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PDF FormatBenzion Dinur (1884-1973), Israel’s third minister of education, was one of the outstanding figures of the cultural revival that accompanied the growth of the Zionist movement and the establishment of a Jewish state. Along with Yitzhak Baer, he founded the Jerusalem school of academic historiography, which understood the story of the Jewish people in exile as a unified narrative, characterized by the longing of the dispersed communities to retain their connection with the land of Israel. Among his most influential works were the two-volume Israel in Its Land and the nine-volume Israel in Exile.
Born in Warsaw, he made his home in Palestine in 1921, where he played a leading role in founding and developing Israel’s cultural institutions, including the Jewish Teachers’ Training College, Mosad Bialik, Yad Vashem, the historical quarterly Zion, and the World Congress of Jewish Studies. From 1936 to 1952, Dinur taught at the Hebrew University, pioneering the study and teaching of modern Jewish history. He was elected to the first Knesset in 1949 as a member of Ben-Gurion’s Labor Party (Mapai), and from 1951 to 1955 served as minister of education. He was responsible for the adoption of the State Education Law (1953), which created a public school system committed to the goals of inculcating the “values of Jewish culture,” “love of the homeland,” and “loyalty to the State of Israel and the Jewish people.”
Among the disciplines on which Dinur had a formative impact was the study of citizenship in Israel’s schools. In the following speech, which he delivered at a teachers’ convention in 1953, he set forth the principles for civics education in the State of Israel.
The subject of this lecture is education for citizenship, both in the broadest sense and as a particular subject of study. We must look at this issue from two perspectives: First, in terms of the role of the high school; and second, with respect to the tasks that face us in our current situation as a nation and as a state.
Students attend high school for a period of four years, from the ages of fourteen to eighteen. This is the time when they mature into adulthood; at the end of high school, the student receives a diploma testifying not only to his readiness to continue on to higher education, but also to his maturity as an active citizen, prepared for military service and responsible for the freedom and independence of the state. The task of training such citizens belongs to the high school.
The fundamental question, then, is how to train and educate a young person in four years to be a mature, conscientious, responsible citizen, a citizen who will be able to defend the state not only when he is in the army, where he is taught to defend his life, liberty, and independence, but beyond. We must educate him to be a citizen all his life, in all his actions, in his attitude toward his fellow citizens and toward society as a whole, in his willingness to take responsibility, in his decency, integrity, and ability to function in everyday life.
Our second concern is our situation as a state, as a people, and as a society. This means that we must educate the younger generation to be citizens of the state, loyal sons of the Jewish people, and worthy members of Israeli society.* As citizens of the state, they must be taught to fulfill the duties of citizenship faithfully and wholeheartedly; as sons of the Jewish people, they must be taught to fulfill the national mission that has been given to this generation; and as members of Israeli society, they must be taught to deserve the name “Israel,” by embracing the spiritual heritage of Israel. The community we are building in Israel perpetuates the social, cultural, spiritual, and ethical continuity of Israel, and students must be educated to be the bearers of this heritage.
As citizens of the state. We are an independent and sovereign state. We are a people united by our laws, and we are obligated by virtue of our independence to live under our own laws. Our people must possess the maximum possible ability to defend ourselves, and consequently we must train the younger generation in civic duty and responsibility, and in the skills required to be citizens of an independent state that is constantly fighting for its survival. Civic responsibility means knowing and observing the law, understanding one’s rights and how to exercise them, and willingly fulfilling one’s obligations.
As loyal sons of the Jewish people. The nation’s continued existence is based on unity, a unity that is both emotional and spiritual, and that is built on a particular consciousness and a particular sentiment. The consciousness is of a destiny that is shared with the nation as a whole, and the sentiment is that of partnership with each and every individual within that nation. We must imbue every student with a feeling of Jewish brotherhood, of personal identification with the people and its destiny. We must teach him to live the problems of his people, to understand and identify with the great tasks that face the nation.
