Yad L’Achim turned to Education Minister Naftali Bennet earlier this week demanding that he put an immediate halt to all contacts between his ministry and “A New Way,” the NGO that brought Jewish children from Caesarea to a mosque to bow down and pray in keeping with Islamic custom.
A New Way, which receives funding from the New Israel Fund, organized the class trip as part of its effort to promote “coexistence between Jews and Arabs.” The tour of the nearby Arab town of Jisr a-Zarka included a visit to the local mosque together with Muslim children of similar ages. Upon entering the mosque, the Jewish children participated in prayers and bowed down to the ground. According to Channel 20, which exposed the affair, several of the parents said their children had been required to participate in the ceremony.
Channel 20 also revealed that A New Way has being working hand in hand with the Education Ministry for the past 18 years, running its programs in a not insignificant number of schools. Now it is clear that the “innocent” attempt at promoting mutual understanding and respect leads to joint prayers in mosques.
Yad L’Achim officials, shocked by the pictures Jewish children bowing down at a mosque, sent an urgent missive to the education minister, who also serves as chairman of the Jewish Home party.
In their letter, Yad L’Achim’s leaders wrote: “Assimilation in Israel is masquerading as a yearning for multi-culturalism. Jewish identity, the backbone and core values of the Jewish people, is dealt a blow, here in Israel, out of a desire to show tolerance towards other religions. It begins with a bill to advance the “Holiday of Holidays” – legislating a joint celebration of Jewish, Muslim and Christian holidays in December – and continues with joint prayers in a mosque. If we don’t come to our senses, it will end, chalilah, with baptism. The Education Ministry must sever all ties with the NGO and forbid it from running programs in schools so that this kind of thing doesn’t happen again.”
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9 Responses
Sad story!
So it seems that the Satmar Rebbe zatza”l, the Divrei Yoel, called it years ago! This is terrible.
while IDF soldiers are forced to go to church “to learn about other religions”. Perhaps those who oppose some chareidi yeshivos will wake up and realize that joining the IDF is indeed gezeirs shmad!
There is a big difference between teaching all Israeli children about Islam and actually making them participate in Islamic prayer rituals. The need to educate is obvious given that the government has decided to pursue a single state solution where a million plus muslim Palestinians will be integrated into Israeli society. However there is NO need to actually have children participate in a “mock” Islamic prayer service as part of their learning experience. Some common sense would be helpful here.
And why aren’t they taking Moslem children to shules if this is to teach respect
Answer it’s to destroy the Jewish identity in isreal
What a deplorable travesty!
Nachum Sokoloff said it best: “Volt dos ‘am chacham v’navon’ nor a bissl seichel g’hat…”
the Zionists have always tried to take Jews away from Yiddishkeit now instead of the Marx/Herzl model they go to Mohamed.
How do they teach about adultery and mishkav zachar and mishkav behaima? Do they have hands on participation learning methods for those too?
#3 and #6,
They aren’t stupid, they’re reshaim!
Kol hakovod to the 3-5 children I see that are NOT fully bowing down! Presumably they are from secular families, and still (hopefully) their pintele Yid won’t let them do it. (Middle row: Red jacket sitting up, purple scarf lying on side, baseball cap up on hands and knees; behind back row: sitting up in front of chairs and possibly another beside him.) I wonder what the parents themselves say about such an excursion – hopefully it bothers them and they will say so.