Israel Education Ministry to Revise Curriculum to Include History of Jews from Islamic Countries

Published: 
August 8, 2016

Source: Jerusalem Post

 

Middle- and high-school history curriculums will be required to include the study of Jews in Islamic countries beginning in the upcoming school year, the Israel Education Ministry announced on Monday. The decision aims to implement one of the recommendations of the Biton Committee, released in July, which was tasked with enhancing Eastern Jewish cultural studies within the general education curriculum.

Education Minister Naftali Bennett launched the committee some five months ago and appointed as its head Erez Biton, the first poet of Mizrahi descent to win the Israel Prize in Literature in 2015.
Biton was tasked with empowering the identity of the Mizrahi Jewish community – including immigrants from Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Tunisia and Libya – within the education system.

The subjects to be covered in the revised curriculum include the scattering of Jews throughout the Diaspora after the expulsion from Spain in 1492, the activities of Alliance Israelite Universelle in aiding Jews from Islamic countries in education, pogroms against the Jewish community in North Africa and Asia, the establishment of the Bukharan Quarter in Jerusalem and the Black Panthers.

Read the entire article in the Jerusalem Post.

Updated: Aug. 23, 2016
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