As worthy members of Israeli society. To educate students to be worthy members of Israeli society, what I have suggested so far is not enough. Educating someone to become a member of Israeli society is much deeper and broader. It is nothing less than instilling the Israeli perspective on life, which contains within it the entire spiritual legacy of Israel. The question is how to educate the younger generation so that the same moral and spiritual values—the same attitude towards humanity, to one’s fellowman, to society, and to the Jewish people which, over the course of generations, constituted the foundation of the spiritual unity of Israel—will form the spiritual basis of his personal character as well. For generations we knew how to distinguish between “that which may be done in Israel” and “that which must not be done in Israel.” (Cf. Genesis 34:7) This standard served as the starting point for every Jew. Using this standard, we could judge whether the forefathers of a particular person stood at Mount Sinai or not; whether he was from “the seed of our father Abraham,” or if there was reason to suspect that he was actually a member of the “mixed multitude” that came up with Israel from Egypt. This is bound up with a whole complex of virtues that make up a person’s character. How do we impart them to the next generation?
I would like to focus in this lecture on these three roles: Citizen of the state, loyal son of the Jewish people, and worthy member of Israeli society. Regarding each of them, we must ask ourselves: What can we do and what must we do to impart an education for citizenship, in the broadest sense? And what are the topics that must be covered in teaching civics, as a formal subject of study, to the next generation?
The citizen of the state. First of all, we must be fully aware of our situation as a state. We must not let ourselves lose sight of it even for a moment. This must be our starting point for educating citizens. The state was established through struggle—a long and difficult struggle which continues to this day. It was established through a cruel war, and we still find ourselves in a situation that formally hovers between war and peace, but is in practice a state of war, though in a different form. We are like a besieged city. We find ourselves in a sort of cold-war-by-agreement, with our neighbors openly preparing for a war of annihilation against us. We are surrounded by enemies on our borders, the same enemies we faced in the War of Independence, who have yet to come to terms with our existence, and who in the meantime have only become stronger. We too have developed considerably: When the state was established, the ratio between our neighbors and us was forty to one. For every Israeli there were forty enemies who sought to destroy us. Before the entire world they declared that they intended to throw us into the sea, to blot out our names from this land. Recently the numbers have improved somewhat: For every Israeli, there are now twenty enemies among our immediate neighbors. The fundamental fact, however, remains the same, that we are few against many.
The first civic duty, then, is necessarily defense, developing the ability to stand up to the enemy. The problem is not merely defense, but the ability of the few to stand firm against the many. Consequently, the duty of education is to “transform” the few into the many—to turn quality into quantity by means of education. We must prove that just as quantity can translate into quality, so too, high quality translates into great quantity. There are many ways to turn quality into quantity: Through mental tenacity, social cohesiveness, intellectual acuity, technical skill, and the like. The ways are numerous, and though it is neither easy nor simple to follow them, we have no choice. This is our first and most urgent duty. Every moment is precious, and it is difficult to exaggerate the grim nature of the accounting we will have to provide for every delay.
These must not be isolated initiatives; their success depends upon combining them. Only if they are combined under a single principle, the civic principle, are they likely to be a decisive factor in the formation of the character and fate of the people. We must recognize that the task of maintaining mental, spiritual, and moral resolve, social solidarity, intellectual achievement, technological prowess, precision, and responsibility is, in essence, the task of shaping the character of the Israeli. This is not simply a question of technical skill or intellectual ability. It is a question of life and death for us, as a people and as individuals. If the next generation attains a high level of intellectual achievement, if it is strong in spirit, if it possesses initiative and independence of thought, this is a guarantee of the nation’s future.
Those completing high school form the pool from which most of our leaders emerge, for all segments of society and in all walks of life. In acquiring these qualities, they fortify the entire nation. This will only come to pass, however, if education is infused with a great spirit, the spirit of “this day you have become a people” and of “I have set before you life and death… therefore choose life.” (Deuteronomy 27:9, 30:19) The magnitude of the enterprise and the short time allotted us should spur us on to a profound and collective sense of awe and trembling, a feeling that will surely accompany us always, given that every moment is dear and every delay is fraught with peril.
How do we incorporate all of this into a high-school education? How do we imbue the educational experience with that spirit of resolve and social cohesiveness, with the fierce desire for intellectual achievement and technical proficiency? This can be accomplished only through the complete identification of the individual with the nation and with society. The achievement of such identification must be the guiding principle that directs not only our behavior as a community but the behavior of individuals as well, and it must be fostered through heartfelt sentiment and careful preparation. Not by talk alone, but by girding the educational system for a great spiritual and cultural initiative.
Such an initiative is required in two realms, that of knowledge and that of experience; but we encounter serious difficulties in both realms. The difficulty is especially pronounced in the realm of experience, and for a simple reason. The basis of national education, indeed of all social education, is a shared cultural background: A common set of manners, a feeling of communal partnership in everyday life, and a shared set of sensibilities that is the product of a common culture. However, the need for a shared background is unmet in our case—to put it mildly. Communal diversity is a fundamental fact of our national and social life, and we must not forget that every group, every community, has a past of its own that is not at all identical to that of European Jewry.
