Textbooks in Israel

Israel's public education system is organized into distinct tracks, each with its own curriculum, student population, and relationship to Ministry of Education oversight. The Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research distinguishes official institutions, managed by the state or local authorities, from unofficial recognized institutions that are not state-run but are recognized and supervised by the Ministry. It lists state, state-religious, and state-ultra-Orthodox streams among official institutions. Exempt institutions are recognized as exempt from the system's general requirements and are not bound by the Compulsory Education Law.[6]

A 2019 government education guide describes the Ministry's core curriculum as obligatory in state elementary schools. State-religious schools also follow an obligatory core curriculum but devote roughly 40 percent of Ministry-allotted teaching hours to religious studies. Most recognized Independent Education and Ma'ayan HaTorah schools study the Ministry core curriculum, while some unrecognized religious schools teach only parts of it.[7] The Library of Congress identifies five sectors in practice: public, religious-public, Arab, Druze, and independent Haredi education.[3]

For the 2020–21 school year, within Hebrew-language schools, 55 percent of students attended state schools, 19 percent state-religious schools, and 26 percent ultra-Orthodox schools.[2] Arabic-language schools served populations including Arab, Druze, Bedouin, and Circassian students.[2] An IMPACT-se report characterizes the four main curricula as teaching different, and sometimes conflicting, visions of Israeli national identity, while also reporting that all four express commitment to Israeli democracy, peace, and mutual respect.[1]

A study of Israeli education in the 1950s and 1960s describes textbooks, illustrations, and maps as tools for shaping pupils' territorial identity and their image of the homeland. It identifies a "hidden curriculum" in which mathematics problems taught details about geographical extent, while homeland lessons, nature studies, and Bible lessons connected pupils with local landscapes and seasonal cycles. The study argues that these practices combined national aims with progressive educational ideas about children's direct encounters with nature.[8]

A 2004 Ynet report described the Ministry of Education's Textbook Approval Division as publishing an annual list of approved books in the Director-General's circular, alongside approved prices.[9] Schools were required to provide parents with textbook lists that included prices, though consumer checks and education officials indicated that this requirement was not always fulfilled.[9] A 2012 report put the approved-textbook list at approximately 5,000 books, from which schools could choose according to their curricula, including books for specialized upper-grade tracks.[5] That report said more than 40 percent of textbooks schools were then incorporating into their curricula were outside the Ministry list.[5]

Ministry guidance reported in 2003 called for schools generally to keep a textbook on their lists for five years after selection. Exceptions allowed replacement after one year if the book had substantial defects or if the curriculum had changed. The guidance also encouraged reuse, prohibited students from writing in books intended for reuse, and specified that pupils need not buy the latest printing unless an earlier edition was illegible.[10] A 2012 bill proposed limiting unnecessary edition changes by requiring Education Committee permission before publishers printed new editions, with changes permitted only following a Ministry-approved curriculum revision. It was presented as a proposal to reduce costs when older siblings held earlier editions.[11]

For English specifically, the Ministry of Education's English Curriculum 2020 specifies that instructional materials must comprise a Ministry-approved course book together with additional print or digital materials, and that materials must be inclusive, unprejudiced, inoffensive, non-stereotypical, varied in format, and appropriate to learners' age and proficiency.[12] A separate elementary English bulletin requires teachers to use only approved textbooks and refers to a Ministry-maintained list of approved elementary books and supplementary materials.[13]

A 2019 government guide said primary-school students were expected to purchase textbooks and other study materials each year, with schools providing families lists of required books and supplies. It also said most schools participated in a national book-lending program intended to reduce family expenses.[7] Under the program described in a 2012 report, participating schools charged parents 280 shekels per elementary pupil or 320 shekels per secondary pupil annually in exchange for used books in good condition. At that time, 900 of Israel's approximately 4,000 schools were participating, most of them elementary schools. Books remained school property, were sorted for reuse, and wear or unreturned books could account for 30–50 percent of first-year losses.[5] In 2010, the Knesset approved a textbook-loan bill in second and third readings; the program's budget was set to increase threefold the following year, to approximately 5.5 million shekels, with the aim of allowing more schools and families to participate.[14]

A 2011 investigation reported large gaps between production and retail costs: a tenth-grade mathematics book priced at 98 shekels reportedly cost 10 shekels to produce including VAT, while an atlas priced at 189 shekels reportedly cost 14 shekels to produce. Publishers cited development, editing, royalties, teacher materials, and online resources as additional expenses.[15]

