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Chapter 6 Islamic Education in Israel Whereas the Ministry of Religious Affairs played a decisive role in defining policy towards most Islamic institutions, including shari' a courts and holy places, the Ministry ofEducation and Culture had near exclusive jurisdiction over Muslim education policy. The young, socialist state strictly relegated religion to two distinct domains: personal status and freedom of worship. The secular Mapai leadership considered education to be far too crucial a sphere to entrust even the minor subfield of Muslim religious instruction to the Ministry of Religious Affairs. For, according to this highly ideological ruling elite, education was the key to molding the young citizens of the new state. From the outset, Israel considered education a top priority, which consistently received more funding than any other undertaking except national defense . In 1949 and 1953, the government passed National Education Laws, establishing free compulsory education for all Israeli citizens between the ages of six and fourteen.1 Ben-Gurion explained the primacy of education during the formative years ofstatehood: Another step we took in accordance with our basic aims was the introduction of free universal elementary education. That may not sound so startling, for there are many countries which offer this educational service and more. But we had just been born; our resources were limited, and desperately needed to finance food and guns. Nevertheless, we decided to give education, like immigration, a high enough priority after security to enable both to advance.2 97 98 ISLAMIC EDUCATION IN ISRAEL During the mass wave ofimmigration ofthe early 1950s, the ruling elite focused on the establishment of the Jewish education system. While the state also launched the Arab education system during this period, it did not define its goals until the late 1950s, following extensive debate. Since the government considered Islamic instruction only a marginal topic in Arab education, the crystallization ofa Muslim education policy did not occur until the early 1960s. Ironically, the emergence of minimal religious instruction in the noncompulsory Muslim secondary schools resulted from an initiative by Christian clergy members during the same period. Thus, in contrast to the study offormative policies towards other Islamic institutions, which were completed by the mid-1950s, the analysis ofIslamic education policy requires following the issue into the mid-1960s. LESSONS FROM THE MANDATE AND THE TRANSITION TO ISRAELI CONTROL As a first step, Israeli policymakers studied the education system ofthe British Mandate in depth in order to decide which elements to adopt and which to reject . When the British controlled Palestine, the Arabs and Jews had completely separate education systems, a continuation ofthe practice followed during the period of Ottoman rule. The British government schools for Arabs were those previously maintained by the Turkish government and modeled on French lines following the Tanzimat reform; however, the British changed the official language of instruction to Arabic. The British directly administered and largely funded this Arab public school system, with some contribution from municipal and local councils.3 Muslims comprised the majority of students in the public schools. The British succeeded in vastly increasing enrollment rates among the rural Muslims between 1919 and 1948 by providing teachers, furniture, and books to any village willing to provide a school building. In 1945, over 80,000 Arab students attended the government schools, which stressed technical subjects at the expense oftraditional memorization of classical texts.4 Although statistics differ, approximately 32.5 percent of Arab youth attended either government or private elementary schools in July 1944.5 Increasing numbers of students completed secondary school, and graduates found jobs as high prestige whitecollar clerks and civil servants. The majority of Christian Arabs continued to study in church and mission schools. The Mandate Department of Education did its best not to act against the wishes of the Arab population, particularly in an area as sensitive as religious education. Thus, local Muslim officials devised the syllabus for Muslim studies ; moreover, the British appointed a renowned shaykh to supervise religious instruction and to act as an advisor to the Department ofMuslim Affairs.6 The Alisa Rubin Peled 99 Supreme Muslim Council also maintained its own limited school system, which stressed the religious and moral basis of education throughout the curriculum and presented nationalism as an inherent component ofreligion'? During the Mandate period, nationalist ideology spread informally among the students, lessening religious and sectarian divisions in the Arab community.8 In response to this phenomenon, the British devoted much more attention to suppressing the dissemination of nationalist ideas in the schools than...

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