New curriculum to highlight Druze community and its ties to the state, ministry says
Announcement of program for middle school students comes days after the Jewish Agency elected a first Druze representative to its Board of Governors
Gavriel Fiske is a reporter at The Times of Israel
The state will implement a new curriculum called “Druze Society: History, Heritage and Culture,” intended to highlight “the historical partnership between the Druze and the State of Israel and understand its essence and challenges,” the Education Ministry announced.
The aim is to cover Druze history, culture, religion and society, including “the historical context between the Druze community and the State of Israel,” with a “special emphasis” on Druze service in the IDF and other Israeli security forces, the ministry said Monday.
The program is to be an elective course for middle school students (grades 7-9) in state secular and national religious Jewish schools, and is to include field trips to Druze communities. It was not announced when the program would be implemented.
The Druze, who number around 140,000 in Israel, are an Arabic-speaking minority population distinct from the mainstream Muslim and Christian Arabic communities, with a unique history, culture and religion.
Unlike other Arab Israelis — except some members of the Bedouin community — the Druze traditionally have served in the Israel Defense Forces and Border Police, with some achieving very high ranks. Most of the community lives in the north — in the Galilee and the Golan Heights. There are also Druze communities in Syria and Lebanon.
Referencing the history of Druze IDF service, Education Ministry Yoav Kisch, in announcing the program, said, “The blood alliance with our Druze brothers is a cornerstone of the shared Israeli story” and added that the curriculum would highlight “the courageous Druze society and its deep commitment to the State of Israel.”
Despite the warm embrace of large swaths of the Israeli public, the community has suffered a series of blows from the political establishment, particularly under right-wing governments of recent years.
In 2017, the Knesset passed an amendment to the planning law — known as the Kamenitz law after a Justice Ministry official — to fast-track action against illegal building without going through the courts. The amendment is widely understood to target Arab towns, where building permits are difficult to secure and Arab citizens therefore are wont to build illegally.
Then, in 2018, the Knesset passed the Nation State Law, which declares the country to be the nation-state of the Jewish people and which is seen by the country’s minority communities — including the Druze — and many Jewish Israelis as insultingly exclusionary.
During the current Israel-Hamas war, more than a dozen Druze soldiers have died, including Col. Ehsan Daqsa, 41, the commander of the IDF’s 401st Armored Brigade, who was killed in October. In June, 12 children playing soccer in the Druze town of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights were killed by a Hezbollah rocket.
“I am very happy this is happening, but it’s very sad that a war was needed. I wish it had happened before,” Adham Nasr Aldin, a community organizer based in Daliyat al-Karmel, a Druze-majority town near Haifa, said of the Education Ministry announcement.
The Druze live in somewhat insular villages, and leave “to work, to go to university, to serve in the IDF,” where they learn that “Israeli society is a Jewish society, but it doesn’t go the other way,” and a lot of Jewish Israelis don’t know much about the Druze, Aldin said, speaking Tuesday by phone to The Times of Israel.
The IDF is “a good connection” between Jews and Druze and IDF service is often when members of the two communities truly meet each other for the first time, but “there should be more cooperation, more programs together… this is the kind of thing that can create a better future. The Druze are an important part of Israeli society,” he said.
Earlier this week, the Jewish Agency for Israel announced that Col. (Res.) Mofid Marai, a former MK and battalion commander, had been elected as the first Druze member of the agency’s Board of Governors.
“Having Col. Mofid Marai join the Board of Governors of The Jewish Agency symbolizes the deep connection as well as the recognition of the strategic and historical commitment between the Druze community and the State of Israel,” Jewish Agency chairman Maj. Gen. (res.) Doron Almog said in a statement.
On Sunday, the Board of Governors approved a resolution “calling on the Israeli Knesset to pass legislation that acknowledges the Druze community’s commitment to the state, and that affirms the full equality of rights to which the Druze citizens of Israel are entitled,” the statement said.
Sue Surkes contributed to this report.
