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Tel Aviv recommends portraying non-heteronormative families in preschool Shabbat services
The city advises its preschools to update their welcoming-Shabbat services on Fridays to reflect the variety of families that live in the metropolis, be they LGBT, single-parent, etc.; municipal psychologists explain that instructing young children coexistence from a young age is crucial to their development.
The city of Tel Aviv has recommended updating the Shabbat-welcoming service held in municipal preschools on Fridays to display a variety of gender roles in different family models.
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This recommendation was initiated to more accurately reflect a city containing thousands of families with LGBT families. For this purpose, Tel Aviv assigned two dedicated psychologists to guide teachers and parents in instructing and discussing the modern family in all its incarnations.
Many preschools have already adopted the recommendation and are hosting Shabbat-welcoming services with rotating volunteers, regardless of their gender identity.
(Photo: Shaul Golan)
As part of changes that have already been implemented in preschools throughout Tel Aviv to reflect the various types of families entrusting their children's care to the city , the contact sheet distributed to parents asks for "parent's name" instead of "mother's" or "father's". In addition, the preschools' walls show drawings and pictures of families that more accurately reflect the wide range of gender and sexual minorities in the city. The preschools' libraries also include children's books that are equally inclusive.
Gali Shine-Tal and Itai Himmelfarb, psychologists from the public counseling service of Tel Aviv, explained that the messages transmitted to preschool-aged children are significant and important to the development of sensitivity for LGBT families, ensuring that the children from such families don't feel guilty or abnormal. Himmelfarb explained, "It's important to us that the social climate in preschool be positive and encouraging to the families. Our goal is to produce thinking that takes into account LGBT families."
However, Shine-Tal said that some of the city's preschools were responding enthusiastically to the recommendation, and some of the teachers were exhibiting less tolerant viewpoints. "We're trying to render the positions more flexible and enable accepting reference because this is important to children's development," she explained. "We're telling them that they need to distinguish between personal views and the educational views."
According to both the psychologists, in a city like Tel Aviv—in which thousands of families with LGBT parents reside—"It's important to strengthen the children's expressing of empathy for the feelings of every child, and on the other hand, to strengthen (the sentiment) that their family is worthwhile, good, complete, proper and loving."
The two pointed out that Tel Aviv contains many diverse family modes, be they heteronormative, LGBT, divorced, remarried, single-parent, shared parenting, etc.
Deputy Mayor of Tel Aviv in charge of education, Asaf Zamir, said, "Fortunately, part of the significant growth in the number of children in the city in recent years stems from the many LGBT families who choose to raise their children in the city. Since the municipal educational system deals with the variety of communities living in the city and the diversity that characterizes it from many angles, our aspiration is to have a system that will serve different groups of the population and that will teach boys and girls to coexist with each other."
