Opinion - By Mitchel Malkus
Last month the school I run came alive with energy as 40 sixth-graders got to know 25 of their Israeli peers. They came together and discussed a Holocaust novel they had all read, did drama activities and an art project that grappled with what it means to be a leader, and participated in a workshop on tallit and tefillin with our school rabbi. One of my yearly highlights as a Jewish educator is watching as my students learn and forge new friendships with students from a suburban Tel Aviv school via an exchange program run by the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles as part of the Jewish Agency for Israel’s Partnership 2000 program. That’s why I was so disappointed by a recent decision by Israel’s Ministry of Education striking a grave blow to a program that has brought together thousands of young people from Israel and the Diaspora.
Earlier this month, the ministry’s director-general, Shimshon Shoshani, announced that beginning next year, Israeli students will be prohibited, when their schools are in session, from going on Jewish Agency exchange delegations to Jewish schools abroad. Israeli students would still be allowed to go on exchanges during vacation periods, but Israeli school vacations often coincide with Jewish holy days or with times American schools are also on break, making such arrangements impractical in many instances.
Rabbi Mitchel Malkus is head of school of the Rabbi Jacob Pressman Academy of Temple Beth Am in Los Angeles.