Civic education is mandatory across all of Israel's educational sectors and is regulated, determined, and funded by the Ministry of Education. It is generally taught in grades 9–12.[3] In ninth grade, students study 42 hours of core civics topics — including the nation, citizen and state, Israel as the Jewish national state, democratic principles, and the branches of government — plus 18 hours of teacher-selected enrichment, with listed options that include human rights, equal treatment, civic participation, and separation of powers.[3]

For upper grades, the civics curriculum covers 105–115 hours of core and optional topics. Core subjects include Israel's establishment, the Declaration of Independence, the Jewish and democratic character of the state, group identities, pluralism, minority rights, and the branches of government.[3] Civics is also a matriculation examination subject; one exam question asks students to state a position on a civic issue or dilemma and argue both for and against it using concepts learned in class.[3]

Israel's education law requires that students become acquainted with the language, culture, history, heritage, and traditions of the Arab population and other communities in Israel, and recognize the equal rights of Israeli citizens. Ministry of Education guidance also addresses Arab and Islamic history, Palestine, Arab nationalism in Palestine, and the heritage of the Arab minority.[1]

A study of Israel's official civics curriculum and textbook found that the guidelines aimed to promote pluralistic and democratic citizenship and a more inclusive civic education. Researchers analyzed curriculum materials and interviewed 13 Ministry of Education officials; they reported complex, competing messages, including tensions between inclusion and exclusion and between civic education's roles in nation-building and state formation.[16] A separate study of 2014–15 history-teaching curricula in Jewish secular and Jewish religious high schools found that the Ministry of Education adopted a multicultural policy in 2000 to replace an earlier assimilation policy, but that formal multicultural intentions were not always translated into compatible curriculum content.[17]

A first-grade Hebrew studies textbook cited in an IMPACT-se report illustrates how peace themes enter the curriculum from early grades. It includes the poem "Let's Make a Little Peace," with the lines "Let's make a little peace / I with you and you with me," and its accompanying lesson asks students to consider listening, compromise, and self-restraint.[2]

An IMPACT-se study examined 107 Hebrew-language textbooks approved for state and state-religious schools for the 2022–23 academic year, drawn from a Ministry-authorized corpus described as approximately 3,600 books. Subjects covered included civics, geography, Hebrew studies, history, homeland, society and civics, Israel studies, Jewish thought, and Jewish-Israeli culture. The sample included all eight state-approved civics textbooks and most history textbooks addressing periods of the Arab-Israeli conflict; it excluded Haredi curricula and Arabic-language textbooks.[2]

Across subjects, the report characterizes the textbooks as presenting peace, dialogue, tolerance, and nonviolent dispute resolution as educational goals. The books address peace with Egypt, Jordan, and Palestinians and include the Oslo Accords and the Abraham Accords. They also present disagreement within Israeli society over Oslo, including arguments for negotiations and territorial compromise alongside objections that concessions could be dangerous.[2]

An earlier IMPACT-se study examined 123 Ministry-recommended textbooks for grades 7–12 in the Jewish state and state-religious sectors, covering academic years 2000–2017. That study found that peace was presented across subjects as desirable, achievable, and beneficial, while war was generally treated negatively, though sometimes as necessary or as a last resort. Literature included poems exalting peace; history treated war negatively and peace talks and accords positively; geography described advantages of peace; civics promoted tolerance and nonviolent conflict resolution; and Jewish religious and cultural studies connected peace with Jewish texts and tradition.[18]

Those textbooks acknowledged Arab and Palestinian presence before 1948, the development of Palestinian national identity, and aspects of Palestinian history and suffering. Many history textbooks addressed Palestinian narratives through the War of Independence, while direct post-1948 narratives from Palestinians who are not Israeli citizens were relatively rare and later events were often covered more briefly. One cited geography textbook described refugee-camp conditions as difficult and the refugee issue as a "painful human issue" and one of the Arab-Israeli conflict's most complex problems.[18]

On the question of territory, the textbooks presented internal Israeli disagreement over whether territories should be relinquished for peace, whether they are "occupied" or "liberated," and how territorial control relates to security, Israel's Jewish character, and international relations. A cited civics text presented arguments for retaining territories — as part of the homeland and as strategic depth — as well as for withdrawal, including objections to governing another people and a desire to end the conflict.[18]

