Within the national confines: Israeli history education and the multicultural challenge

ABSTRACT

This article examines the key category defining multiculturalism in Israeli history education: the representation of North African and Middle Eastern Jewry, aka Mizrahim. Applying Nordgren’s and Johansson’s conceptualisation, the article explores the changes in this subject from the establishment of Israel to the present day. The diachronic textual analysis shows that social and educational transformations along with developments in the historical discipline have led to a significant change in the representation of Mizrahim. These changes, the conceptual framework reveals, were manifested not solely in adding content but reflected a profound acknowledgement of multicultural approaches. Nevertheless it became clear that the changes are limited, as constructing the Eurocentric Zionist historical consciousness remains the primary goal of the education process. Similar to controversies around the world, the limited nature of the changes–despite the sincere efforts involved–is the result of the rigid national framework that continues to shape Israel’s history education.

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

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

Notes

1. The catch-all term Mizrahim (lit. ‘easterners’) itself has evoked fierce controversy. However, because it remains a key category in Israeli society and academic research, we use it here without losing sight of its limitations and the power relations that it embodies.

2. In the article, we choose to use the descriptive term ‘multicultural’ because the normative term, ‘intercultural,’ remains controversial in Israeli society, as we discuss below.

3. This calculation is based on an analysis of the three main series of textbooks: Ziv and Touri (1959; Avivi and Perski (1958); and Katz and Hershko (1962).