Picture: Fr. Fahim Abdelmaseh, Bishop Giacinto-Bulos(center), and Catholic Arab students
Posted on 05/24/2015 3:01:45 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o
On Wednesday, the 27th of May 2015, at 11:00 AM, an unprecedented demonstration will be held in the plaza in front of the Lev Ram building in Jerusalem (Ministry of Education headquarters) by the Christian Schools in Israel against the policy of the Ministry of Education.
Participants in the demonstration will include clergymen (Bishops, Priests, Nuns, and Pastors) in addition to parents of children in Christian schools throughout the country.
The Christian schools in the country consist of more than 30,000 students, almost equally divided between Christians and Muslims. Most of these schools began operating years before the State of Israel was established. They were built and developed through donations from abroad. They provided the general Arab community with quality education that has resulted in the high achievements of the Christian schools. This high quality education is displayed, among other things, in the number of Christian schools listed at the top of the Ministry of Education’s published categories. While achieving high academic results, they also teach their students Christian doctrine and instruct them according to the Christian values of loving others, forgiveness and tolerance.
These schools belong to the “recognized but not public” classification of schools in the Ministry of Education and receive partial funding from the Ministry. The rest of their funding comes from fees that are collected from the parents.
For years, the Ministry of Education has been consistently cutting the budget of Christian schools (35% in the last 10 years). This has forced the Christian schools to raise the service fees that are collected from the parents to a level that has become a heavy burden on the parents, especially for parents from the Arab sector where the average family income is well known to be lower than the national average.
Last year the Ministry of Education issued new regulations that even limited the ability of Christian schools to collect fees from the parents. The combination of these two things, substantial budget cuts and limiting allowable fees, is actually viewed as a death penalty for these schools.
A committee appointed by the Office of Christian Schools in Israel held negotiations for 8 months with the Ministry of Education where the Ministry proposed that the Christian schools become public schools. This proposal was seen by the owners of the schools (churches, monasteries, etc.) as the end of the Christian, value-based educational enterprise and even a critical blow to the Christian minority in the Land. In light of that, the Christian schools decided to end these negotiations.
The owners of these schools from around the world (The Vatican, Germany, England, France, Scotland, USA and others) are aware of this crisis and are watching with growing concern.
The protestors in the demonstration will be demanding that the Ministry of Education fully fund the Christian schools, just like other educational networks, and thus lift the burden from the shoulders of the parents and cancel the need for them to pay the service fees to the Christian schools.
For any further information - contact Father Fahim Abdelmasih,OFM, head of the Christian Schools’ office at 050-5376481. .
Real school choice is an important mark of a free society. I want to keep an eye on this.
Sounds like what is happening with parochial schools in America.
All schools teach a belief system. It’s just a question of whether the powers that be agree with that particular belief system.
Real school choice is an important mark of a free society. I want to keep an eye on this.
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Well we don’t live in a free society here that is for sure.
This sort of implies that all other educational networks are fully funded by the government. I don't believe that such is the case. Reform and Conservative rabbis here in the US regularly whine that their associated schools in Israel do not get government funding. Only Orthodox Jewish institutions are funded by the government. (I don't know about Muslim schools.)
ML/NJ
They are doing the same to Jewish schools. This isn’t mentioned because it interferes with their persecution complex and desire for leftist help.
So an attempt to economically squeeze Jewish schools too in order to be taken over by the state justifies the same attempt against Christian schools? Christians should just keep quiet and let the state close down their schools?
This statement is fishy. It suggests that Jews have a secondary claim, even though "years before" means the period when Zionist Jews moved into the territory laid waste by Muslim rule and caused it to flourish.
Many of the "Christians" over there are Arabs first and Dhimmi Christians second.
Ack! This is exactly what has happened in Chile under the banner of punishing “money-hungry” school owners. It will destroy what gains in educational quality have been achieved in the last 27 years.
Once socialism is accepted and it’s understood that it’s OK to demand other people’s money, it always comes down to a demand for the government to steal more money on behalf of recipients. It is inevitable.
Exactly.
Because the population of religious Jews is increasing, there is a push on by the secular government to ‘mainstream’ religious schools by offering them incentives to increase hours of study to accommodate more secular studies. Interesting that this apparently should have some fallout on Christian schools, if that is indeed the case.
Like most Christians, I am a firm supporter of Israel against the Palestinians. But it must be said that the Jewish government has not always been kind to Christians living in Israel. Not because they are Jewish, but because so many of them are big-government leftists.
It’s unfortunate. But from the sound of it, they have every right, indeed duty, to object to a government takeover of religious schools.
I’m wondering whether some sort of voucher system would work. All parents get, oh, say, $10,000 per year per child, to be spent on tuition and fees. They can spend it wherever they want. Public subsidy, parental choice, free market.
You're assuming "persecution complex" for no sufficient reason.
That’s precisely what Israel’s education bureaucrats want to move farther away from. They believe that smart bureaucrats should direct education for the benefit of ‘society’ and that unwashed religious believers are just too stupid to make wise decisions.
I don't see where it suggest that at all. There's nothing there about Jews being "secondary."
Without evidence, your comment seems to be an example of eisegesis. If you want to try again, I am always willing to look at evidence.
Then why put restriction on the fees they can charge? There is more here that you do not want to admit.
And you put “Christians” in scare quotes? Do you mean to suggest they are not Christians?
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