Marc: With so many of the Israelis being non-Jewish now, how do they fit into these observances in Israeli schools? Where we are a minority in the U.S., great care is generally taken to avoid having Jewish students feel left out around Christmas. Teachers frequently ask Jewish kids to explain Hanuka, make Hanuka decorations, bring special foods, and even include Hanuka songs in the school pageants. What do they do in Israel? Are their Christian and Islamic songs and decorations in the schools? How welcome and included do the Christian and Islamic kids feel in a country run by Jews? And what are the holidays like for the large number of atheist students of Jewish descent? That is unlike anything in the U.S. where atheists are a tiny minority. Do their parents mind the religious celebrations and try to keep their kids from participating, or do they just go along with the crowd?

Remember that almost all Moslem and Christians in Israel attend separate schools - there are very small numbers of them in the Jewish schools, and the assumption has always been that if they chose to attend Jewish schools, they have to accept the whole package of Jewish culture. However, as I have written previously, I have met teachers who are troubled by trying to figure out how to relate to this small minority when Jewish holidays and texts are studied. This is an unfinished project.

Also, I'm not sure just how many Israelis would define themselves as "atheist" and even if they do, the vast majority see the Jewish holidays as part of their culture and would expect them to be celebrated and taught in the schools. The main achievement of the Zionist education system was to "secularize" Jewish culture, so that you can happily celebrate the Jewish holidays as expressions of your national culture, without having to accept any particular theology.

Marc,

I have always enjoyed your writings - you may remember our exchange a few years ago. In fact, we use your beautiful poem about Pesach to set a mood for our Seder.

However, in this instance, I believe that what you wrote serves to depict what is wrong with Jewish education. If our secular schools based their entire year on doing nothing but studying holidays (i.e., Labor Day, Columbus Day, etc.), parents would be in an uproar. I was amazed one year when our synagogue religious school had a major assembly to show how the second or third graders had learned their Alef Bet by singing a song. I remarked that, if a public school principal had an assembly to have second grade students sing the "ABC" song, the parents would probably give him/her 15 minutes to clean out his/her desk.

Obviously, there is so much more to learn about Judaism than the holidays. In addition to history, there are many values and concepts that could give students strength for daily life rather than just setting them up to have little depth of knowledge but to celebrate Purim, Pesach and little else.

We are not giving our children enough credit as far as their ability to learn when we mainly "teach to the holidays". Frankly, I think it is just an easy out for faculty as teaching from holiday to holiday is easier than developing a more meaningful curriculum.

I strongly believe that we need to develop non-holiday based curricula so that our religious schools have more personal meaning and so that here is no "lull" because the string of holidays ends.

I'd be curious to hear your thoughts.

Jerry Tatar

"In day schools, where there is more time available, the holidays are a much smaller proportion of the instructional time."

There's another reason that the holidays can take up less time in day schools -- parents who send their kids to day schools are much more likely than the rank-and-file to be reinforcing the ritual and the relevance of the holidays in the home. You don't have to spend as much time teaching Sukkot or Pesach to a kid who is living Sukkot and Pesach.