A wakeup call
Op-ed: Decision to exclude Dorit Rabinyan's book 'Borderlife' from high school curriculum is reminiscent of growing problem of bigotry in Israeli society.
In the political sphere, as in the public one, achieving prestige is very difficult and losing it is very easy. Last week, Education Minister Naftali Bennett earned a lot of points to his credit. His unambiguous words opposing the attacks on the Shin Bet and his condemnation of the Duma murderers
were widely praised. Even the prime minister had not given the Shin Bet that much support until Bennett backed them publically.
But every week has a weekend, and if for a moment we allowed ourselves to forget where the education minister came from and what he represents, it turned out the Education Ministry, headed by Bennett, decided to exclude the book "Borderlife" by Dorit Rabinyan – which deals with a love story between an Israeli woman and a Palestinian man – from school curriculums.
The Education Ministry's reasoning for the exclusion makes one want to cry. Really. Crying over the darkness that is slowly coming down upon our lives. Crying because of the slow-but-steady takeover of extremist, racist worldviews – which, as in this case, are sometimes so blatant, and sometimes without us even being aware of it happening.
Minister of Education Naftali Bennett. Received credit for Duma comments (Photo: Yaron Brener)
Crying over the fact fundamentalists, no less, have taken over important issues, like the education of our children. Things that had we heard were happening elsewhere - we would have been shocked.
But this is happening here. And there are people here who hold the most important positions, who are trying to make us not think. To take over our collective consciousness. To fog up the reality of our lives. The will to preserve the "identity and heritage of students of all sectors" and the thought that "intimate relations between Jews and non-Jews threaten the separate identity" – these are arguments reminiscent of laws from the history of our nation that we would probably rather forget.
There's no way of softening the blow of the Pedagogic Secretariat's decision, which is backed by the education minister. What the ministry is telling us, without even masking its words too much, is that we need to teach our children that Jewish and Arab blood must not be mixed. That the existing state must be followed.
What are these if not racial laws. Of all the books in the world, which deal with complex subjects like murder, adultery, corruption, immorality – some of which our children read when studying for their matriculation exams – this book, which deals with love, in particular, was disqualified by the Education Ministry.
Dorit Rabinyan's 'Borderlife.' Won't be taught in school (Photo: Am Oved publishing)
The alarm clock started going off a long time ago. It was set off by Culture and Sport Minister Miri Regev's decisions over culture, it was set off by Knesset members' racist comments, it was set off by ministers' fascistic speeches. We apparently hit the off button and went back to sleep.
Now the alarm clock is going off again, with the exclusion of a book from the curriculum. A book that deals with the reality of our lives and attempts to rise above the fence separating us from our neighbors. A book that makes us think.
But we must not think. There's a fear that we, like the youths spoken of in the Secretariat's arguments, "don't have a systemic view which includes considerations of preserving the people's identity and the meaning of assimilation."
So let's hit the alarm clock. Let's turn it back off. Let's cover our heads with our blankets and go back to sleep.
