In this paper, we explore a specific variant of multicultural education inIsrael that developed within the dominant Jewish cultural identity, that isthe claim of Jews from Islamic countries (Mizrahi Jews) for educational autonomy. This demand arose against the backdrop of an aggressive nationalist ideology – Zionism – that claimed torepresent all Jews, and yet was too ambivalent toward its non-European Jewish subjects. The Mizrahi Jews' dual identity, as Jews and as products of the Arab culture, conflated with the state's (...) problematic self-conception as both Jewish and democratic. This phenomenon, apparently, is evidenced by the two types of multicultural responses that developed within the Mizrahi sector: a critical multiculturalism with a social-democratic character on the one hand, and an autonomist multiculturalism with fundamentalist featureson the other. (shrink)

The paper focuses on the problematic relationship between Talmon's liberalism and Zionism. My argument is that Talmon's nationalism (Zionism included)—historicist, romantic, visionary—lived in permanent tension with his liberalism—empiricist, pluralist, pragmatic. His critique of totalitarian democracy, reflecting his British experience, emerged independently from his Zionism, grounded in Central European nationalism. The two represented different worlds. Talmon lived in both, serving as an ambassador in-between them, without ever bringing them together. The essay's first section describes the political education of the young (...) Jacob Talmon (née Flajszer) and the making of The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy. It demonstrates the independence of Talmon's Cold War liberal project from his Zionism. The second section places Talmon in the context of Cold War liberal discourse, showing how integral his critique of revolutionary politics was to contemporary liberalism. The third illustrates the tensions between Talmon's view of Jewish history and his liberalism, between his Zionism and his critique of revolutionary politics. Focusing on Talmon's analyses of nationalism, it highlights the ambiguity of his Zionism. ☆ Originally a lecture at the conference on “Jacob Talmon and Totalitarianism Today: Legacy and Revision”, the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Jerusalem, 28 December 2006. (shrink)

This essay argues that schooling in Israel is tied too closely to ideology. This results in an indoctrinary orientation that contributes to divisiveness and imperils Israeli democracy. After reviewing and critiquing the roots of this orientation, I advance an alternative that understands education as an agent of the good rather than ideology. Israeli schooling requires a vision of goodness broad enough to encompass competing conceptions of Jewish life espoused by the majority as well as non-Jewish orientations affirmed by various (...) minorities. Such a vision can be grounded, I contend, in a democratic Jewish theology that emphasizes God as teacher rather than tyrant. (shrink)

In 2003 my book After the Terror in its German translation was condemned as anti semitic by a professor of education at Frankfurt University, Micha Brumlik, also the director of an institute for the study of the Holocaust. The next day the famous German philosopher Jurgen Habermas wrote in the same liberal newspaper, The Frankfurter Rundschau , that the book was not anti semitic. However, he wrote so condescendingly as to distance himself from something charged with anti semitism -- (...) and also as to make it incomprehensible why he himself had secured its translation by the distinguished publishing house, Suhrkamp. (shrink)

The new Mizrahi narrative, presented by Israeli Mizrahi groups such as The Mizrahi Democratic Rainbow, presents a challenge to multi-cultural education. In particular, it repudiates the hegemonic meta-narrative of Ashkenazi-Zionist-Jewish-Israeli history that identifies the (White) Ashkenazi as the Zionist. The article summarizes a narrative-oriented academic research of the evolution of the new Mizrahi narrative in Israel, since the 1990s.It presents findings from historical, philosophical, and narrative analyses of texts from different periods of older and newer Mizrahi struggles (...) in Israel. The article presents a three-stage model of the development of resistance narratives that evolved, in this case, in opposition to the hegemonic Ashkenazi mega-narrative, and that employed different practices that facilitated their expression in social narrative networks. These stages are: (1) accounting for the past (placing historic, colonialist Zionism on trial); (2) writing a new (purely Mizrahi) historiography; and (3) creating an Arab-Mizrahi identity separate from the Ashkenazi hegemony (identified as occupational Zionism that has been violent against both Jews and Arabs, and which is an invasive, foreign growth in a non-European space). The article offers critical perspectives on the main philosophical and educational challenges of the new narrative which reveals that, historically, these three processes also involve use of stereotypes and assumed an elitist point of view that governed development of the resistance discourse. Such actions contradict the movement’s claim that the new Mizrahi narrative exists on purely moral grounds and seeks to liberate itself from these very same oppressive elements found in the dominant meta-narrative. In contrast, the analytical approach presented in this article allows for an analysis of the resistance narrative that changes the stage of liberation to one of unification. (shrink)