Over a year ago I lectured to a group of highly educated immigrants from different communities, all of them active in cultural affairs, on the subject of “The Transformation at the Beginning of Modern Jewish History.” I spoke about Hasidism as well, and on this latter subject I began to receive dozens of handwritten notes from immigrants from Morocco, Yemen, and Iraq, from Tripoli and Turkey, all with the same question: Did we not have Hasidism? Did we not have a Jewish Enlightenment? And so they were pleased when I spoke of the foundations of Hasidism that may be found in Shar’abi and R. Haim ibn Atar, and of the Enlightenment assumptions to be found in the Darda movement in Yemen. Yet overall, I saw in the representatives of these communities another world, which does not include the ingredients of Hasidism, the foundations of the Hebrew Enlightenment, the influences of the wissenschaft des judentums. The entire recent history of the Jewish people, even of the last generation, which shaped the society and culture of modern Israel, passed over them but not always through them. The modern Israeli and contemporary Israeli society are the products of a certain development of movements and streams, organizations and institutions, efforts and initiatives that they did not experience at all.
Therefore, one of the elements of the shared culture that is a condition for national education is missing. Hasidism and the Enlightenment, emancipation and participation in the political and social life of the nations, a complete upheaval in economics and labor, social stratification, the Jewish socialist movement, the struggle against anti-Semitism, Hibat Zion and Zionism, the great migration and the formation of new Jewish centers—all of these forged the character of the contemporary Israeli. And now, at least half of the Israelis have been outside all this, unaffected by these experiences. And on top of this we must add the differences in sensibilities, the enormous gulf separating the different worldviews, and the contrast in the style and standard of living brought about by cultural and environmental factors over the generations.
Thus a precondition for high-school civics education must be the fostering of mutual understanding, of a spiritual rapprochement without which any attempts at “integration” will be unsuccessful, even harmful. Let us not presume to erase facts by ignoring them. This habit is one of our society’s great flaws, and the damage it inflicts can hardly be overstated. How, then, should we proceed? First, we should emphasize precisely those processes, movements, and events that were decisive in the molding of our collective character. At the same time, we must encourage and emphasize the images and motifs, values and creative works of all the communities. We must find in each of the communities echoes and reflections of the major movements and orientations among the Jewish people in recent generations, and include them in the historical and literary framework that is imparted in schools to the next generation.
For five years now I have been repeating this call, and even though “there was no voice, nor any that answered,” (I Kings 18:26) I will not desist from calling out. There is a need for textbooks and books for general reading that include literary works from all segments of Jewry. Just as a high-school student may not graduate without knowing the works of Peretz and Mendele, it is inconceivable that he should be ignorant of Shalom Shabazi and his writings, or of the corpus of R. Haim ibn Atar. This is not merely in order to enhance the stature of students from the Yemenite and Moroccan communities by demonstrating their share in our common legacy. Nor is it because this "bringing forth of the hidden sparks" will enable the exiled communities of Yemen and Morocco to experience a sense of fulfillment. It is important for the entire younger generation, which must be educated with an inclusive Israeli identity, so that they may view the past differently. The fact is that R. Haim ibn Atar’s commentary on the Tora (Or Hahaim) was one of the most widely disseminated books of world Jewry in its time, in the East, in Italy, Poland, and Russia; and that, following the failure of Sabbateanism, it expressed the Jewish desire for redemption, as well as original Jewish social ideas of the time. This and similar facts obligate us to devote greater attention to such singular phenomena in our history, and to introduce the various diasporas and their values into the historical consciousness of our generation.
Examples of relevant documents would be the description of the aliya of R. Haim ibn Atar and his followers to the land of Israel, which is contained in the letters of Ishmael Sanguinetti; Samuel Romanelli’s portrayal of Moroccan Jewry in his book A Trek in Arab Lands; records of the dispute in the communities of Yemen over the works of Maimonides; and the Dardaite controversy, among others. These documents should not be addressed from a literary perspective alone; they have a more fundamental value as a way of embracing the diverse communities and rendering Hebrew literature and history more inclusive and better understood. The education of the next generation of citizens demands such a curriculum, because education for citizenship is not merely a subject of study; it is, first and foremost, a way of binding people together, of creating a common identity and understanding among all parts of the nation, as they undergo a process of national and cultural fusion.
