Education Minister Yossi Sarid has once more explicitly
stated his ministry's plans. In his remarks in the Knesset
plenum, he said that he aims to carry out preferential
treatment for the Israeli Reform and Conservative movements,
which he believes have until now have been discriminated
against by the Education Ministry. They are to receive much
more support than in the past.
Sarid, who responded to a parliamentary question posed by MK
Rabbi Gafni of UTJ, adamantly stressed that Jewish studies in
the state schools will be taught by secular and pluralistic
teachers, not by teachers with chareidi or even state-
religious educational outlooks.
Sarid stated, "In recent years, secular organizations and non-
Orthodox `religious' organizations were discriminated against
in a conspicuous, intolerable manner in the Education
Ministry. I am not the disciple of the former ministers.
There is a new government, and it has been elected according
to law. It has declared that it is a government of change,
not a continuation government. The Education Ministry also
has a surprise: change! Those organizations, whose work I
highly respect, have been discriminated against. I intend to
prefer them. This time, I will try to help all those who
weren't helped in the past, and hope that I will have the
means to do so. These organizations include secular ones
teaching Judaism and doing outstanding work, and they are the
most sought after organizations in the secular school system.
That's what they're asking for, and their work is highly
valued in the schools. I assume that the bulk of the work in
the State secular schools will be done by such
organizations."
Rabbi Moshe Gafni warned against this plan, and protested
against it. "You are declaring, at the outset, that you are
sanctioning the teaching of Judaism in the secular schools
not by Orthodox teachers, but by the Reform and the
Conservative, who have caused a cataclysm to our people in
the United States, where assimilation has reached alarming
proportions: something which, we are happy to say hasn't
occurred in Israel. Do you mean to say that they are the ones
who should teach Judaism in Israel? Are you saying that a
first grader in a state school doesn't have to know anything
about authentic Judaism, about Judaism as it was received on
Har Sinai? Is that what you want? Do you want to bring those
impostors who caused the catastrophe in America here?"
Rabbi Gafni repeatedly demanded that children in the secular
school system be given an authentic Jewish education. Sarid
replied: "They'll learn Judaism the way we understand it, and
in accordance with our outlook."
