“One of the many goals for education in Israel is to get to know the language, culture, history, heritage and unique tradition of the Arab-Israeli population, as well as other minority groups in the country, and learn about their equal rights as citizens. This is clearly written in the government-mandated Compulsory Education Law set in 1953. Arabic, as is well-known, is an official language in Israel, in addition to Hebrew.

But here is some news: Millions of citizens who are graduates of the education system in Israel don’t know Arabic or anything about the heritage of the Arab-Israeli population. It’s true that there have always been a few students who took extra Arabic to get into desirable army units; but that was not the goal of the lawmakers in the 1950s. In fact, they were seeking just the opposite. Their thinking was that a polarized society, which naturally divides into separate educational streams, must find a way to bridge the alienation; it should not be a matter of choice or caprice, but rather a requirement.

Israel’s ongoing failure to endow its Jewish citizens with knowledge of the Arabic language can be blamed on a variety of factors. It is connected to what is learned: literary Arabic that is not useful for daily speaking. It is also related to how much Arabic is studied: usually only three hours a week over the course of three or four years in more than half of the schools around the country. It is also because of who teaches Arabic language courses: The teachers are not Arabs, but rather Jews, who themselves are not actually Arabic speakers. These are the practical expressions of old educational policies, whose only goal is to fulfill a requirement, and not actually to learn.”

Read more…