Q&A: Uniform Education for Everyone
Uniform Education for Everyone
Question
The current situation in the country is that 50 percent of the students in the education system are being educated toward values that are opposed to the state—namely, Arabs who are educated toward anti-Zionism, Haredim who are educated toward non-Zionism, draft evasion, and idleness, and many Hardalim and some Religious Zionists who are educated toward a Jewish theocracy that is anti-democratic and anti-liberal. The question is whether, in order to solve all these problems, it would not be better simply to create one education system with Jewish, Zionist, democratic foundations. True, this might somewhat infringe on freedom of religion and values, but in my opinion this is the only way today to save the state from collapse.
Answer
This is a completely hypothetical question. It is not feasible and will not happen. Problems like these are not solved top-down through legislation and administrative decisions. If you do this, you will not save anything—you will only bring destruction.
Discussion on Answer
To Moshe: I was talking about the values in whose name the state was founded; Zionism and democracy are part of the foundations.
About this it was said in the Talmud: “Moshe, you have spoken well.”
The question contradicts itself internally. If 50 percent are being educated toward values opposed to the state, it follows that the “state’s” values are not really the state’s values, but only those of half of it.
Based on this proposal, one could just as well suggest the opposite: let us establish a single education system that teaches anti-Zionism, even though that harms freedom of religion and values…