthodox schools, and Arab schools. The assumption was that these sectors differ so vastly on core issues that, at least as regards ideology, each community must be permitted to educate its children in the spirit of its core values. For example, the State-religious school system, which grew out of the Hamizrachi movement Israel’s Classroom Wars 8

education system, is headed by a rabbinic council and by government-appointed religious Zionist educators. The council oversees the curricula and educational principles of this entire network of schools. In recent years, the basic understanding that every community in Israel has the right to educate its children in light of its values has been violated. The religious Zionist establishment is increasingly gaining control over educational content in State schools, using an array of nonprofits ideologically aligned with religious Zionism and, in particular, with the Jewish Home party.

This has been made possible by a swift, deliberate of education relating to Jewish identity in State schools. The privatization has left behind it a professional, financial and organizational vacuum that rightwing nonprofits are quick to fill. The result is that the discussion of values in State schools is currently being led by instructors sent by private organizations, most of them young women volunteering for national service (a civilian alternative popular among young women exempted from military service on religious grounds). It is these untrained individuals, operating on behalf of a political agenda, who are increasingly fulfilling the role of teachers and educators in shaping the moral, spiritual and civic worldview of Israeli children.

The worldview that the organizations reviewed in this report wish to inculcate in secular Jewish children is very different from that of their parents. Most of these parents – and often even the teachers and principals – have no clue that this political indoctrination is underway in their children’s classrooms. Under the ambiguous guise of ‘Jewish identity’, schools are being inundated with the ideas of a minority that makes up a mere 11% of Jewish Israelis. Despite the predominance of religious Zionism in contemporary Israeli politics, most contemporary Jews do not identify with this group, and its national-religious interpretation of Judaism is a far cry from the worldview of other, more prominent, Jewish groups. Nevertheless, this niche segment of Israeli society has managed to position itself as the ultimate authority on Jewish identity, virtually monopolizing education in this area in State schools, which their own children do not attend.

Needless to say that a secular or pluralistic organization trying to discuss Jewish identity in a State-religious school would come up against a brick wall. Although Israel’s Zionist majority is predominantly secular, its worldview is strictly out of bounds in the State-religious school system. Therefore, the activities described cannot be justified as a kosher attempt to expose children to different ways of being Jewish or to bring different communities closer Israel’s Classroom Wars 9

communities. The heads of organizations such as Zehut or Bereshit have no wish to teach children from religious Zionist families about other forms of Judaism. No: they are out to redeem secular children from the hollow, worthless existence that awaits them. This is not mutual movement towards each other, seeking to connect over common ground. Instead, the secular Jewish majority is expected to abandon its soulless way of life and adopt the views of the religious Zionist minority, whose cup overfloweth with meaning.17

This travesty is compounded by the fact that it is only possible due to two major advantages that religious Zionist community enjoys: an exemption for young women from military service, and extensive access to public funds. As national service volunteers, these young women are sent in to schools to shape the civic understanding of girls who are not much younger than themselves, yet will not have the privilege of shirking military service. Meanwhile, the organizations in charge receive substantial public funding, both directly and indirectly. As a result, to a large extent, Israel’s secular majority is financing the re-education of its children at the hands of religious Zionist ideologues.

The processes described here have garnered considerable criticism in recent years. Concerned parents have formed action groups in order to remove these nonprofits from State schools. Calls have emerged for establishing an independent secular schools system.18 These attempts face several obstacles. First, it is difficult to bring together parents across the country who randomly encounter this issue in their child’s classroom, without an organizational framework. Second, the scope of this indoctrination project is so large that the sheer variety of organizations involved makes it difficult to understand the overall picture – especially as these groups go to great lengths to hide their political agenda. While religious ideas are frequently included, the overarching overall aim is not proselytization (i.e., drawing secular children closer to religious observance). Rather, it is to reshape the way in which the secular majority views its Israeli identity, in accordance with the tenets of religious Zionism. Using the catchphrase ‘Jewish identity’, which burst upon the scene some twenty years ago, to open doors into educational settings, this network of organizations has essentially turned State schools into a battlefield over what it means – spiritually, culturally, politically – to be Israeli.

