The Entrenched Schizophrenia in The Israeli Calendar

Batya Medad
Shilo Musings
01 September '10

On the whole, the State of Israel functions according to the Jewish Calendar. Official state holidays and school vacations are all in accordance with Jewish Law and Calendar. The biggest national clash is the opening of the school year. That's today, September 1. Most years that's fine for all the schools, state-religious (mamlachti-dati) and state-secular (mamlachti.) The traditional time for the opening of yeshivot, religious Torah seminaries, is the first of the Jewish Month of Elul, the month before Rosh Hashannah, the Jewish New Year.

According to Jewish Law, our New Year is an extremely important spiritual time, an interactive spiritual time when we are supposed to make an accounting of our lives, deeds etc of the past year and beseech G-d to forgive our sins so we can begin the new year clean and pure. That's not something done vacationing, shopping and goofing off. So many schools and school districts must make a crucial decision, one permitted by Israeli Law. Should school open before the first of September or not?

The schools which only open today have less than a week of school before the Rosh Hashannah vacation/Holiday begins. That isn't enough time.

That's why many schools began earlier causing problems within families, neighborhoods etc. Our local school district, the Benjamin Regional Council had school open this past Sunday, August 29, so there would be just over a full week of school before Rosh Hashannah. The days will be made up as added (bridge) vacations during the year.

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Summer Vacation and the Jewish Calendar

Michael Fuah
Manhigut Yehudit
19 Tamuz, 5770
01 July '10

(Only in Israel, B"H. Y.)

School's out, school's out! Our children have left school for a summer vacation that is too long. This vacation provides us with the time to explore the options for making a change in the school calendar.

Israel's education system is dictated by two calendars: the Jewish calendar and the Gregorian calendar. The school vacations are determined by the Jewish calendar, while the beginning and end of the school year are determined by the Gregorian calendar. This creates a constantly changing structure for the school year. Some years, the school year begins close to a month before Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and sometimes, just barely one week before.

In this coming school year, Rosh Hashanah will come out just one week after the start of the school year on September 1. Our children will be in school for six days before Rosh Hashanah, another five days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and another three days until the festival of Sukkot. This ensures that from the students' standpoint, the school year will not really start until after Sukkot.

By contrast, the following school year will be starting once again on September 1, which will be a full month before Rosh Hashanah. This will give the teachers ample time to create an atmosphere of study and imbue their pupils with the unique Jewish content pertinent to the Jewish holidays.

Another case in point: The deadline that determines when a child begins first grade is set according to the Gregorian calendar, on January 1. This creates a situation in which half the class celebrates its Bar/Bat Mitzvah in one year, while the other half celebrates the next year. If the cutoff date would be the first of the Jewish month of Elul, all the children in the class would celebrate their special year together, making the unique activities and studies for the Bar/Bat Mitzvah year relevant to all the pupils.

Israel needs to start its school year according to the Jewish calendar, on the first of Elul – one month before Rosh Hashanah. The children should register for school according to the Hebrew calendar so that they will all celebrate their Bar/Bat Mitzvah together. The school vacations should be more evenly distributed around the year, corresponding to the Jewish holidays and the need for a break, shortening the long summer vacation. After 2000 years of exile, the Jewish calendar will once again determine the pulse of life in Israel. The renaissance of the Jewish calendar in the education system will connect the entire population to their Jewish identity in a non-coercive manner.

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