Secular and state-funded religious schools in Israel will soon begin teaching compulsory courses on Jewish and Zionist identity, including religious ceremonies and Bible. Bottom line: the state will decide what it means to be a Jew in Israel.
Reposted from Jewish News Syndicate (JNS), May 27, 2025
Israeli Education Minister Yoav Kisch on May 27, 2025, announced reforms aimed at placing Jewish and Zionist studies at the heart of the core curriculum in all publicly funded state schools starting in 2026.
Kisch’s initiative is part of a broader program titled “Shoreshim [Roots]—The National Program for Jewish and Zionist Identity,” which seeks to bring about a shift toward making the two subjects compulsory. The plan will be rolled out in secular and state-funded religious schools.
“We are changing direction,” Kisch said in a statement published by his office on Tuesday. “Jewish identity can no longer be left to local choice or personal preference. Our responsibility is to anchor belonging, heritage, and meaning within the national education program.”
As part of the Shoreshim program, students will now be expected to pass a Bible study exam as part of the Meitzav standardized assessment. To this end, first through twelfth-grade students will now learn the Bible weekly.
The budget for Jewish identity education has quadrupled from 1% to 4% in just one year, the ministry said, supporting more educational content like tours of the Land of Israel, history classes, and religious ceremonies.
A new core subject, Paths of Heritage, which will be taught in grades two to six, integrates Zionist and Jewish themes from existing disciplines, and is set to be rolled out to middle schools starting in the 2026–27 school year.
Programs like “Going Up to Jerusalem” and visits to other national and Jewish heritage sites will also be made compulsory, according to Kisch’s office.
Over 1,600 educators have already undergone specialized training ahead of the reform, according to the press release, with the ministry adding it was planning to launch a new online platform to provide teachers with lesson plans, interactive resources, and other tools.
Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre “not only shocked us—it revealed what’s missing,” explained Kisch, adding: “This is a deep shift, but also a simple one: restoring to our children what should have been obvious. This is our duty—both to today’s students and the future of Israel.”*
Experts told JNS last week that a “woke” bureaucracy runs the Education Ministry, and that even Kisch, a member of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud Party, hasn’t succeeded in shaking its grip.
A key concern, according to critics, is what they claim is the ministry’s failure to teach Jewish history and identity, particularly in secular state schools, which account for 56%, or 833,881, of Israel’s Jewish students.
*EDITOR’S NOTE: Mr. Kisch is missing the point of Hamas’ attack on Israel in October 2023: it was not a failure to embrace Jewish/Zionist identity. It was a desperate act of resistance, undertaken after years of oppression and many nonviolent attempts to call attention to the issue.
The people of Palestine have many legitimate grievances for which resistance is an appropriate response. Israel is, according to the International Court of Justice, plausibly committing genocide, illegal occupation, apartheid, extermination, and a targeted campaign of starvation – to name a few.
International law supports the efforts of resistance groups against an occupying power, even to the point of armed resistance.
JNS (Jewish News Syndicate) is a news agency that focuses on coverage of Israel and Jewish communities worldwide.
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