Elana Sztokman

The announcement by Education Committee Chair Michael Melchior that that the State of Israel is opening a new stream of education – neither State nor State Religious but sort of “Jewish value-oriented”– is the kind of news that has the potential to change Israeli society. I’m not being melodramatic. It’s really true. Finally, the majority of Israelis who are ill-defined and uncomfortable in the way they are identified from the age of four may yet have some reprieve. The government is saying to them, NO, you’re not all crazy, all three million of you. We are going to help you fit in.

I’m referring, of course, to the overwhelming majority of Israelis who, according to the 1993 Guttman study on Jewish identity, are neither “religious” nor “secular” but some blurry thing in between. These 60% of Israeli society (!!) have no clear, externally recognized identity marker. Sure, they may say sort of “traditional”, or “masorti” (which funnily enough also refers to the Conservative movement). But for the most part, when Israelis are asked about their religiousness, the only clear definitions at their disposal are “religious” and “secular.” Everything else doesn’t seem to really exist.

Why? Because the Israeli school system constructs it that way from preschool.

When a parent goes to register his or her child for pre-kindergarten at the Ministry of Education, there’s a little box that you have to fill in right after name, address and identity number: “Religious” or “State.” I’m not kidding. It’s up there, on top, before things like height or weight. More than that – if you fill in “religious” as first choice, you cannot, on this bureaucratic little form (now streamlined and on-line) fill in for your second choice “secular.” That is, once you enter one system, you can not even say that you may like the other system as a Plan B. That’s it – you’re stuck, defined for life.

We actually tried that once – we liked a particular preschool that happens to be secular but is hard to get into, so we put it as our first choice. When we wanted to put a religious gan as our second choice, the computer simply wouldn’t allow it. Even the Internet has internalized this omnipotent dichotomous system of religious identification. Astounding!

One troubling aspect of this system is why religion is so bloody important. I mean, I think a category such as, “Likes animals” or “great at drums” would be much more useful for understanding four-year olds. The fact that our religious identification is this be-all and end-all from such an early age really explains why religious fanaticism is entrenched in Israeli society.

But even more troubling is how very black and white this whole system is. This religious name becomes everything a child is. You are either-or, with no bending, no blurriness, no flexibility, and no switching. This is what you are, forever (or at least for, say, 14 years or so).

So this is why Melchior’s announcement is so important. Finally, the educational system is acknowledging the fluidity of people’s identities, and is allowing Israelis to find softer, more variegated ways of figuring out who they are religiously.

Thank God. It’s about time.