“But what’s wrong with learning about Judaism?” Nothing – in principle. In reality, these Israel’s Classroom Wars 10

organizations are not teaching our children about the diversity and richness of Jewish culture over the centuries. They are extending the political project to ‘settle in hearts’ into our schools. This is possible because they have many more resources than the average teacher, who is usually busy disciplining or preparing students for exams. They rely on demagoguery and on social pressure in various forms, to which children and teens are especially susceptible. This exploitation of State schools as a platform for propagandizing, using students as a captive audience, blatantly betrays parents’ trust and the role of the Education Ministry, including the minister at its helm. Just as religious Zionists have a school system to educate their children as they see fit, parents who send their children to State schools are entitled to seeing the children educated in accordance with their basic values, which, in a public school system, are naturally diverse.

The operative conclusion of this study is unequivocal: The privatization of teaching relating to Jewish identity in State schools must be stopped. Jewish education must be reclaimed from religious rightwing nonprofits and placed back in the hands of trained teachers, so that parents can entrust their children to a state system that upholds their basic values.

Many parents are feeling increasingly helpless over this political infiltration of their children’s schools. Yet they are the ones who have the power to stop this process. The organizations discussed in this report are highly aware of parents’ power to remove them from schools, and implore their young volunteers to “walk on eggshells” when speaking to students for fear of parental wrath. This report aims to expose parents to what is going on in their children’s schools, in order to help them organize and use their unique power to make Israel’s state schools public again.

Key findings:

Extensive extra-parliamentary network. The religious rightwing nonprofits currently operating in Israel’s State schools are part of a massive civil society network established by the Jewish Home party to expand its electorate. Much like religious community centers (‘Garinim Toranim’) and military programs (‘Yeshivot ’), these organizations serve as unofficial branches of the party, propagandizing on its behalf and providing organizational Israel’s Classroom Wars 11

support. Like other Jewish Home branches, they survive on massive public funds channelled to them by well-placed officials. Naturally, the heads of these nonprofits are closely tied to party leaders. Under two Jewish Home MKs (Minister and, Deputy Minister Avi Wortzman before him) – the Education Ministry budget for Jewish culture grew by some 40%. Of this, 94% went directly to the nonprofits described above – leaving organizations promoting a pluralistic approach to Judaism to fight over the remaining crumbs.

More Jewish values, less science and democracy. In the 2015 budget of the Ministry of Education, informal Jewish education was allocated 17 times more than science studies and 119 times more than activities promoting democracy and coexistence. Apparently, the steady decline in Israeli students’ achievements in technology is no cause for concern. In addition, students in settlements consistently receive more funding than in any area in Israel proper, including the Negev and the Galilee.

Privatization of civic education. The religious rightwing infiltration of State schools has been made possible by a deliberate privatization of education for values and civic identity. This left a convenient vacuum easily filled by available informal activities. Other organizations cannot compete with the cheap or often free services offered by the religious nonprofits described here. In fact, schools enjoy these low-cost services thanks to backdoor funding by the taxpayer: these nonprofits rely almost entirely on national service volunteers (primarily young women exempted from military service on religious grounds). Moreover, they directly receive much more public funding than other nonprofits in education, with many criteria for eligibility tailored to their specific profile.

Controversial content. The Ministry of Education does not supervise subject matter taught in classrooms by private organizations. This allows the national service volunteers serving as instructors to overstep their boundaries and foray into subjects they are neither authorized nor trained to teach. For example, they teach special classes on the national memorial day for Yitzhak Rabin, or sex education “in the spirit of Judaism”. The content they are officially permitted to teach is not supervised, either. For instance, preschoolers have been exposed to controversial political messages such as the importance of building the Third Temple. The directors of these organizations claim that their goal is to teach children to associate religious Zionism with political superiority – with an eye to future battles over the character and borders of Israel. Israel’s Classroom Wars 12

Flagship project of the settler movement. Of the myriad organizations involved in this campaign, the most successful has been the Israeli Routes Odyssey (“Masa Yisraeli”) – an initiative that has, to date, taken more than 100,000 students in the 11th grade from some 200 schools on experience-oriented trips around Israel. The state has generously backed the project with more than of 100 million NIS (or 28 million USD), and the Education Ministry has usefully classified it as the “sole provider” of such services. Thanks to this massive financing, few schools can withstand the appeal of such a low-cost “educational” activity for teens.

