Haaretz calls teaching Jewish heritage "racist" and "messianic" ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Monday, September 15, 2025

Haaretz calls teaching Jewish heritage "racist" and "messianic"

From an op-ed in Haaretz today about a program by Israel's Education Ministry to pay for security for school trips to Jewish heritage sites in Judea and Samaria:

But security is just an excuse. The school trips are part of Education Minister Yoav Kisch's Jewish identity reform. As part of his reform, principles are required to allocate a significant portion of the Pedagogical Management Flexibility budget (the pool of external programs approved by the ministry) to certain programs strengthening Jewish and Zionist identity.

None of the programs have any sort of pluralistic orientation. The Jewish identity that the ministry wants to encourage is messianic, racist and undemocratic.

There is a hyperlink for the phrase "messianic, racist and undemocratic" to a May article:

Education Minister Yoav Kisch presented a new plan Tuesday to strengthen Jewish and Zionist identity in school that includes increasing Jewish studies, making Bible study a core subject and requiring teacher training in Jewish heritage topics.

Nothing in that article says anything remotely close to claiming that this program is "messianic, racist and undemocratic." It is slanted against emphasizing Jewish heritage in schools but nowhere does it claim it is racist to teach it. Indeed, other Haaretz articles quote teachers who are against this program but who all agree that teaching Jewish heritage is important, just they are concerned about the impact on other subjects.

In the other articles in Haaretz about this program, it consistently translates the term "Tanakh" - meaning the Hebrew scriptures - as "Bible" and "Biblical," purposefully implying that Israel teaching students about their history in Hebrew scripture is like Western public schools teaching evangelical Christianity. But the Tanakh is Jewish history and heritage.

Also, when Haaretz says "None of the programs have any sort of pluralistic orientation" that is deceptive. Most of Israel's education budget goes towards teacher salaries and it gives mandates of the number of hours per week for various subjects like math or science under that aegis. That's a different budgetary bucket. So Israel does fund teaching about pluralism in existing civics and social studies classes; this budget item is for security in class trips when no security is needed for trips within the Green Line.

This is all consistent with Haaretz' main goal: it wants to de-Judaize Israel.