When I made aliyah in the fall of 2011 I knew I was coming to a
country that had undergone serious changes in the past forty years. Even for
Jews outside of Israel, it has been clear for some time that the country is not
what it once was. The conversation has changed. For my mother, growing up at a
Zionist summer camp in Canada, Israel was a modest society comprised of
pioneering kibbutzniks who worked the fields by day and danced the hora into
the night. For myself, raised in the same community forty years later, Israel
was sleek, sophisticated, and high-tech savvy. A ‘Start-Up Nation’ that could
compete on the international market and lead the world in medical and defense
research. A nation whose children, just like me, wore Levis, ate McDonalds and
listened to the newest MTV star. Celebrated in synagogues, at community events
and on Israel advocacy displays in Hillel Houses throughout North America, this
transition has been hailed as a great success and source of pride throughout the
Jewish world. The fact that Israel developed ICQ, ‘a marvel display of Israeli
ingenuity’ my dad told me, was something to brag about to my friends. And it
is.
Nevertheless, the transition in Israeli society that has taken
place over the last forty years has not been entirely positive. The changes in
Israel have produced a much more negative – and widely unknown in the diaspora
– trend of privatization. The current government, led by Benjamin Netanyahu,
continues to cut social services, health care, and welfare while refusing to
interfere with corrupt tycoons who exploit their workers and the public at
large. Unlike what those in the Likud would tell you, this trend is not simply
economic. It is not just a ‘changing of the times’ or a necessary step that
every country in transition must take. The trend towards privatization is a
dangerous turn that, if left unchecked, could have disastrous long term effects
on the future of the country.
As an oleh, nothing makes the nature of this trend clearer than
the continual attempt of the government over the last ten years to privatize ulpanim. As educational institutions dedicated to absorbing
immigrants and teaching them the Hebrew language, ulpanim have functioned as
essential institutions since the founding of the country. They, perhaps more
than any other institution in Israel, are the practical manifestation of the
Zionist dream of the “ingathering of the exiles” laid out in the Declaration of
Independence. They are essential to the future of the country as a home for
olim and as center of the Jewish People.
However, beginning in 2007 when a study about deficiencies within the ulpanim was released, the ulpanim
have been under attack. Successive governments have complained of failures
within the ulpan system – mainly poor teaching and results – and have called
for the breaking apart of the system into a private service that is not run by,
or accountable to, the state. As Leora
S. Fridman explains in her article in Haaretz, this shift in government attitude shows a deeply unsettling
trend.
“Placing the
ulpan on the budgetary chopping-block raises serious questions, not only about
Israel's relationship with Hebrew, but also about how the state relates to its
immigrants and their role here. If even the minimal common denominator of a
single language is no longer a top priority, the country's population will
become increasingly segmented.”
For myself, for all the future olim chadashim, and for the country
as a whole, it is essential that our government be one that will push back
against the all-encompassing trend of privatization. A push which, left
unchecked, threatens services as basic, crucial and essential to the Zionist
definition of the country as the ulpanim. Netanyahu and the Likud, sitting at
the forefront of privatization for the last forty years, have continually
chosen to place funding cuts and privatization above all else.
We need a change in priorities. We need Avodah.
·
Adam, an Oleh from Canada
