What would you say if an organisation that supported Apartheid in South Africa claimed to be anti-fascist?

Nick Lowles Hope not Hate's Editor Openly Supports Israeli Apartheid – any Socialist or Anti-Racist Who Supports Them Is a Fake

Today I received a heartwarming Xmas message from Nick Lowles of the misnamed Hope not Hate.  It boasted of many achievements, most of which had nothing to do with it, including:

Hope not Hate should re renamed Hate not Hope for its role in demonising Chris Williamson

‘We Stopped Tommy Robinson from Winning His Election’ ‘We Beat Nigel Farage and the Brexit Party’ ‘We Took on Donald Trump’ etc. It is after all the season of Santa Claus.

There is however a less amusing side to HnH. For the past four years they have provided an ‘anti-fascist’ cover to the demonistation of a whole range of anti-racist and anti-imperialist activists in the Labour Party, many of them Black and Jewish, such as Jackie Walker, Marc Wadsworth, Chris Williamson, the former MP for Derby North and Ken Livingstone, the former Mayor of London.

This is not surprising since for five years, before becoming an MP, Ruth Smeeth was Deputy Director of HnH. Before that she was Director of Public Affairs and Campaigns at the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM), the main pro-Israel propaganda group in Britain. She is a member of Labour Friends of Israel and after the defection of Luciana Berger she became Parliamentary Chair of the Jewish Labour Movement.  In short Smeeth is a racist supporter of Apartheid.

Can you imagine the late John Carlisle, MP for Luton North, an apologist for South African Apartheid, whom we used to nickname the member for Bloemfontein West being anywhere near an anti-fascist organisation? Yet Ruth Smeeth is all over HnH.

As Nobel Peace Prize winner, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, stated Israel is worse than Apartheid South Africa was. When Apartheid was in existence in South Africa Israel was its closest partner. As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu boasted, Israel is a state of its Jewish citizens, not its Palestinian citizens. 5 million Palestinians living in Greater Israel have no vote.  Within Israel 93% of the land is barred to Israeli Palestinians. The Israeli government spends money funding groups like Hemla, charitable wing of the fascist Lehava organisation, opposing Dorit Rabinmixed marriages.

An obsession with racial purity is the hallmark of a society based on the principles of race. In 2015 Israel’s Education Ministry banned from the syllabus, Dorit Rabinyan’s Borderlife, because it depicted a relationship between an Arab woman and a Jewish man. Dali Fenig, from  the Education Ministery explained:

According to Wikileaks Ruth Smeeth is a Protected Asset

 “The story is based on a romantic motif of impossible prohibited/secret love. Young people of adolescent age tend to romanticize and don’t, in many cases, have the systemic vision that includes considerations involving maintaining the national-ethnic identity of the people and the significance of miscegenation.” (my emphasis)

Miscegenation is an ugly word that means the mixing of races. It is defined as

‘mixing that is perceived to negatively impact the purity of a particular race or culture. Anti-miscegenation is a prominent theme of racial supremacist movements, including white supremacy.’

And in the era of Segregation and Jim Crow laws, States passed laws forbidding miscegenation. Yet this is the Israel that Ruth Smeeth and HnH are prominent supporters of and opposition to this is ‘anti-Semitism’ according to HnH.

Smeeth is also prominent member of the JLM which is affiliated to the World Zionist Organisation. The WZO is one of the main pillars of Israeli Apartheid. It has what Ha’aretz called a ‘land theft division’.  It is complicit in the colonisation of the West Bank. And this trollope was not only Deputy Director of HnH but her politics permeate throughout this bogus ‘anti-fascist’ organisation.

I don’t care if 99.9% of British Jews were to support Israel. It would still not be anti-Semitic to oppose Zionism. It would just mean that British Jews were racists. Fortunately this is not the case but this is the basis on which HnH and others term anti-Zionist ‘anti-Semitic’.

Thirty years ago I wrote an article SEARCHLIGHT Undermining Anti-fascists, helping Zionists’ for Palestine Solidarity magazine. It is as relevant now as it was then.

Hate not Hope is a honey trap, a money making operation for owner, Nick Lowles.  Despite its attempt to portray itself as a campaign, it is a Limited Company no. 08188502. It has no democratic structures or accountability.

Smeeth is one of its 7 directors. According to its accounts it has assets and liabilities of nearly a thousand pounds.

However there is also Hope Not Hate Charitable Trust No. 02738367.  This has had 31 officers, 23 of whom have resigned, including Sonia Gable, wife of Searchlight Anti-fascist Magazine and Ruth Smeeth, who resigned shortly before becoming an MP in March 2015.

HnH is the bastard child of Gerry Gable’s Searchlight Magazine which used to trade information on Marxists and Anarchists to MI5 and the Special Branch in return for information on fascists. Searchlight is now almost defunct, having not updated its website for nearly 8 months.

