A joint committee to promote Jewish education in the diaspora will be set up soon by the World Zionist Organization and the Knesset Education Committee, a conference of 40 overseas Jewish educators and 40 Israeli educators was told at the close of a six-day conference here.
Avraham Schechterman, chairman of the Knesset committee, said the conference examined Jewish unity and solidarity with Israel and how to teach it; the centrality of Israel in Jewish education; and Jewish studies in schools abroad. Improvement of Jewish studies instruction in Israeli schools also was studied by the conference delegates.
Haim Finkelstein, head of the WZO education department, which organized the conference, told the WZO Executive today that two “think tanks” had been set up to prepare a master-plan for the teaching about Israel and for Jewish studies in overseas schools. He said progress also had been made on the department’s plans, in cooperation with Israel’s Education Ministry, to broaden plans under which Jewish high school students from abroad spend a year studying in Israel.
Finkelstein, at the opening of the conference, called for basic revisions in Jewish education both abroad and in Israel. He said Israeli children needed to acquire much more knowledge about diaspora Jewish communities and about Jewish history.
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