"Every pupil in Israel Must Visit Yad Vashem by the End of the Twelfth Grade"
This article appeared in Yad Vashem Magazine,(Volume 10, Summer 1998) on page nine. Thank you tostudent Morgan Gold for transcribing it for us.
The Ministry of Education, under its Director General Ben-Zion Dell, occasionally meets outside its central office in Jerusalem. The venue is significant because it emphasizes and marks an important educational aspect area, which must be developed and expanded -- Holocaust Studies. It might sound strange, but in the past, the study of the Holocaust was not part of the regular school curriculum. The late Minister of Education, Zevulun Hammer, of blessed memory, was the first to decide that annual ceremonies and events, generally held around Holocaust Remembrance Day, were insufficient. On the late minister's initiative, the study of the Holocaust was included as an obligatory part of high school studies in Israel.
Since then, a definite change has occurred in how educators and pupils relate to the Holocaust. The fact that more than sixty thousand pupils visited the death camps and the remnants of the destroyed Jewish communities abroad during the past decade has aroused an unprecedented wave of curiosity and educational initiatives in schools on the subject of the Holocaust. "During the past years, an increasing interest and a growing curiosity on the part of children and youngsters with regard to the Holocaust has been noticeable. We feel that the Holocaust has become a substantial part of the young Israelis' Jewish identity and this is primarily expressed in an increased desire to visit Yad Vashem and study and research Holocaust subjects," says Chairman of the Yad Vashem Directorate, Avner Shalev, in addressing the senior officials of the Ministry of Education. After visiting the Lodz Ghetto exhibition and the "No Child's Play" exhibition, the heads of the Ministry of Education attended a lecture at the International School for the Holocaust Studies at Yad Vashem, within whose different frameworks over 100,000 pupils study annually. The school's principal, Dr. Motti Shalem, presented new programs that were developed by the school's staff, and demonstrated the study program of the Mobile Education Unit.
At the end of the visit, the Ministry of Education staff members expressed their appreciation at the increase in the range of Yad Vashem's educational activity. Director General Ben-Zion Dell, summed up as follows: "The visit to Yad Vashem and the use of Yad Vashem's educational facilities must be a permanent and obligatory part in the education of the young generation raised in Israel, as a means of strengthening that generation's awareness of its identity with the Jewish people and its identification with the Jewish state. Every pupil must visit Yad Vashem at least once before completing his or her twelfth grade studies."
The Director General announced his decision to acquire and distribute Yad Vashem's multimedia kit, Return to Life, to all educational establishments throughout Israel. The kit won first prize at a multimedia competition in Israel and second prize at an international multimedia competition in France.
Israel: View of the Dead Sea from Massada