Searchlight and HnH fell out in an unseemly squabble about money. It was a split without any principle and was mourned by the Jewish Chronicle as a ‘tragedy’. Whether the falling out of a gang of thieves merits such a description I shall leave to my readers!

Searchlight Editor Gerry Gable was caught with his pants down in 1977 when a memo to his Editor at London Weekend Television, Barry Cox, was leaked to the New Statesman. This was when the then Labour government was in the process of deporting former CIA agent Phil Agee, who had blown the cover on CIA operations in South America, and radical journalist Mark Hosenball. As far as Gable was concerned the organiser of their Defence Campaign, Phil Kelly (later Editor of Tribune) was a PLO terrorist.

HnH continued with the political methods of Searchlight, not least the belief that opposition to Zionism is ‘anti-Semitic’. This is personified in the disgusting Ruth Smeeth who falsely alleged that Marc Wadsworth, a Black anti-racist activist who introduced the family of Stephen Lawrence to Nelson Mandela, which was what put the campaign on the map.

So when I received Nick Lowles piece of puff today I decided to write him a letter, which I’m happy to share with you!

The parliamentary lynch mob in support of Ruth Smeeth

Dear Nick,

Thank you for your Xmas message about all your ‘achievements’

You are However Much Too Modest.

Haven't you forgotten another few ' achievements'? Please permit me to list them:

1.    We Helped Propagate the Poisonous Zionist Campaign that Falsely Alleged Anti-Semitism in the Labour Party

2.    We did this in conjunction with our former Deputy Director and CIA Asset Ruth Smeeth MP whose seat We Also  Helped Lose

3.    We targeted Black Anti-racists such as Jackie Walker and called them racists, in much the same way as the National Front used to accuse anti-fascists of (anti-White) racism. The allegation in this case was that they were ‘anti-Jewish’.

4.    Ruth Smeeth, a ‘protected’ asset of the US Embassy according to Wikileaks, demonised Marc Wadsworth and falsely accused him of ‘anti-Semitism’ because he had called out her links with the Tory press.

5.    We even targeted Anti-Zionist Jews like Tony Greenstein and Moshe Machover

6.    We also targeted and demonised anti-racist MP Chris Williamson

Yes I agree Nick.  You have indeed achieved a lot during the past year.  You will forgive me if I don’t contribute towards your funds given that the Israeli Embassy is more than willing to step in.

Best wishes

Tony

Despite the extremely light sentence Rejoice Rejoice as 2% Tommy Does Time for Trying to Derail the Trial of Child Abusers

There is much weeping and wailing amongst the Zionists of Golders Green as Tommy Robinson is Sent Down

Tommy Robinson aka Stephen Yaxley Lennon will serve just 10 weeks in prison for trying to derail the trial of child sex abusers. Making political capital out of their trial and trying to demonise all Muslim men with the crimes of a few were more important than the fact that those found guilty could have walked free.

Tommy Robinson is not the only person who has made the equation between Muslim men and grooming of young girls and sex abuse. This is a widespread stereotype. These people seem to forget people like Jimmy Saville or the late Bishop of Lewes Peter Ball, who was befriended and protected by Prince Charles, to say nothing of the abuse of children in public and religious schools, by both Protestant and Catholic clergy.

Keeping company with Tommy Robinson to the last was Katie Hopkins, the ex-Sun and Daily Mail ‘journalist’. This is the same Katie Hopkins who spoke to a packed meeting of largely Jewish people in Hendon last week. As Ben Weich observed:

Right-wing agitator Katie Hopkins’ words were not delivered to a meeting of the BNP in Barking but to the sympathetic ears of a roomful of Jewish people in the heart of North West London. A packed meeting no less of mainly Jewish people in Hendon.

Although there was a large article on the Jewish Chronicle website, only a smaller version, minus pictures, was tucked away on the inside of the printed version. Clearly the threat from Jeremy Corbyn is greater.

However this article prompted mega businessman Sir Mick Davis, and Tory Party Treasurer to take to the columns of the Jewish Chronicle this week (Our fight against bigotry cannot be fought alongside bigots like Katie Hopkins).

Sir Mick however was being disingenuous. Katie Hopkins has been widely welcomed in the Jewish community. She even attended the Zionist Federation annual dinner and dance last year and was pictured with Israel’s war criminal Ambassador Mark Regev.

Anti-Muslim racism and bigotry are a direct consequence of Zionism. Israel is the most anti-Islamic state in the world. Repeated attacks against the rights of Muslim worshippers at the Mosque of the Golden Dome and Al Aqsa in Jerusalem including Israeli soldiers entering these holy places in their boots in order to attack worshippers. Imagine that this happened in a synagogue.