Educating for citizenship also requires making a serious effort to foster the individual’s identification with the state. Through education students learn to live the life of the country as their own, and to carry the country in their hearts every day. How is this to be accomplished? First, the school must itself constitute a well-ordered society, a state in microcosm, which continuously establishes practices and sanctifies proper habits for the nation. Here I must reiterate certain truths that always bear repeating. The way teachers treat students, both collectively and individually, the way students treat teachers, and the way students treat one another—in every school, but especially in high school—determine in practice the way citizens will relate to their country. Showing respect for one’s fellow student, respecting human dignity, while at the same time having the moral courage to say openly what one really thinks, possessing the intellectual vigor and strength of mind to think independent thoughts and to dare to say them out loud, however unpleasant this might beׁthese are fundamental conditions for the development of a free and autonomous society.
Civic courage is not to be confused with rudeness and rough behavior. In most cases they are not only dissimilar, but antithetical in nature; for many are those who cloak their fear with brazenness, and their lack of moral courage with vulgarity of spirit. Nations have been extinguished because they were not educated in civic courage. We are daily witness not only to the tremendous diversity in what different people think, but also to the gap between what people are willing to say openly and publicly and what they truly believe. There can be no doubt that the magnitude of this gap is a gauge of the civil condition of every society, no less than a person’s body temperature indicates the state of his health.
Over sixty years ago, Menahem Ussishkin visited the Hasidic rabbi of Kapust, told him about the Hibat Zion movement, and asked for his help. The rabbi listened to him attentively, and then asked: “The things you say—do you really believe them? If you want to influence me, then say what is deep within your heart. What is your ultimate goal, truly and sincerely?” When Ussishkin replied that Hibat Zion is like the manna from heaven, because “everyone tastes in it what he desires,” the rabbi said to him: “I wish to know what it is that you taste in it, truly and sincerely, because then I will be able to judge you and the movement.” We must be zealous in reflecting on the significance of this “truly and sincerely,” again and again. Schools must teach students to think for themselves and express what they believe freely and directly, modestly and politely, but extremely clearly. This is a form of training for civic courage.
We should also think of ways to test students in this area. This is not merely a subject to be studied, but a principle, a method, a path. It is not right that the problems of the state and society are not examined in school. We should not ignore these problems, but we should instead study them, as one way of educating citizens.
We all read the newspapers; the students do as well. No one will claim, I think, that our newspapers are generally of a high quality, and that reading the newspaper, in and of itself, is necessarily educational. Newspapers can be read, however, in such a fashion as to make them most educational. Thus, for example, students could be required to read two or three newspapers regularly, and each student assigned to closely follow the development of a certain topic in two newspapers. No doubt the student will soon realize that there are certain facts that are not mentioned in any of the newspapers, and that certain newspapers ignore certain facts. Sometimes a newspaper headline stresses one point, while the text of the article says exactly the opposite. This is not always due to incompetence. Frequently it is done artfully, on the assumption that many readers pay attention only to the headline, and thus they can be influenced in a particular direction, for even if they read what is written, they will not always notice the contradiction. There can be no doubt that the level of journalism reflects the intellectual and civic maturity of the educated public in Israel. Raising the level of citizenship education will ultimately bring about a change in journalism. The student should therefore be taught how to read critically, and how to examine public issues through methodical and responsible study.
Take, for example, one issue that caused a public furor recently: The question of free, compulsory kindergarten education. The government decided to cancel free schooling for five-year-olds, and this provides us with a good opportunity for educating the public. The problem is clear and evident. The students should address the issue as if they were members of the government, members of Knesset, the prime minister, the ministers of education and finance, and so forth. What was the previous state of affairs, what changes were instituted, why and how did this issue come to the fore? What were the arguments in favor of the change, and what were the arguments against? How would you resolve the issue? Would you act as the government did, or differently? Why? Three important objectives can be attained through such a course of study: An awareness of the state and its problems; the development of a sense of responsibility and the capacity for independent analysis and discussion; and mutual understanding and tolerance towards the views of others.
The only way for students to develop an understanding of the state is through a thorough investigation of some of its problems. Students can study the problems involved in balancing the budget, in the relationship between the state and local authorities, in the integration of the immigrant communities. They can examine how free compulsory education is carried out in various countries, the differences between these countries and us, and so on.
