Agenda For Schools

Education Minister Yossi Sarid, Israel's liberal
hard.
mainstay, pushes his vision

Jerusalem

F

or Israel Education Minister
Yossi Sarid — long a back-
bone of Israel's political left
wing — Israel's schools are
where the action is at these days.
Speaking earlier this month to fel-
low education ministers and other del-
egates from over 180 countries, he
called for a "core curriculum based on
peace" in Middle East schools, includ-
ing Israel's. Israeli schools, he said,
were "eliminating any remnants of
anti-Arab rhetoric, including negative
stereotypes about Palestinians and
other Arabs" from their textbooks. He
then called on Arab schools to do the
same with their anti-Israeli material.
And, he added as a kicker, in his
short term as minister, "We have once
again made Arabic a compulsory lan-
guage in our schools' curriculum."
But asked later in an interview
about his plans for a "peace curricu-
lum," he was vague, saying only that
"peace hadn't exactly been emphasized
in Israeli schools over the years, and
this approach is anachronistic in the
current era."
Compulsory Arabic study was still
only a "goal," he added, explaining
that there weren't enough Arabic
teachers yet to implement the policy.
And so far, the only changes made in
Israeli textbooks regarding the Arabs
have appeared in three new, highly
publicized 9th-grade history books —
all of which were approved and read-
ied for use before Sarid took office.
Nevertheless, Sarid, leader of the
left-wing, secular Meretz party, is try-
ing to make high-profile, politically-
charged reforms in Israeli education,
in line with his political views. For
example, his proposal for next year's
education budget includes steep cuts
to nationalist Orthodox and ultra-
Orthodox cultural activities and sharp
increases for Israeli Arab education.
It's all the more interesting for on
the rest of its domestic policy, the
Barak government has basically put
the country to sleep. Pleading poverty,

NRP legislator said, the NRP will
leave the government.
Yet the NRP is not the only con-
servative political force whose causes
have fallen out of favor. Sarid also
played a key role in forcing the
Sephardi ultra-Orthodox Shas party
to open its debt-ridden religious
school system to financial and
administrative oversight. This already
has resulted in its closure of some 35
sparsely-attended schools.
In addition, Sarid strongly urged
Israeli schools to teach pupils about
the Israeli Border Police's 1956 mas-
sacre of 47 Israeli Arab civilians in the
village of Kafr Kassem. "Your agony is
our shame," he told Israel's Arabs.
"Leftist self-flagellation" was how
Likud officials described the initiative.
A stickier point are the three new
9th-grade history books that dispute
the traditional black-and-white view
of Israel's struggle against the Arabs in
the War of Independence. Orley,
acknowledging that they were
approved during the NRP's rule over
the education ministry, said they did-
n't come to anyone else's attention
until after Sarid had taken over.
"There is a great danger that they
will inculcate students with post-
Zionist attitudes, distort important
national values and shatter heroic
ideals which are vital to Jewish culture
in Israel," Orley said.
Adi Hershkovitz, who has headed
the Education Ministry's budget
department throughout the decade,
said Sarid intended to spend more
the past, to sit quietly for the changes.
money on classes in democratic citi-
And in fact, Sarid means to cut by
zenship and pluralistic Jewish educa-
one-third the budget for "Torah cul-
tion than his predecessors. In addi-
ture" — lectures, concerts, festivals
tion, Sarid has budgeted unprecedent-
and other extra-curricular activities
ed sums to bring Israeli Arab schools
sponsored by nationalist Orthodox
up to the level of Jewish ones.
organizations. According to Sarid, his
"Nobody ever spent this kind of
immediate predecessor, the NRP's
money on Arab sector education
Yitzhak Levy, had inflated this budget.
before," said Hershkovitz. "Every min-
So now, goes the logic, with all min-
ister has his own priorities, his own
istry expenditures under the knife, this
projects that he wants to push. [NRP
item had to be cut.
ministers] spent a lot of money on
NRP education committee repre-
and on boarding schools,
yeshivot
sentative Zvulun Orley said Sarid
many of which are religious. Those
also intended to slash classroom
were their priorities. Sarid has differ-
hours from the state religious
ent ones." I 1
schools. If Barak allows this, the

Photo by AP/Nati Harni k

LARRY DERFNER
Israel Correspondent

Yossi Sarid:
"The people voted
for change."

it says that until the budget deficit is
closed and economic growth restored,
the "change in the order of priorities"
promised in the election campaign
will have to wait.
Education, though, is one notable
exception. "The people voted for
change, and they want their children's
education to change. Nobody should
expect that an education minister
from Meretz is going to act like an
education minister from the National
Religious Party," Sarid said.
Neither, however, should anybody
expect the right-leaning Orthodox
NRP, which controlled the education
ministry under Likud governments of

•