At press time, Israel’s 47 Christian schools had finished the second week of an open-ended strike to protest ongoing cuts in government allocations, which they attribute to government discrimination against minority religious groups.
The schools, including Nazareth Baptist School and 40 Catholic schools, teach 33,000 students in central and northern Israel. The schools have not yet opened this academic year.
Officials from various Christian denominations called the strike Aug. 31 after nearly two years of negotiations with the Ministry of Education failed to convince the government to reinstate the funding it has withdrawn from the country’s semi-private schools during the past six years.
That funding once covered up to 75 percent of the schools’ operating costs. Today that number has dropped to 29 percent.
On Sept. 6 thousands of parents, students and teachers demonstrated opposite the prime minister’s office in Jerusalem to demand the same level of funding the government provides to two ultra-Orthodox Jewish school networks that, like the Christian schools, are not part of the public school system.
Political situation
Israel’s Jewish schools are backed by ultra-Orthodox political parties in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government. Without the parties’ support, the government would fall.
Nazareth Baptist School, established in 1936 by the International Mission Board, is now run by local Baptists. It is the only evangelical school in Israel and serves 1,000 children. The school is dependent on state funds, in addition to tuition fees.
Wadie Abunassar, an adviser to the Catholic Church, said the Christian school budgeting crisis is part of the Israeli government’s “systematic discrimination” toward the country’s minorities. Christians comprise just 2 percent of the Israeli population while Muslims comprise roughly 20 percent.
“This is not acceptable in a country which claims to be the only democracy in the Middle East,” Abunassar said.
The Ministry of Education said in a statement that Christian schools “are supported equally” and that it is holding “ongoing meetings with representatives of Christian educational institutions.”
During negotiations the Christian schools rejected the ministry’s suggestion to become “special schools” — a status that would permit them to charge higher tuition but not receive additional government funding — “because this will put a heavy load on the parents,” the Office of Catholic schools said in a statement.
(RNS, TAB)
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