Integration in Israel

Before the first-grade class began in the Luria school in Jerusalem, there seemed little difference between the behavior of one six-year-old and another. The dark-skinned "Oriental" children, whose parents come from North Africa and the Middle East, were almost as well dressed and just as well scrubbed as the Europeans. In the scramble for seats, they showed the same giggling eagerness. But then the teacher began the lesson--and the class was promptly split in two.

The Oriental children had no idea what the Hebrew words for exercise book, pencil, eraser or ruler are. When the teacher asked, "What kind of grown-up uses a pencil?" the Europeans shouted, "Poet . . . official . . . bank clerk . . ." But all the little Orientals could think of to say was "Ben-Gurion," for they had never heard of a bank clerk or a poet. As a matter of fact, in their first six years of life, they had absorbed almost nothing. Gradually, they stopped trying to answer any questions at all.

What Does a Tailor Do? For Israel's teachers such scenes are all too familiar. In the 20% of the schools that have mixed classes, the vast difference between the knowledge of the Europeans and the Orientals has become the nation's most frustrating educational problem. Many of the

Oriental children have never slept in a bed or used a knife and fork. Some of the North Africans have been brought up in caves. Since Kurdish children are to be seen and not heard, their parents seldom converse with them, and the children never learn how to ask questions. They have never seen a book or heard a bedtime story. They cannot write their names. Their inquisitiveness blocked almost from birth, they succumb to total passivity. By the time they reach school, they can speak only about 100 words.

When asked "What does a tailor do?" the Oriental children are apt to answer: "Slaughters chickens." "makes shoes," or "builds houses." While in a fourth-grade reading test the Europeans missed only one word in every nine lines, the Orientals flubbed eleven. In a special intelligence test given 13-year-olds, the Europeans scored 51 out of a possible 60. The scores for the Kurds and Yemenites: 2.7 and 3.1.

What's a Ghetto? In the past few years, as more and more Orientals flounder, flunk and repeat, some European parents have begun demanding separate schools for them. "The Oriental child." says

Psychologist Moshe Smilansky of the Szold Institute for Child and Youth Wel fare, "just can't compete. The cultural patterns of his home don't give him a chance. My son was in a mixed school for a time. The average IQ of the Europeans in his class was 125, but the average of the class was only 85." Meanwhile, other adults have suggested revising present courses. Says Sociologist Dinah Feitel-sohn: "Our reading primers are just silly for Oriental children. The pictures show typical European families. The stories are frequently about life in East European villages or ghettos about which the Oriental has never heard."

On the subject of segregation, however, the government--and many educators--are adamant. "In a few years," explains Headmistress Hadassah Brill of the Luria school, "the Europeans will be in a minority in Israel. We must integrate with the Orientals to form one people, and if this isn't done in the schools it will never be done." Adds Moshe Avidor, Director General of the Ministry of Education: "Until East and West have identical standards, there is no future for Israel. Somehow these Oriental children have to be catapulted from the Middle Ages or earlier to the 20th century, from the culture of the Atlas Mountains to the Atomic Age." But as of last week, there was still one question even the ministry could not answer: How is the catapulting to be done?

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