A sense of responsibility means being willing to undertake tasks that are not necessarily popular, but which one judges to be necessary for the good of the country at a given moment. Actions which earn the approval of others or of the public do not necessarily reflect moral courage. The courage of a citizen or of the public as a whole is measured by their ability to accept things that are unpleasant and even harmful, if they are indeed essential.
This kind of in-depth study will promote tolerance as well. Mean-spiritedness and intolerance for opposing views, and the unwillingness to consider another’s perspective, are clear signs of a society in decline. A chronic lack of concern for one’s fellow in a society leads to the sharpening of differences of opinion on secondary and even trivial issues, thereby deflecting attention from shared concerns. We all were moved by Yehuda Leib Gordon’s poem “In the Lions’ Jaws,” in which he describes regulations such as “one may not read, nor may one search for lice,” during the siege of Jerusalem. I remember being profoundly impressed by a Byzantine historian’s account of the increasingly intense bickering among the wise men of Byzantium, which disrupted the high society of Constantinople before it fell to the Turks. The argument, concerning the issue of the resurrection of the dead, turned on the question of whether the deceased would return to life with or without their fingernails. But the real question at that time was whether the citizens of Byzantium would live or die. This is something that has repeated itself throughout history, demonstrating the extent to which the instincts for survival are dulled in a society in decline. The sharp differences among us also include a good number of disagreements over such “post-resurrection fingernails,” and I say this without exaggerating.
In this way it will be possible to educate students towards a mutual understanding that will be the product of a more thorough knowledge, and towards a tolerance, conscientiousness, and public integrity that stem from a sense of responsibility and obligation. These are the foundations of civic education, which require that citizenship be taught not merely as a subject of study but as a principle, which guides and educates through personal identification and through engagement in current affairs.
Of course, educating for citizenship also means teaching a particular subject of study. The goal of study is obviously knowledge, a deep and broad-based knowledge which leads to education. Knowledge in this context means, first and foremost, a knowledge of the State of Israel and its problems. Such a knowledge entails being versed in the territory and borders of the state, with all their accompanying difficulties; knowledge of the establishment of the state and its standing in the world; knowledge of the institutions and structure of the state; knowledge of the nation that dwells within it, in all its communities and sectors; knowledge of its legislation, its most important constitutive laws, which have defined the character of the state; and so on.
Knowledge also means a thorough familiarity with the country, a familiarity that leads to identification. Only such knowledge is likely to impart a sense of duty and an awareness that the citizen is an integral part of the nation and cannot be separated from it. If, for example, the student experiences the problem of the country’s frontiers, and understands the concerns of the border settlements and those in the Negev, then when he is later assigned to teach in one of these places in the Negev, the Galilee, or some other frontier area after completing teachers’ seminary, he will not see this as punishment or internal exile. Some thirty years ago I sent one of my students, a graduate of the teachers’ seminary, to teach in the Jezreel Valley. His father, whom I knew from Russia, and who was a good Jew and a Zionist, complained to me bitterly that I had sent his son to ׂSiberia.׃ Thirty years have elapsed since then, yet it seems to me that we still hear this grievance at times from representatives of teachers, in one form or another. This year, in all of Israel I was unable to find anyone to teach the upper grades—and this was with regard to the schools in Geva, near Afula, not merely the Negev or the western Galilee!
Nowadays complaints are made about “Siberia” not by the fathers, but by the sons. The younger generation has “grown up.” But if we studied all parts of Israel in detail in school, if the student learned about the western Galilee or the Negev through detailed study of these areas’ settlement and development problems, and of the cardinal importance of these problems—which we, teachers and students, are called on to resolve—the attitude toward them would necessarily be different.
The same holds true for the obligation of military service. The study of the law governing service in the national defense, which is connected to the establishment and development of the Israel Defense Forces, accompanied by an explanation of the relationship between defense and a national army and the independence of a modern state in general, educates young people to fulfill their duty by raising their awareness. It decreases the likelihood of evasion of military service by impressing upon the student the grave personal consequences of draft-dodging for his status in Israeli society, which will effectively cast him out.
Young people should also become familiar with some of the country’s other laws, such as the Elections Law and the Local Authorities Law, the Free Compulsory Education Law, and the laws governing taxes and the budget. The study of these laws imparts more than information to the student; it also educates him for citizenship, as it places him in the position of the head of state, of the maker of its laws and the person called upon to carry them out, who must study the situation, understand the problems, and find solutions. This method of study teaches the student civic responsibility by teaching him the issues.