Textbooks also address difficult chapters in Israeli history. The IMPACT-se 2022–23 report says books teach the legal principle that a "blatantly illegal order" must not be obeyed — marked by a "black flag" — in their account of the 1956 Kafr Qasim massacre.[2] One civics textbook presents a scenario of an elderly Palestinian man collapsing at a checkpoint in the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria — while waiting for his documentation to be verified before he could reach a hospital, asking students what values should guide their response.[2] The National Library of Israel's catalog summarizes Elie Podeh's study, The Arab-Israeli Conflict in Israeli History Textbooks, 1948–2000, as finding that earlier textbooks contained biases, distortions, and omissions that were gradually being corrected over time.[19]

Since 1982, a minimum of 30 hours of Holocaust study — as part of the history curriculum — has been mandated in all state high schools in Israel.[4] The subject is generally taught in grades 11 and 12, and a Holocaust-history question is included in the history matriculation examination. Since 1999, Holocaust study has also been recommended for junior high school students.[4]

Two prominent Ministry-authorized textbooks in this area are Israel Gutman's Shoah and Memory (1999), which received official Ministry of Education authorization, and Nili Keren's Shoah: A Journey to Memory (1999), which is organized into sections covering the prelude to genocide, perpetrators, victims, and bystanders.[4]

A separate IMPACT-se publication examines 108 textbooks across grades 1–12 in Arab Muslim, Arab Christian, Druze, Bedouin, and Circassian curricula. The organization describes the Arab-Palestinian education program as a national-minority curriculum in a conflict area, with an Arab-Palestinian standpoint that encompasses Arab culture, history, tradition, connection to the land, and resentment and struggle with Israel. Its summary says the curriculum both fosters Arab and Palestinian cultures and supports social and economic integration in Israel, and notes that some civics textbooks present Israel as the homeland.[20]

Public Arabic-speaking schools provide Quran and Bible religion classes to Muslim and Christian Arab and Palestinian students.[21] The U.S. Department of State reported that public Hebrew-language state schools taught Jewish history, Jewish culture, and some basic religious texts.[21]

Ismael Abu-Saad's 2008 article argues that the Arab curriculum gives Palestinian pupils carefully screened exposure to their history, culture, and identity, suppresses material that challenges or contradicts the Zionist narrative, and has largely excluded Palestinian educators' attempts to develop a more balanced curriculum. These are the article's critical scholarly arguments about state curriculum policy rather than an uncontested description of its effects.[22] A 2007 article by the same author identifies three influences on portrayals of Arabs in Jewish-school textbooks: Orientalism, the Zionist project of building a Jewish nation-state in Palestine in the context of the Israeli-Arab conflict, and what the author describes as an Israeli-Jewish "victim or siege mentality." This interpretive analytical framework reflects the author's scholarly argument.[23]

The Haredi educational sector occupies a distinctive position within Israel's school system. In the 2020–21 school year, 26 percent of Hebrew-language-school students attended ultra-Orthodox schools.[2] The State Comptroller defined the core curriculum as a compulsory, binding set of subjects, but noted that the full extent of the core curriculum set for ultra-Orthodox schools was smaller than that required in other education groups.[24] A 2020 State Comptroller report, based on an audit conducted from March through August 2019, found that 40 percent of the sector's Ministry-approved textbooks were old and only partly suited to the current curriculum, that ultra-Orthodox schools used unapproved books, and that the Ministry lacked organized information on the matter. The Comptroller recommended updating adapted books, increasing use of approved books, and exploring ways to encourage schools' participation in the book-lending program.[24]

An IMPACT-se study of Haredi textbooks covered 93 books used during the 2016–17 school year in grades 1–12, across Hebrew language and literature, history, geography, civics, science, and Bible. The sample included both government-published or Ministry-approved books and privately published books not approved by the Ministry; the study focused primarily on the latter, which lacked external supervision of authorship or presentation. The report notes that most boys from eighth grade onward use no secular textbooks — many Haredi groups allow boys over thirteen to substitute religious, mostly Torah, studies for secular subjects under a longstanding compromise between the state and Haredi leadership — limiting what the sampled books reveal about their full education.[25][26]

