Radical conservatism and circumstantial multiculturalism: Jews, Christians and Muslims in a French Catholic School in Israel

ABSTRACT

The French Saint-Joseph school in Jaffa is one of the few educational institutions in Israel that have survived, since 1882, three political regimes without relinquishing pedagogical or managerial autonomy. This article examines the emergence of circumstantial multiculturalism in the midst of radical political changes in a colonial-international school. Since 1948, the school has been founded on three constitutive contradictions: a Catholic school with a majority of Muslim and Jewish students; a French school whose vast majority of pupils are not native French speakers; and a colonial school designed to serve the French metropole and the interests of the Catholic Church, but which has been catering for the changing local elites. We show how the school produces a conservative pedagogical space that preserves religious and cultural recognition through a policy of de-politicization. The combination of pedagogical conservatism and pragmatic institutional pluralism posits a radical educational alternative to Israel’s public-school system and a political alternative to multicultural policy.

KEYWORDS:

• Multiculturalism
• bilingual education
• cosmopolitanism
• Catholic schools
• French culture
• Israel

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Marseille Chamber of Commerce, France 1919 In Ichilov and Mazawi (1996, 117–118).

2 Jaffa is an ethnically mixed city, officially annexed to Tel-Aviv and highly politically contested. Demographically, it consists of 65% Jews and 35% Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel (Monterescu 2015).

3 The Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools (Frères des écoles chrétiennes) was founded by Jean Baptiste de la Salle (1719–1651) and is currently based in Rome. The Order employs about 73,000 lay teachers in 28 countries and has over 900,000 students.

4 The Peel Commission reports (1937, 341) that in mixed schools ‘friendships between children of different races are common, and they are often received in one another’s homes. The unifying interests of school life have been found on the whole more powerful than the political antipathies of the parents.’ ‘We understand’ write the rapporteurs,

that more than one of the ablest young Arab nationalists were educated in these mixed schools. But, if in existing conditions these schools can do little to solve the problem of Palestine, they at least provide a fine example of what could have been achieved in happier circumstances. (1937, 342)

5 Memorial Day opens with a siren which is heard all over the country and lasts for one minute, during which most Jewish Israelis stop their activities, including driving on highways, and stand in silence, commemorating the fallen and showing respect. Palestinian citizens of Israel and certain Ultra-Orthodox group usually refuse to stand in protest.

Additional information

Funding

This project was made possible by the generous funding of the Gerda Henkel Foundation “Lost Cities” project.

Notes on contributors

Natalie Levy

Dr. Natalie Levy is a sociologist of education specializing in bilingual and ethnically mixed schools.

Daniel Monterescu

Prof. Daniel Monterescu is an anthropologist working on urban binationalism and ethnically “mixed” cities in Israel/Palestine. He is the PI of the project “Cities Lost and Found: The Social Life of Ruins in Israel/Palestine, 1882 to the Present” funded by the Gerda Henkel Foundation.