Ideological indoctrination. Thanks to artful blurring of the organizational foundations of the Israeli Routes Odyssey, most of the program’s advocates are unaware of its clear political agenda. Its founders include Rabbi Mordechai (Moti) Elon, a leading figure on the religious right, and Avi Wortzman of the Jewish Home, formerly the deputy minister of education. Students are taken on journeys around Israel and the West Bank to supposedly connect with their Jewish and communal identity, while being inundated with the ideological agenda of the national religious movement.

The major practical conclusion of this study is that Israel’s State schools must eject the nonprofits that have taken over the informal education of our children. Trained educators must be reinstated as the authority on Jewish, civic and moral subject matter, so that parents can know in whose care they are entrusting their children’s education. Israel’s Classroom Wars 13

Notes

1. Plato, Republic, trans. C.D.C Reeve (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2004).

2. Israel’s education system is divided into 4 separate school systems: State (Mamlachti); State-religious (Mamlachti-dati); Independent (i.e., ultra-orthodox); and Arab.

3. Itay Garnek, the executive director of ZEHUT – Centers for Deepening the Jewish Identity: http://www.zehut.co.il/%D7%90%D7%95%D7%93%D7%95%D7%AA/#abou (Hebrew).

4. See Michael Zalba, “Demography of Religiosity”, Chotam, http://www.chotam.org.il/media/37347/demography-of-religiosity.pdf (Hebrew).

5. It is important to note that not all Israelis who define themselves as religious Zionists, in terms of lifestyle and beliefs, participate in – or even support – the activities described in this report. However, the organizations running this operation are doing so in the name of religious Zionist values; their staff identify with this worldview; and their activity is largely made possible thanks to a that represents this sector of society. Nonetheless, many individuals and other organizations are opposed to this trend and even work to advance a more pluralistic and tolerant approach. By and large, these entities do not enjoy the same resources allocated to nonprofits that are closely affiliated with the religious and political leadership of religious Zionism in Israel.

6. An Israeli settlement in the Sinai Peninsula dismantled in 1982 as part of Israel’s peace agreement with Egypt.

7. Yoel Bin-Nun, “In Defense of Security and Faith and Against Weeping”, Nekuda, March 1984, 84, pp. 10-11 (Hebrew).

8. Yaakov Ariel, “Extremism Has Harmed the Struggle”, Nekuda, April 1986, 98, pp. 42 (Hebrew).

9. Meir Harnoy, “Without the Hearts of the People, We Won’t Have the Heart of the Shomron”, Nekuda, October 1990, 144 (Hebrew).

10. Yoel Bin Nun, “We Failed to Settle in the Hearts”, Nekuda, April 1992, 158, pp. 30 (Hebrew).

11. Eitan Alimi, Between Engagement and Disengagement Politics − The Settlers’ Struggle Against the Disengagement Plan and Its Consequences, Resling, 2013, pp. 42 (Hebrew).

12. Ibid., pp. 98.

13. Anat Roth, “Religious Zionism in the test of state responsibility: From Kfar Maimon to Amona”, in: The Disengagement Plan: An Idea Shattered, ed. Yaacov Bar-Siman-Tov, The Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies, 2009, http://en.jerusaleminstitute.org.il/.upload/publications/diseng2009.pdf. Israel’s Classroom Wars 14

(Full text available in Hebrew here: http://jerusaleminstitute.org.il/.upload/publications/heb/diseng2009_heb.pdf).

14. Quotes by Rabbi Drukman and Pinchas Wallerstein freely translated from the Hebrew in Roth, “Religious Zionism in the test of state responsibility: From Kfar Maimon to Amona”, pp. 56.

15. Elyashiv Reichner, “We’re From the Same Village”, NRG, July 5, 2009, http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART1/912/044.html (Hebrew).

16. Rabbi Benny Lau, Nekuda, September 2005, 285.

17. For a recent example, see Or Kashti, “Israel to Pay Religious Families to Host Secular Guests for Shabbat Dinner”, Ha’aretz, June 10, 2017, http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.794675.

18. For example, see Ram Fruman, “Israel Needs a Separate State-secular Education System”, Ha’aretz, May 4, 2015, http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.654762. www.molad.org