The integration of Yemenites in Israeli schools.

THE UPROAR OVER THE EDUCATION of Yemenite children in the immigrant moshav [cooperative agricultural settlement] of Amka, in the north of Israel, is one of the most flagrant examples of the kind of absorption that met new immigrants from Islamic countries in the first years of Israel's independence. The group most active in absorption at the time was the Mapai [Labor Party]-dominated Moshav Movement. Amka was among the moshavim singled out by both the religious press and religious parliamentarians as proof of the violation of the 1949 Compulsory Education Law, which guaranteed parents the right to choose a particular educational system for their children. (1) Amka was pointed to as an example of anti-religious coercion perpetrated by the leading political parry, Mapai, and the Israeli Left. In this period, however, Mapai members, led by Prime Minister Ben-Gurion, and the first two ministers of education, Zalman Shazar and David Remez, vehemently refuted this charge. They fulminated in both the media and Knesset that such claims were libelous and totally unsubstantiated.

In the years that have passed, confidential documents from the highest echelons of Mapai have been made public, revealing that, among the parry elite, it was common knowledge that the Moshav Movement was flouring the Compulsory Education Law and that anti-religious coercion was raking place at Amka. Moreover, a wealth of evidence shows that Mapai leaders were bitterly divided over the manner in which immigrants from Oriental backgrounds, including the Yemenites at Amka, should be assimilated into the country. On one hand, officials such as Shazar and Remez believed that anti-religious coercion must be avoided and that immigrant parents in all of the Moshav Movement's villages, like other parents throughout the country, should be allowed to choose their children's educational framework. On the other hand, leading figures in the Labor "system," such as Yaakov Halperin (Niv) (Head Supervisor), Yakov Sarid (a top official in Tel-Aviv), and the leaders of the Moshav Movement, especially Member of Knesset (MK) Ami Assaf, believed that their primary mission was to spread the Labor Movement gospel among as many pupils as possible. It was decided that, in every moshav affiliated with the Moshav Movement, only educational institutions associated with the Histadrut [the Labor Movement's trade union] would be permitted to operate. Aided by instructors and volunteers from veteran moshavim, public and Labor-affiliated organizations made full use of their power and compelled immigrant children to take their schooling in either the Labor or Religious-Labor system. Objecting parents were eventually expelled from the village.

It seems that Ben-Gurion was caught between the two sides. Publicly he defended the Labor system and asserted that everything was proceeding legally. But in closed-doors discussions with party leaders, he admitted that the Moshav Movement was in fact breaking the law, and that it was dangerous to lend it support. In one such meeting he was extremely outspoken on this point, declaring that "our" people were carrying out acts of "robbery in broad daylight" on the new immigrants and that the nation and the party would pay dearly for this in the future.

In retrospect, by failing to demand an immediate end to the infringement of the law and the accompanying anti-religious coercion, the Prime Minister and the cabinet, including ministers from the Religious Front (2) gave, in effect, their tacit sanction to illegal acts.

A BRIEF LOOK AT THE ABSORPTION OF YEMENITES (1948-1951)

Between 1948-1951, nearly 680,000 immigrants entered the State of Israel, half of whom arrived from Islamic countries. (3) One group of special distinction came from Yemen and Aden on an airlift operation known as the "Wings of Eagles." (4) The exodus began in December 1948 and was completed in less than two years, in September 1950. Altogether, 48,000 Jews landed in Israel from Yemen and Aden. (5) On arrival, all of the Yemenite immigrants were sent to transit camps, although many were transferred to work villages and moshavim after only a few weeks.

The Moshav Movement was the main organization involved in the absorption of new immigrants. The movement's leaders responded enthusiastically to Ben-Gurion's call in early 1949 for assistance and shouldered the daunting task of overcoming innumerable ideological and practical obstacles, vigorously taking the lead in the policy known as "from transit camp to village." (6) In 1948, prior to the massive influx of immigrants into the country, the Moshav Movement contained only 49 villages, comprising 3245 families. Within five years, an additional 135 moshavim were established that included 9547 families. In this short time, the Moshav Movement expanded into the dominant organization of labor settlement. (7)