At the front of the class acting out a poem.

Values

The Hebrew educational system is actually many decades older than the State of Israel. At the time of the declaration of independence, a sophisticated network of schools, run primarily by the different ideological factions of the Yishuv, flourished. The first Prime Minister, the legendary David Ben Gurion, saw the danger in the babelization of Israeli society and was determined to institute a uniform curriculum which would erase differences and create a ‘melting pot’. Ben Gurion, who believed in “Do what I say AND what I do” essentially oversaw the dismantling of his own Labour Movement’s faction in education; a network of schools with a well-defined Jewish socialist basis, whose graduates formed the Hagana and the Palmach. Ben Gurion was also concerned that the existence of what was viewed as a politically-affiliated leftist system would spur the establishment of rightist systems and further split Israeli society. In essence, the price of uniform State education was paid by the Labor Movement educational system, since coalitionary pressures of the time and of today, keep the original religious schools alive, as well as the independent schools of the ultra-orthodox. The Education Ministry works hard to inculcate values of democracy, pluralism and tolerance in the public schools. Democracy is commonly defined to mean equal rights for all, in a system that accords supreme authority to the Knesset and the Courts.

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