Learning civics means learning about the way the state works, its structure, governance, laws, and practices. Accordingly, knowledge of the land and the State of Israel should be included as a component in the study of civics. Knowledge of the land will be incorporated into learning the history of the Jewish people’s renewed settling of its land, studying its laws and institutions, and explaining its missions and the means by which they can be achieved. The thorough practical knowledge gained through the study of this subject will both illustrate and complement the wider principle of education for citizenship.
A loyal son of the Jewish people. The nationalist consciousness, the awareness that I am not only a citizen of the State of Israel, but a member of the Jewish nation, is a fundamental element of education for citizenship in Israel. The structure of the State of Israel, its establishment and development, are all organically connected with recent generations of Jewish history. The First Aliya and the beginnings of the new yishuv in Israel are linked to the anti-Semitic movement and pogroms in Russia (Bilu, Rishon Letzion, Gedera, and Ekron), Poland (Yesud Hama’ala), and Romania (Rosh Pina and Zichron Ya’akov). The Jews of Hungary, and the disappointment felt by the younger Jewish generation after the emancipation there, also played an important role in the founding of Petah Tikva. We have interesting testimony from Yehoshua Stampfer concerning his immigration to the land of Israel, and other accounts as well. The view that seeks to portray the beginning of the new yishuv, and especially the establishment of Petah Tikva, as the natural development of the old yishuv in the land of Israel, while ignoring the organic link between the renewed settlement of Israel in its land and the war that anti-Semitism declared against the Jews—which was, in fact, an expression of the complete failure of the settling of Jews in all the lands of their dispersion—this view denies the obvious historical facts. Why were all previous attempts at renewed Jewish settlement of the land so unsuccessful?
In general, whoever downplays the decisive role of the war of oppression, expulsion, and annihilation decreed against the Jews by the anti-Semitic movement renders all of modern Jewish history incomprehensible. Anti-Semitism was not only a social and political movement devoted to conducting war against the Jews; it was also the first movement for which war against the Jews served as an organizational platform. The lack of comprehension exhibited by many Jews regarding its essential nature and consequences was undoubtedly one of the reasons for the scope of the Holocaust and for Zionism’s failure to achieve its goals in time to rescue European Jewry. Anyone who misconstrues this episode sins not only against historical truth, but against the next generation’s education in Jewish national consciousness. Here, too, developing an accurate and thorough understanding is a precondition for identifying with this historical experience.
One fact which leaves a bitter impression is the utter complacency of the Jewish community at the time regarding the approaching disaster; this unconcern was quite conspicuous in the Jewish literature and newspapers of Eastern European countries. Research projects carried out by several of my university students confirmed this. Although here and there authors and poets wrote something about the situation of the Jews, they generally did not sense the dangers at all. On the contrary, they showed great optimism regarding the future of the Jews “here,” in the lands of the diaspora. Such obtuseness would seem to suggest an organic flaw in the survival instinct of the nation itself. We were simply blind and deaf, we saw nothing and heard nothing; we have an obligation to draw from this the necessary conclusions.
One conclusion is that we must instill in each and every member of the younger generation in Israel a feeling of Jewish partnership, of the shared Jewish fate from the beginnings of the Jewish people to this very day, together with an awareness of Israeli uniqueness, and to elevate this feeling into a profound Jewish sentiment. This can be done through study, by conferring the thorough knowledge that leads to emotional identification. A comprehensive acquaintance with recent Jewish history and an awareness of Jewish uniqueness and the fate of Israel among the nations will foster a profound Zionist consciousness—which is actually a distilled form of the Jewish historical consciousness and of the sense of Jewish national life—that will penetrate the heart, encouraging complete identification with the mission of our era, the mission of ingathering the exiles. It is impossible to be a child of the Jewish people with a full Jewish consciousness without being infused with a sense of the special Jewish experience. An understanding of the experience of exile can spring only from this deep sense. Only one who fully senses the Jewish experience can feel the significance of the tremendous historical mission of charting a course from exile to redemption, which is identified with the salvation of Israel. I call this “education for the historic missions of our generation.”
