Parents at a Tel Aviv school are objecting to two Arab students being integrated into their kids' classroom.
"We don't want Arab students in our school and its not just us – our kids don't want them in their classrooms," said one of the mothers.
"The School Board already dumped the African kids here and now they're bringing in the Arab kids without even telling us. They can't speak Hebrew well, they're having trouble in class and it's hurting the academic level."Anyone who doesn't understand the fuss over only two students should take a look at Hayarden School (another elementary school in the area). It started with a few students and all of a sudden the parents found that there are dozens of refugees in the school.
Can't blame them. I'd feel the same way, I'm sure.
The only difference is that I would keep my real reasons to myself and try to find a school with the necessary mix of religious affiliation, admission standards, and price in order to keep my kids with the right sort of people.
Some people don't have the money to do that, and can only complain when unassimilated minority groups drag down the quality of their kids' education. We call them racists. ;)
School systems in Israel-proper are segregated by ethnicity (Jew vs. Arab).
I understand the argument that people want to preserve their culture and language, but you can't have a democracy by keeping school children segregated by ethnicity.
I don't live there, but if I did, I'd want to learn both Hebrew and Arabic!
And why would you want to go to school only with people who are exactly like you?
I guess I am just a weird melting-pot *and* bread basket American..
Interesting logic, David F.
What should we call you?
'The only difference is that I would keep my real reasons to myself and try to find a school with the necessary mix of religious affiliation, admission standards, and price in order to keep my kids with the right sort of people.'
Exactly the logic people used when excluding or avoiding Jews in days of yore. You can't blame them. You'd feel the same way, I'm sure.
What goes around comes around, and then, if you're not careful, it goes around again. I hope you, or your kids, enjoy the ride.
'Some people don't have the money to do that, and can only complain when unassimilated minority groups drag down the quality of their kids' education.'
I don't have the money to 'do that', I'm too poor to be able to act upon my racism. If for example I had to go to school with you, I would just have to wear it whether I liked it or not.
Unassimilated… who in their right mind would want to blend in with someone like you? It's you, and people like you who are genuinely unassimilated, into what goes by the name 'humanity'.
'We call them racists. ;)'
They are.
Gee, next thing you know, they will be keeping Arabs out of
their golf courses, the greens watered by diverted Pals' subsistence water. Swim in my pool, anyone?
I looked at the ACRI report written up in JPost and then ventured to look at comments. If you want naked racism, you don't need to look any further.
Eva, are you crazy? No Jew is a racist. Look at Uncle Sam's Hollywood
movies. They are all a funny, and/or poignant light to the tribes of Noah. Get with the norm or we will be forced to put you on meds.
i just want to thank all the jews in america for having made our land a more integrated loving place….its thanks to your super intelligence and caring hearts and soul that the world would be able to reach the dizzing heights of your super moral and intelligent ways.
aint that right phil….youre so proud.
It seems that very many Jews praise multiculturalism all over the media and in government and actively promote or legally mandate multicultural policies yet when they are themselves forced in to a multicultural environment they react negatively.
Double standards, anyone?
"The School Board already dumped the African kids here and now they're bringing in the Arab kids without even telling us."
Ah, the USA south, circa 1950's?
No, Israel 2008.
I think David F. has a sort of a point.
In New Jersey, public education is rampant with classism. Affluent people self-segregate by living in affluent communities with affluent schools. But many of those schools have a diversity day, so all is well.
Israeli schools are separated by language instruction. An Israeli Jew wouldn't go to an Arab school because he doesn't speak much Arabic. Arabs know Arabic and Hebrew so there are some who go to Hebrew instructed schools.
It's amazing how much chara is pulled out here who think that they know things about a country that they've never been to.
Thanks, Judy.
My post was made with more than a bit of irony.
I don't see any point in blaming Jewish Israelis or anyone else for wanting their schools to reflect their community.
Ending the occupation and establishing equal rights and mutual civility amongst the citizens of Israel seem like much more important goals to me.
I see a difference between parents who pull the children from the school that does not meet their educational standards and choose to pay for the educational excellence and parents who object to children from "other" ethnic background from joining municipal school to which they are entitled.
Bussing was in, now its out?
'My post was made with more than a bit of irony.'
Irony is a get out of jail free card for all sorts of prejudice. (Hey, I didn't really mean it man!)
Call me humourless, but this isn't, it seems to me, a subject that can take a lot of irony – it's too serious for that.
Like restricted schools, you have to be able to afford irony. It has to be earned to be convincing – otherwise it is, shall we say, flip.
'I don't see any point in blaming Jewish Israelis or anyone else for wanting their schools to reflect their community.'
Even if the community itself is a product of the discrimination you approve in schools? (Or perhaps, ONLY if it is)
Eventually David, racial purity (or even it's pursuit) is death. Jews of all people should know that, should sense it in their bones.
David:
You lost me on the last point. I do think it hypocritical for self-segrating Americans to be too arrogant about racism in Israel's public education when our own is rife with classism, but, as one who loves Arabs, I hardly approve of the racist attitudes of the Israelis in the article.
I'm sure white schools in the South in the 50's wanted their schools "to reflect their communities" as well.
Glenn, the association of Jews with liberal ideology is a very recent phenomena in their ~3000 year history, and the fastest growing Jewish demographic groups eschew it utterly.
The separation between kosher and treif, Jew and Gentile is fundamental to Jewish law and ethics. I do not live by those standards, but I am compelled to respect them. They were essential to the survival of the Jewish people against tremendous pressure (sometimes violent) to assimilate into Christian society.
A Jew can always toss out the religion, but what is left then but ethnocentrism and Zionism? If these too are unacceptable, what is left but to disappear in the face of far more ethnocentric (and fertile) peoples? Most of the world's peoples have no interest in multiculturalism, and have no doubts about the good of expanding their culture, religion, and ethnicity. They also have far more kids.