In the Israeli public school system the categorization of a “Jewish school” does not exist, and as a result, schools are open to all who qualify regardless of one’s faith. They may be schools serving the Jewish or Arab sectors, but no “Jewish schools”.
That means according to the Ministry of Education, an Arab may attend a Jewish area school and vice versa. What is intended to be a system providing equal opportunity to all has become a vehicle promoting assimilation, as many children of African aliens and Russian goyim fill the nation’s public school system. There are many “Jews” in dati leumi schools who are not halachically Jewish or their Jewishness is in doubt, yet they sit alongside Jews, serve in the same army, and eventually, chas v’sholom marry one another R”L.
According to state law a public school must accept a student even if the student is not a Jew. Kol HaYehudi reports that the Chaim Nachman Bialik School in southern Tel Aviv has a significant student population of non Jews. In that school, a fight erupted between Arabs and Jews following the release of captive IDF soldier Gilad Shalit.
While Yad L’Achim and other organizations work to rescue women from Arab homes, the state funded education system essentially promotes assimilation and intermarriage. The result today, in the 21st century, public schools in most cities in Eretz Yisrael are host to student bodies comprised of Jews and goyim alike, including but not limited to Islamic and Christian Arabs.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
7 Responses
the government thinks they have to outdo America’s Melting Pot and create an Israeli Cholent Pot. Very disturbing.
The only benefit to this ridiculous system is that the Jewish, Mmamlachti dati schools, Shvu and other religious “lite” schools are increasing in magnitude and size.
Public schools are public schools just like in America they serve the population around the neighborhood. Private schools are also growing in popularity for the elite (?) clientelle.
The whole idea of zionism, from the outset, was to promote assimilation of Jews into secular western culture.
A secondary goal was to encourage undesirable (meaning Eastern European) Jews to settle someplace far away from the people who funded zionism (at the time the Ottoman Empire was well situated from the perspective of secular Jews in London, Berlin and Cinncinati).
That’s exactly the point of the m’dina!! Now that you know it, what will you do about it?
This post is misleading. There are multiple streams of state supported schools. The secular schools do not study religion, and all citizens are invited to attend. This is the same as it is in the US where the overwhelming majority of less affiliated Jews send their children to public schools.
However, unlike in the US there is FAR more support for yeshivot. Even the more expensive “private” chedarim are receiving the majority of their funding from the Ministry Of Education. My son’s yeshiva next year, which is a very strong center of limud torah, will cost me about 300-400 shekel a month.
One thing the Israeli government does fairly well is respect religious primary education. Let’s give credit where it is due.
Zionflag, “Public schools are public schools just like in America they serve the population around the neighborhood.”
This is only one small problem with Zionism. You cannot make a public school, **in a putatively Jewish country**, for everyone, and expect Jews to marry only Jews.
As others have noted, the Zionist intention was and is, instead, to create a post-Jewish Israeli. UNLIKE America or elsewhere, where many Jews, regardless of their level of observance, know they are an am livadad yishkon, Zionism rejects this and tries to change the Jew to, lihavdil, a Zionist who is also post-Jewish, and therefore their public schools are INTENDED to shmad their attendees, including leading to intermarriage, ch”V, whereas in America or elsewhere it’s far more innocuous and certainly not intentional shmad.
is there any news about that???
the whole idea of the state was for assimilation…