The equation of Muslim and terrorist, the treatment of Palestinians as sub human, the legislation passed against the call to worship, the so-called Muezzin Law,  the decision to make the Northern Islamic League illegal in November 2015 whilst allowing the openly fascist and violent Lehava to stay in business. All of this testifies to the anti-Islamic racism in Israel.

The far-Right organisation Lehava which campaigns against ‘assimilation’ was funded by the Israeli state via its ‘charity’ Hemla. Ha’aretz quotes a source in the Social Services Ministry as saying that 'We have been cooperating with a racist group for a decade,'.

Lehava has been given the green light to continue their campaign of violence against Arabs in Jerusalem.  Using the slogans ‘"Arabs beware – our sisters are not up for grabs" and "Jewish girls for the Jewish people." Lehava attacks Arabs at random in order to ‘protect’ Jewish women. The Nazis had the same concerns for German women whom they ‘protected’ against Jewish men.

According to Lehava’s far-right attorney Itamar Ben-Gvir,

‘Lehava's activity is entirely lawful, as has been repeatedly confirmed by police. The Jerusalem District Court has recently said that campaigning against assimilation isn't racist." 

So campaigning for racial purity, because that is what it is, is ‘entirely lawful’ in the Jewish state and then people ask why there is anti-Muslim racism.

This is despite the repeated arson attacks at mosques and churches carried out by Lehava and their supporters.  Indeed Benji Gopstein, the leader of Lehava has openly justified this. Burning of Christian churches in Israel justified, far-Right Jewish leader says

Zionism’s poisonous anti-Muslim racism has seeped into much of the Jewish community in Britain. That is why Katie Hopkins can speak to a packed Jewish audience in Hendon and Golders Green whereas an anti-Zionist speaker would probably be lynched!

Sharon Klaff on the left as Katie Hopkins speaks

The fascist Zionists  that I have covered – Ambrosine Shitrit, Sharon KKKlaff, Paul Besser of Britain First, Mark Haringman and Jonathan Hoffman – to name but a few – operate with impunity in Hendon and Jewish circles. Their visceral hatred of Muslims and Arabs finds an echo in the camp of religious Zionism and amongst the supporters of Herut and Likud like Mandy Rice Blumenthall and her partner solicitor Mark Lewis.

Tommy Robinson has distinguished himself by his open and overt support for Israel.  Although Zionists try to turn a blind eye to it, the open support of Israel by neo-Nazis like Tommy Robinson is because Israel is to them the ideal ethno nationalist state. This adulation has been reciprocated by a whole layer of Zionists. Even The Times of Israel asked Why are US ‘pro-Israel’ groups boosting a far-right, anti-Muslim UK extremist?

Borderlife, a book by Dorit Rabinyan, an Israeli author, portraying the relationship of a Jewish and Arab teenager was banned from the high school syllabus, because it might give young Israeli Jews ideas about having relationships across ethnic boundaries. What state other than a viciously racist state for whom miscegenation is the rule would ban such a book?  In Britain only fringe far-Right groups campaign against White and Black people having relationships.

The reasons given by the Education Ministry for banning the book from the high school syllabus were in themselves a master class of euphemisms:  the problem was that the book was

"full of layers of hidden narratives, with criticism of the liberal-left part of the Israeli political spectrum, [and] wrapped in a romantic story of an impossible love.’

Why one might ask was this an impossible love? Apparently

"The professional team came to the conclusion that young adolescent may have difficulty to go in depth into these layers."

In other words young people in love may not understand in a ‘Jewish’ state the racial imperative not to mix with Arabs and non-Jews. NBC quoted  education official Dalia Fenig that "at this time of tensions in Israel choosing this book can fuel hatred." What kind of Orwellian mind describes inter-racial relationships as fuelling hatred?  See Israel Bans Teaching of 'Borderlife' Novel With Jewish-Arab Love Story

Israel is the ideal ethno nationalist state which is why open neo-Nazis like Richard Spencer describe themselves as ‘White Zionists’. As Mick Davies said:

It is an uncomfortable but increasingly apparent truth that there are a small number of fringe groups and individuals within the Jewish community who could, by any definition, be described as far right.

It is an even more uncomfortable truth that the supporters of the far-Right in the Jewish community are no longer a fringe.

Tony Greenstein

Arabs and Jews protest ‘book ban’ with a kiss

Video of Palestinians and Jews Kissing in Defiance of Ban on Borderlife in Schools

Borderlife - The book that Israel's Education Ministry banned

As I recently blogged in When Nuremberg came to Israel Israel’s Ministry of Education, under arch-racist Naftali Bennett, banned a book, Borderlife by Dorit Rabinyan,  about a romance between Jewish and Arab teenagers.  Because Israel is a state founded on the same principles of Nazi Germany, as epitomised in the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 which banned sexual relations between Jews and ‘Aryans’, it was felt necessary by  the Education Ministry to ban a book which might be seen to endorse romantic relationships across racial borders.  Over half of Israel’s Jewish population see intermarriage and sexual relations between Jews and Arabs as ‘national treason’.  Note that they see it in terms of loyalty to the state not as something that is religiously forbidden.