The IMPACT-se assessment describes strong emphasis on Torah study, spiritual culture, and rabbinical authority in the sampled Haredi books, alongside a commitment to peaceful conduct and nonviolence. The books tend to maintain distance from mainstream secular culture, give limited attention to Palestinian national aspirations, and do not generally address Israeli responsibility for Palestinian suffering.[25] Haredi textbook materials are adapted with limited images and content subject to a rabbinical "spiritual committee" seal of approval; secular subjects are taught in a Torah-oriented context and the scope of core subjects is described as narrower than in non-Haredi schools.[26]

The textbooks devote substantial attention to Jewish scholars, European Jewish communities, and the Holocaust, but the executive summary reports that Mizrahi Jewish history and the heritage of Mizrahi rabbis receive almost no attention in the general Haredi curricula, despite the presence of Mizrahi Haredi schools and students. Mizrahi pupils are taught largely through an Ashkenazi Haredi frame, and some Mizrahi characters are described as stereotyped.[26] On gender, lower-grade texts present mothers as responsible for the home and children and fathers as "head of the family"; upper-grade texts give women greater responsibility for family income while continuing to emphasize modesty, domestic roles, and support for Torah study.[26]

On the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Haredi materials give it little coverage. Peace and territorial compromise are not excluded but are sometimes portrayed as naïve positions associated with left-wing Israelis. Maps show only the outline of Palestinian Authority territories and neighboring Arab countries — not Palestinian cities, towns, or disputed areas. In 2018, an investigative report on Haredi textbooks found that nearly all books examined carried a rabbinical-committee approval mark and that the Ministry of Education did not play a role in that approval process; many books were also described as old and not updated.[27]

Textbooks used in East Jerusalem schools fall under the Jerusalem Education Administration, a joint body of the Jerusalem municipality and the Israeli Ministry of Education. A curriculum committee reviews and edits Palestinian Authority textbooks to remove content it considers antisemitic or inciting violence against Israel, and the Ministry requires schools to use the edited versions.[21] Some Israeli-funded public schools in Jerusalem and some Christian schools use a version of the Palestinian Authority curriculum modified by Israel's Ministry of Education; in those schools, religious education is mandatory in grades 1–6, with separate courses for Muslim and Christian students.[21]

Palestinians and Palestinian Authority officials have objected that the Israel-approved curriculum removes or reduces references to Palestinian identity and national aspirations, including flags, images of Palestinian leaders, and texts about the Palestinian "right of return." These represent competing characterizations of a politically contested curriculum policy.[21]

The cartographic content of Israeli school textbooks has been the subject of recurring academic and political debate. A 2008 article by Derek J. Penslar reported that Israeli school textbooks had often omitted the Green Line and shown the West Bank within maps of Israel. In December 2006, Education Minister Yuli Tamir announced that future textbooks should show the Green Line and that the Ministry was asked to implement a high-school curriculum on Israel's borders. Penslar described the proposal as provoking strong protest from the Israeli right, with the dispute involving both political claims and the educational question of how to teach students that borders and territorial control have changed over time.[28]

An IMPACT-se review of the 2022–23 state and state-religious textbook sample found that maps varied considerably: many marked the Green Line, Palestinian localities, or Palestinian Authority-controlled areas, but others omitted or inconsistently depicted these features. Some maps did not distinguish Israeli and Palestinian areas, some used labels such as "Disputed Territory," and some were outdated or factually incorrect. The report recommended more consistent and updated mapping.[2]

An earlier IMPACT-se study of 2000–2017 textbooks reported that maps in history, geography, and civics books showed the 1949 cease-fire line, and that some maps distinguished Judea and Samaria and Gaza from the rest of Israel while marking Palestinian Authority areas, including the A, B, and C areas associated with the Oslo Accords. The same study cautioned that some books used regional labels such as "Judea and Samaria" or "Gaza Strip" without specifying which state the areas belong to.[18]

A 2013 joint study initiated by the Council of Religious Institutions in the Holy Land and funded by the U.S. State Department examined dozens of Israeli and Palestinian textbooks in history, languages, geography, social studies, civics, and religion. It reported that 76 percent of Israeli textbook maps examined showed no line between Israel and the Palestinian territories, 11 percent showed a line without naming the Palestinian territories, and 13 percent acknowledged areas belonging to the Palestinian Authority under the Oslo agreements.[29]

