Education minister threatens to defund Tel Aviv school that urged students to skip class in protest

JNS Staff

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“Ze’ev Degani is a criminal,” Kisch said of the Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium’s principal.

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Ze’ev Degani, principal of the Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium in Tel Aviv, Sept. 4, 2023. Photo by Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90.

Israeli Education Minister Yoav Kisch vowed Monday to “immediately” suspend the funding of the Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium if the Tel Aviv high school would follow through on threats to cancel class to allow pupils to protest the pending firing of Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar.

“Ze’ev Degani is a criminal,” Kisch said of the school’s headmaster. He noted that Degani’s decision “to shut down class and dispatch students to a political protest is a serious and direct violation of the Compulsory Education Law,” which mandates school attendance until the age of 17.

“The education system is not a free-for-all, and we will not allow schools to become battlegrounds for political conflicts,” continued the minister.

“For this reason, Degani and the Herzliya Gymnasium’s executive board were summoned for an urgent hearing on Wednesday. If the school is indeed shut down, the funding that the Herzliya Gymnasium receives from the education system will be immediately halted,” he added.

“Schools are places for learning, not platforms for political propaganda. Politics will remain with the politicians,” concluded Kisch’s statement.

In a missive sent to his staff earlier on Monday, Degani reportedly wrote that the Jewish state’s democracy was “on the verge of collapse” due to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s announcement he would seek the dismissal of Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) chief Ronen Bar.

“We can no longer remain silent. The prime minister is turning the country into a dictatorship by acting against the law,” said Degani. “On Wednesday, it will be impossible to teach history and math at school.”

Netanyahu summoned Bar for an urgent meeting on Sunday evening, where he informed him that the government would consider his firing later this week due to a lack of confidence and “ongoing distrust.” The Cabinet vote is reportedly scheduled to take place on Wednesday.

In August 2023, Kisch vowed to “deal with” Degani after the Herzliya Gymnasium was found to encourage its students to evade mandatory military service in the Israel Defense Forces.

The far-left Youth Against Dictatorship group, which had been rallying teens to refuse army service, that month took over the school in protest against Netanyahu’s now-largely-shelved judicial reform plans. Degani was said to have officially approved the event before it took place.

Among other speakers, students heard from Saleh Diab, a violent terror supporter from eastern Jerusalem’s Shimon HaTzadik neighborhood.

Diab has been arrested numerous times for attacking Jews, including on suspicion of attacking Shabbat worshippers with an iron rod. In 2014, he served months in prison for aggravated assault on a Jewish neighbor.

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