The cursed question

The critical and suspicious reception given to the Education Ministry's program for bolstering Jewish studies in educational institutions reveals some of the complexity and internal contradictions that characterize Israeli society. From the first day of the national movement, education was a focus of raging cultural wars in all the Zionist Congresses, and was called "The cursed question." It seems that we still have not managed to free ourselves of the associations that the subject of Jewish education raises in various layers of Israeli consciousness, and cannot avoid the religious-secular debate it provokes on the ideological, budgetary and political levels.

The very proposal to enhance Jewish cultural studies in educational institutions is praiseworthy. Every nation transmits its cultural heritage to the next generation, and Judaism has a rich culture and has contributed significantly to the cultural heritage of humanity at large. The fear and criticism of teaching Judaism does not stem from the subject itself, but from the vulgar way it has been used to wage an aggressive struggle to shape Israel's public domain and its values, to grab larger chunks of public funding, and to gain political power based on opposition to civic and democratic education, along with disregard for other cultures.

	Students participating in the Haifa University preparatory program.
	Photo by: Yaron Kaminsky

The critical responses to the program show that secular culture in Israel has not yet managed to free itself of feelings of inferiority toward religious culture, and feels a need for a competitive struggle to prove its value. The feeling of insecurity in the encounter with traditional Jewish culture is an acknowledgment of the religious claims on Jewish culture.

Had this not been the sentiment among secular Israelis, they should have welcomed the Education Ministry's initiative to teach the values of religious Jewish tradition, the culture of our forefathers. Getting to know the prayer book, which has accompanied our people for centuries, or the Torah portion of the week with its different and varied interpretations, are excellent educational tools if used with an open mind by teachers in secular schools who will not necessarily be religious teachers seeking to turn their students into observant Jews.

The same is true for the plan to teach the Ethics of the Fathers and Theodor Herzl's "Altneuland." A long time ago, in the Labor movement school in the Jezreel Valley, the source of secularism of the farming settlements, the avowedly secular teacher Dr. Eliezer Kagan taught us The Ethics of the Fathers. In one lesson he compared the proposal to avoid extremes and choose the middle path as it appears in the Ethics of the Fathers, and the concept of the "golden way" in classical Greek culture. Studying Jewish culture in the context of the cultures of the ancient Near East, and getting to know the Koran and New Testament, will make a significant contribution to Israeli education, open new horizons and fire the imaginations of students who might finally not fear the Jewish religious tradition and no longer feel inferior to their religious colleagues.

As for the concern that the program will create alienation and indoctrinate secular students, that depends on who will teach and how, and not on the content. On the contrary, it can be expected that acquaintance with the traditional heritage of Jewish culture will free students and their parents from alienation from a central part of their culture, once they get to know its treasures and the different ways they can be read, not necessarily according to the Orthodox approach, which also allows for different interpretations.

 

The writer is a professor of education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.