Israeli textbooks' treatment of the War of Independence and the Palestinian experience of 1948 is among the most closely studied and debated aspects of the curriculum. The IMPACT-se 2022–23 report says the textbooks it sampled address Palestinian identity and nationalism, the War of Independence and Nakba, displacement and refugees, military rule, occupation, and Palestinian political and civil rights. Different textbooks give different explanations for wartime displacement, including fear of fighting, calls by Arab leaders to leave, expulsions, military operations, and the collapse of Palestinian society and leadership. One high-school history book cited by the report gives approximately 650,000 Palestinian Arab refugees; another gives approximately 700,000 and notes that Palestinian estimates are higher. These are accounts and figures reported from different textbooks, not a resolution of the historical dispute.[2]

Deir Yassin is given as an example of how textbooks discuss pre-state violence and contested historical interpretation. One textbook describes the attack by Irgun and Lehi as a massacre and gives casualty estimates ranging from 100 to 254. A textbook published by the Har Bracha Institute presents fighters' denial of an intentional massacre alongside the account that rumors of a massacre caused fear and contributed to Arab flight.[2]

In 2007, a third-grade geography book titled Living Together in Israel drew political attention for describing some Arab residents as having been expelled and becoming refugees and Israel as having confiscated Arab land, while also presenting the Arabs' rejection of the UN partition decision and the Jews' acceptance. Education Minister Yuli Tamir said the curriculum had been developed over several years and approved by a professional committee. National supervisor Dalia Penig explained that the Arabic edition was translated and culturally adapted from the Hebrew original and that a steering committee chose to include both narratives. The response was sharply divided: critics including Avigdor Lieberman, Zevulun Orlev, and Limor Livnat condemned the inclusion of the Palestinian-Arab account, while Ahmed Tibi called for teaching that narrative in Jewish schools, and Zehava Gal-On supported broader recognition of competing experiences.[30]

The educational significance of textbook choices is especially visible in initiatives designed to bridge Jewish and Arab educational cultures. The Hand-in-Hand bilingual school network combines the curricula used in Israel's Jewish and Arab sectors, with some changes in history and civics. Teachers receive training to make cultural adjustments, including in the choice of texts. At the time of publication of the Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research's account, the network operated one secondary school and several primary schools established by nonprofit organizations and private actors.[31]

Israeli and Palestinian teachers have also collaborated to develop a history textbook presenting both groups' narratives of the same events side by side. The book was tested in Israeli and Palestinian classrooms, exposing students on each side to the other's understanding of key historical events. Its authors argue that both the collaborative process and the dual-narrative text itself can help teachers play a productive role in the context of violent political conflicts.[32]

Textbook content in Israel has generated sustained scholarly and political debate, touching on questions of historical accuracy, national identity, representation, and the appropriate scope of peace education. Several areas of particular contention stand out.

The 2013 joint Israeli-Palestinian textbook study, initiated by the Council of Religious Institutions in the Holy Land and funded by the U.S. State Department, reported that 75 percent of Israeli textbooks it studied characterized the opposing community as the enemy and that Israeli state-school books conveyed a largely one-sided national narrative. Israel's Education Ministry refused to cooperate with the study and called it slanted and nonobjective; the Anti-Defamation League also criticized it as distorted and counterproductive.[29]

The 2016 civics textbook Being a Citizen in Israel — a 500-page high-school text and one of three civics books available for schools preparing students for mandatory matriculation exams, and the only one of the three translated into Arabic — was the subject of competing claims about bias. Critics argued it marginalized Arab and secular Israelis, gave scant attention to Palestinians and settlements, and prioritized Jewish identity over civic identity. The book contained material on Jewish-Arab relations, including the Kafr Qasim massacre, educational and economic gaps, mistrust, tolerance, and pluralism; the dispute concerned both its omissions and its treatment of those topics.[33] A revised civics textbook approved in 2015 similarly drew criticism about narrow treatment of solidarity and exclusion of some experts, while its defenders pointed to its coverage of Israel as a Jewish state, a democratic state, and the country's system of government.[34]

Arabic translations of civics textbooks have also generated controversy. A 2019 report described delays and disagreements over which books were approved in Arabic, with criticism of terminology choices in one translated text, including the renderings of "Palestine" and "Al-Quds."[35] IMPACT-se's findings on peace education and portrayals of Palestinians reflect that organization's stated UNESCO-derived assessment standards rather than universally accepted descriptions of the curriculum.[2][18] Academic studies have separately identified tensions between inclusion and exclusion and between formal multicultural policy and the content ultimately presented to students.[16][17]