If national education is, as Ilan Gur-Ze’ev thinks, inevitably a matter of agents for and victims of a national system, only a “counter-education” can correct it. Martin Buber shared many of Gur-Ze’ev’s concerns, but advocated a more positive view of national education. This essay examines Buber’s development of his pedagogical theory in its context, notes his influence on several educational models, investigates how his view of national education either continues or is ignored in the modern State (...) of Israel, and shows that his positive view draws not only on his “I-Thou” dialogical insight but also on his advocacy of a myth of Zion, a myth that provides an alternative not just to the dominant myths in Israel today but also to Gur-Ze’ev’s counter-education. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIt appears as if a discussion about the need for patriotic education is relevant not only for the Western countries, which have many nationalities and cultures, but also especially for the State of Israel, whose social cohesion is being weakened and there is a fear that the different factions in the society are unable to work together. In this paper, I take a much-needed first step for a systematic study of the issue of education for patriotism, as a (...) solution for the construction of social solidarity between and within groups of Israeli citizens. I examine the justification and the practicability of a cosmopolitan-patriotic education as a substitute for a unique local patriotic education in contemporary Israel. My main argument is that cosmopolitan patriotism education is inadequate for the current societal and political atmosphere in Israel. Not even in a Zionistic-Jewish-Israeli cosmopolitan version of three Jewish thinkers: Herzl Levinas, and Gur-Zeev. (shrink)

he following is an essay by Emmanuel Levinas, newly translated by Mendel Kranz, concerning Jewish culture and education, Hebrew studies, and Zionism. The essay was first published in 1954 in the United States by The Alliance Review, a small journal affiliated with the Alliance israélite universelle, and has since been almost entirely forgotten. In 2011–2012, it was republished in French by Denis Poizat based on the original draft found in the Alliance archives. Preceding Levinas’s essay is a preface by (...) Kranz that situates it at the intersection of Levinas’s postwar project for Judaism, his relation to Zionism, and the colonial backdrop of the ENIO—three issues that are rarely considered together in Levinas scholarship. Poizat also provides some commentary on the question of education and the similarities between this and other essays by Levinas. (shrink)

One of the important determinants of development during the transition to adulthood is the undertaking of social roles characteristic of adults, also in the area of finishing formal education, which usually coincides with beginning fulltime employment. In the study discussed in this paper, it has been hypothesized that continuing full-time education above the age of 26, a phenomenon rarely observed in Poland, can be considered as an unpunctual event that may be connected with difficulties in the process of (...) identity formation. Relationships between identity dimensions and identity statuses, and age and educational context were analyzed. 693 individuals aged 19-35 took part in the study. The participants attended three types of educational institutions: full-time university studies, part-time university studies, and full-time post-secondary school. Among the students of full-time university studies predictable dependencies, also in respect of highlevels of indicators of identity crisis and a high frequency of diffused identity occurrence, were observed. Such dependencies were not found in the group of full-time post-secondary school students. (shrink)

Used as the basis of the program at the Equinox Holistic Alternative School in Toronto, The Holistic Curriculum advocates for an integrative approach to teaching and learning with a focus on developing a deep connection between mind and body.

Part of the educational system in England has been geared towards the preparation of particular professions, while the identity and status of members of some professions have depended significantly on the general education they have received. Originally published in 1973, this volume explores the interaction between education and the professions. It also looks at the education of the main professions in sixteenth century England and at how twentieth century university teaching is a key profession for the training (...) of new recruits to other professions. (shrink)

Originally published in 1971, this volume examines the relationship between the history and sociology of education. History does not stand in isolation, but has much to draw from and contribute to, other disciplines. The methods and concepts of sociology, in particular, are exerting increasing influence on historical studies, especially the history of education. Since education is considered to be part of the social system, historians and sociologists have come to survey similar fields; yet each discipline appears to (...) have its own aims and methodology. (shrink)

There is a common tradition in European education going back to the Middle Ages which long played a part in providing the curriculum of schools which catered both for the wealthy and for able sons of less well-to-do families. Originally published in 1974, this volume examines the relationship between education and society in the different countries of Europe from which differences in tradition and practice emerge. The countries discussed include: France, Germany, the former Soviet Union, Poland and Sweden.

Originally published in 1972, this book is concerned with education as part of a larger social history. Chapters include: The roots of Anglican supremacy in English education The Board schools of London The use of ecclesiastical records for the history of education Topographical resources: private and secondary education from the sixteenth to the twentieth century.

Higher education has been changing radically in recent years, with increasing numbers of students, and complaints about declining standards. This volume brings together leading intellectuals from the US and UK to examine the issues involved.