Here too there is a need to instill a Zionist outlook, namely, the combination of an awareness of the past, an understanding of the present, and a vision of the future. This approach, which encompasses the establishment of the State of Israel and its place in Jewish life, the experience of Jewish communities in the diaspora and an assessment of their struggle, the inherent incompleteness of the Jewish personality in the diaspora, and the Jewish fear, both unseen and overt, natural and inevitable, that suffuses diaspora life, will be introduced in schools as the subject of “Knowledge of the Jewish People,” in which students will learn about “Israel in Exile: Its Mission and Its Fate.”
Such knowledge, however, will be one-sided and even distorted to a certain extent, if “knowledge of the Jewish people” is restricted to information about the exile. A knowledge of the Jewish people in the diaspora encompasses not only “exiles” but also “communities.” Students must be given basic knowledge about the ability of the Jews to form communities and to fight to sustain them. The organization of the communities, the entire range of institutions in which independent Jewish life was concentrated and consolidated on foreign soil, the life of religion and Tora (synagogues, study houses, and rabbinical courts), educational institutions (the heder and yeshivot, schools of various levels and systems, higher seminaries, and literary and scientific organizations), philanthropic institutions, charitable and mutual-aid societies (charity, philanthropy, free-loan funds, and so forth), professional, economic, and political organizations—this is one of the sublime chapters, not only in the Jewish people’s struggle to survive, but in all of human history. It is the story of the struggle of the few against the many, a battle of the spirit and the will against power and authority.
This story can instill in the younger generation both the wisdom of life and the ability to fight for our independence. It is therefore appropriate that as part of the high-school subject of civics, knowledge of the Jewish people in its two aspects—as exiles and as communities—should be taught.
The worthy member of Israeli society. In all education, and especially education for citizenship, we must not forget the concept which lies at the foundation of everything: “In the beginning there was man.” If we truly and sincerely want the members of Israeli society to maintain the cultural continuity of Israel, then we must recognize that this will not follow automatically from the fact that we are a Jewish state that calls itself the State of Israel. Rather, this involves endless toil and well-guided efforts. First, we must set ourselves the goal of truly being “Israel.” We must dedicate ourselves to internalizing, in ourselves and in the schools, all the characteristic virtues of the people of Israel that permeate our cultural and historical existence. The rule of “that which may be done in Israel” and “that which must not be done in Israel” must be the guiding educational principle in the schools.
However, the character of the “worthy member of Israeli society” is not only an issue of education. It also requires study and knowledge, study and knowledge that lead to education. We should teach the way of goodness. “And you shall do that which is right and good” (Deuteronomy 6:18)ׁif we want this to be actual practice, and not mere rhetoric, we must study and reflect on this. For generations, pupils in the heder were taught Talmud, focusing especially on the Order of Damages, which deals with tort law. The tractate of Avot, “The Wisdom of the Fathers,” which is founded on the directive to “do that which is right and good” between human beings, is included in the Order of Damages. This encapsulates a profound educational principle. The study of the fundamentals of the judicial system regarding the individual’s relationship with his fellowman, his property, his work, and his security provides a person, from his youth, with a firm foundation for interpersonal relations.
And it seems to me that we should abandon the practice of basing such relations solely on stories and parables; we must also teach laws pertaining to a proper society, to man’s obligations to his fellow, to the individual and the collective, to Israel and the world. The high-school civics curriculum should include a “book of Jewish law,” which will include the laws governing relations between man and his fellow, between the individual and society, and between Israel and the nations.
We must therefore take pains, in addition to establishing education for citizenship as a general principle, to also designate these three specific topics as areas of reflection and study in high school. And if students learn to understand their world through the knowledge they acquire, through critical inquiry, in a thorough and scientific manner, in order that they may be able to make rational assessments of their world and adopt a responsible attitude towards it, we will succeed in imbuing them with the fundamentals of citizenship. Students will be aware of themselves and confident in their path as citizens of the state, as loyal sons of the Jewish people, and as worthy members of Israeli society. Through these three elements, I am certain, we will find the way to educate the citizens of Israel, to educate the new generation of Jews living in their own state, the State of Israel, so that they will have the spiritual and emotional resolve necessary to carry out the immense responsibilities that history has placed upon them, and the great struggles that await us in the future.
* The term “worthy members of Israeli society” is used here as a translation of adam b’yisrael, which literally means “a man of Israel.” This term refers to a person who is exemplary in his dealings with his fellowman, in accordance with the dictates of the Jewish tradition. It is perhaps most accurately translated as “mensch,” but in the context of this essay, Dinur is focusing not only on the character traits of such a person, but on his role within Israeli society.
