When Itai Asman graduated from an elite Israeli high school, he knew virtually nothing about the Bible that shaped his people for thousands of years. His lowest grade was in biblical studies, where instead of learning about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as the founding fathers of his nation, he studied dry academic criticism comparing Torah passages to ancient Mesopotamian codes.
“I developed an alienation from Torah and internalized how primitive and dark it was,” Asman recalls of his secular education. It wasn’t until he served as a combat medic with religious soldiers in the elite Golani Brigade that he encountered what he calls “great and deep Torah”—scripture that spoke directly to his life and heritage.
Asman’s journey from biblical ignorance to Torah scholarship reveals a troubling reality about Israel’s education system that many are unaware of: the very country where the Bible was written is systematically failing to teach its Jewish children about their biblical heritage.
Understanding Israel’s Complex School System
To grasp the scope of this issue, it’s important to understand that Israel’s schools are divided into four different tracks: state-secular (Mamlachti), state-religious (Mamlachti dati), independent religious (Haredi), and Arab schools. The crisis Asman describes affects the secular state schools, which educate 56% of Israel’s Jewish students.
In the religious state schools, Jewish children receive robust biblical education alongside secular subjects. In ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) schools, Torah study dominates the curriculum. But in secular state schools—where the majority of Israeli Jewish children are educated—biblical literacy has nearly disappeared.
“Perhaps they will learn a lot of mathematics, English, and also physics and biology,” Asman writes. “But what will they know about their roots and tradition? How will they know their soul?”
The difference is stark. While a child in a religious school learns to see Abraham as the father of their faith and Moses as the lawgiver who led their ancestors from Egypt, a child in a secular school might study the same biblical figures only through the lens of historical criticism—if at all.
The Gradual Erosion of Biblical Education
This didn’t happen overnight. According to education activists, the change began in the 1990s with the Shenhar Committee, which recommended replacing traditional Jewish studies with a new track called “Jewish-Israeli Culture.” The committee advocated linking Jewish values with global values and training educators to hold a pluralistic worldview.
Roni Sassover, a Tel Aviv attorney who founded Parents’ Forum for Tradition, discovered the extent of the problem when her eight-year-old daughter received what appeared to be a Torah scroll in a school ceremony. Opening the gold-covered book, Sassover was shocked to find the pages completely blank. The teacher explained that instead of receiving the actual Torah, students now get a “travel journal” where they write their own version based on their feelings and aspirations.
The time devoted to Jewish studies has shrunk dramatically. Sassover found that only two hours a week were devoted to Jewish studies, which has since been cut to one hour, and even that hour now includes environmental issues and social studies.
The Stakes: Identity and Survival
The implications go far beyond education policy. The Torah and other Jewish scriptures have traditionally been studied to enable students to intimately understand the identity of Israel’s Jewish-majority population. When that connection is severed, it undermines the entire rationale for the Jewish state.
Sassover puts it bluntly: “If our kids don’t know why they’re living here, why they’re going to the army, why they’re risking their lives to defend this place—why not just move to Berlin?”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a similar point at a Knesset event focused on strengthening Jewish identity: “Why aren’t we in Sweden or some other place? We’re connected to this land… our faith, our religion, our nation is tied by the umbilical cord to this land, our homeland.”
This isn’t merely about religious observance. It’s about whether Jewish Israelis understand their historical and spiritual connection to the land their ancestors have claimed for over 3,000 years, and whether they will be willing to sacrifice on its behalf.
Progressive Ideology Fills the Vacuum
Activists say progressive ideology has moved into the space once occupied by biblical and Jewish education. Organizations overwhelmingly progressive in nature are providing content for Jewish-Israeli Culture programs, gaining influence by offering to fund the majority of educational programs.
According to a 2022 report, 83% of the books approved by Israel’s Education Ministry for the Jewish-Israeli Culture curriculum were written or published by organizations belonging to the progressive umbrella group Panim.
Asman describes seeing the results firsthand: “Today, in the spirit of progress, new studies on gender and climate have even been added, and so children emerge from the education system lacking identity, focusing on confusing issues that have no real meaning for their people, their families, and their land.”
While left-wing critics warn of “religionization” in Israeli schools, Asman argues the opposite is happening: “In high schools there is no religionization at all; there is secularization, and it is very dogmatic and radical.”
A New Generation’s “Holy Rebellion”
Despite—or perhaps because of—this educational vacuum, Asman sees hope in what he calls a “holy rebellion” among young Israelis. Unlike previous generations of youth who rebelled by throwing off traditional constraints, today’s young rebels are seeking to embrace their heritage.
“In the past, youth rebellion was about breaking free from every constraint; today, it is about embracing the discipline of the Kingdom of Heaven,” he writes. “Amazing!”
Social media is filled with stories of secular Israeli youth seeking Torah lessons to quench what Asman calls their thirst “after many years of drought.” Some students are even setting up tefillin (phylacteries) stands at school entrances, and when principals object, organizing mass tefillin-laying protests.
This movement reflects a broader trend. For the first time in Israel’s history, more children are beginning first grade in religious Jewish schools than in secular ones, suggesting that parents are voting with their feet against the secular system.
“Many of the younger generation are no longer willing to accept the nonsense of gender and the obsessive preoccupation with climate,” Asman observes. “Many of them have developed a strong sense of criticism; ‘liberal democracy’ itself comes under harsh scrutiny, and youth demand answers. They feel much more connected to nationalism and Zionism, and that is what truly interests them and gives their lives meaning.”
Israel’s Future
This educational crisis affects the very character of the Jewish state. When Israeli children graduate knowing nothing about Abraham’s covenant, Moses’ law, David’s psalms, or Isaiah’s prophecies, they’re disconnected from the biblical heritage that has sustained Jewish identity for millennia.
Asman’s story offers both warning and hope. The warning is that an entire generation of Israelis has been educated to be strangers in their own land, unfamiliar with the biblical heritage that justifies their presence there. The hope is that truth has a way of breaking through, even when institutional education fails.
“This youth is far wiser than any sophisticated textbook,” Asman writes. “They simply listen to the story of our nation, which is completely different from the brainwashing they receive.”
As Israel faces existential challenges from hostile neighbors and internal divisions, the question of whether young Israelis understand why they’re there—not just politically, but spiritually—becomes more urgent than ever. The “holy rebellion” Asman describes may be precisely what’s needed to reconnect the Jewish state with the biblical roots that gave it birth.
The future of the Jewish state may depend not just on military strength or diplomatic skill, but on whether the next generation of Israelis can rediscover the biblical vision that their secular education system has nearly erased.
This article is based on a Hebrew-language article by Itai Asman in Olam Katan, Edition #1013.
