Israel: Unsuccessful and Limited Multicultural Education

Abstract

The paper questions whether the limited multicultural practices implemented in Israel towards sectors of the Jewish collective and those implemented towards the Palestinian minority can indeed be considered as liberalising processes. After some short historical consideration regarding the shaping of Israel’s multicultural policy, the ingroup and outgroup multicultural practices in Israel will be discussed, as these are reflected in a variety of theoretical and empirical sources, related to curriculum and language policies. The paper ends with a critique of present multicultural understanding and hints at the necessary changes which need to take place in multicultural theorising and understanding, in an attempt to improve Israel’s present situation. Michael Waltzer (1998) describes three approaches to maintaining multicultural societies. The first approach, typified by the millet system which characterised the working of the Ottoman empire, allowed all groups, while submitting to the imperial rule, to retain considerable autonomy over their communities in all matters concerning family, personal law, and education. The second approach, represented in the organisation of the nation-state, seeks to preserve the culture of the majority group with a rather low (if any) commitment to supporting the minority culture/s. The third approach is exemplified by immigrant societies which are as well organised as nation-states. However, over time they are forced into a kind of neutrality which is expressed through religious tolerance and secularism – leaving the task of sustaining particular cultures to the particular nation’s composing groups. Since its inception as a state in 1948, Israel has been plagued by national, ethnic, religious, and political divisions. In its not always successful attempts to overcome the region’s complex historical development, the State somewhat reflects the three approaches mentioned by Waltzer. Historical considerations In Palestine under the British mandate (1920-1948), which sustained elements of the millet Ottoman political rule, education was divided into an Arab, mostly public, sector and a Hebrew, quasi-private, sector. The Hebrew sector was divided into a Zionist secular sector and an ultraorthodox non-Zionist sector. The Zionist branch was further divided into religious and nonreligious sectors. During the period prior to the declaration of Israel’s independence (1948) and in the period immediately following, the dominant secular Zionist establishment struggled to find ways to integrate the sectorial educational system into a state-sponsored system. These efforts incited a political crisis that came to an end only in 1953, with the adoption of the State Educational law. This law aimed to institute an egalitarian and universal educational system but ended up replicating old divisions (Zameret, 1997). Today, and still under the dictates of the 1953 law, the educational system in Israel is divided into two main branches: the Arab sector and the Hebrew sector – with the latter being divided into secular and religious sectors. The ultraorthodox Jews, the Druze, and the kibbutzim have autonomous enclaves. Multicultural practices Multiculturalism has been defined as a method whereby culturally diverse groups are accorded status and recognition, not just at the individual level, but in the institutional structures of society (Parekh, 2002). Moreover, multiculturalism involves the endorsement of harmonious and constructive relationships between culturally diverse groups (Cashmore, 1996). Multiculturalist

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