Dorit Rabinyan

Of course the publicity this has gathered is embarrassing to the Israeli state.  How do you explain in normal Western society that something that is taken for granted here is forbidden on racial grounds in Israel?  Imagine  banning a book depicting a romance between Black and White teenagers in Britain.  Only the British National Party and National Front would object.  But to those who have some knowledge of Israel, it is a well known fact that in Israel you can’t have a marriage between a Jew and an Arab, because there is  no civil marriage.  Civil marriage, which is the norm in all western society, is forbidden in Israel precisely in order to protect the Jewish gene pool.  When decisions like this are made then the nature of Israel as a racist state is revealed to the whole world, hence why it is reported that Arabs and Jews protest ‘book ban’ with a kiss that the decision is being looked at by the Attorney General.

The forbidden kiss

However a group of people have got together to make a video of kissing across racial lines.  No doubt Goebbels would have disapproved almost as strongly as Netanyahu.

When Nuremberg Came to Israel

In Israel - mixed marriages are a no-no

You might, in your innocence, think that a book on an Arab-Jewish romance would be just the thing that would be welcomed as a way of breaking down barriers and enhancing understanding and tolerance between Palestinians and Israeli Jews.   However you would be very foolish to do so, because Israel operates under a different value system to most other societies. 

Israel is a Jewish racial state and miscegenation, the mixing of the ‘races’ is strictly forbidden in Israel.  Not legally of course, because Israel has to formally adhere to western values, but in the accepted and unwritten Zionist consensus.  A consensus that includes a shared practice and beliefs.  This consensus operates across all of Israel’s Zionist political parties from Likud to Labour.

Of course this is nothing new when it comes to settler colonial states.  Marriage and sex between the coloniser and colonised was banned or looked  upon with extreme disfavour in British colonies from India to Southern Africa.  It was termed ‘the Black peril’.   In South Africa the 1927 and 1950 Immorality Acts and the 1957 Sexual Offences Act forbade interracial sex and marriage. 

Nazi Germany had the 1935 Nuremberg Laws and specifically the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour which specifically forbade sexual relations or marriage between Aryans and Jews (later amended to Romanis and Blacks).  Israel has no such Act but then it doesn’t need to ban Arabs and Jews from marrying.  It’s just that it is impossible for them to do so since there is no civil marriage in Israel. 

Benny Gopstein, Kahanist and Head of Lehava, fascist anti-miscegenation organisation

Of course it is still possible for Arabs and Jews to have sex and relationships outside of marriage which is why Israel’s Social Affairs Ministry, in its wisdom has given a grant of around £120,000 each year, about half its running costs, to Hemla, the ‘charitable’ wing of the fascist anti-miscegenation organisation, Lehava.  [A Strange Kind of Mercy, http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/a-strange-kind-of-mercy-1.364417]   The head of Lehava, who is also employed by Hemla, Benny Gopstein, supports the burning down of mixed Arab-Jewish schools (its supporters were convicted of arson at the Hand in Hand school in Jerusalem) and Christian churches.  The Knesset under the guidance of Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Tzipi Hotoveli agreed to fund the good work of Hemla in helping to ‘rescue’ Jewish girls who had fallen for the wiles of Arab men.  Radical Jewishgroup’s head advocates burning churches 

Hemla - the 'charitable organisation' in  Jerusalem, funded by the Israeli government, which rescues fallen Jewish girls who have been seduced into relationships with Arab men

Because of western sensitivities, the criminalisation of interracial sex in Israel cannot be made a crime, though an Israeli Arab was gaoled for passing himself off as a Jew for the purpose of having sex with an Jewish woman.  Arab who posed as a Jew jailed for rape 'bydeception' 

Gopstein and thugs patrolling Jerusalem looking out for Arab men who might 'endanger' Jewish women.  'Jewish girls for a Jewish state' is their slogan

Extending this logic, then a married man who has sex with a woman, after telling her that he is single, could also be prosecuted for rape, even though the sexual intercourse was consensual.

So it is therefore quite understandable that a novel encouraging inter-racial sexual relations should be banned from schools where impressionable youngsters, who don’t understand the evils of Arab-Jewish romance, will be protected from harm.

It is worth reading the article Israel Bans Novel on Arab-Jewish Romance From Schools for 'Threatening Jewish Identity' in Ha'aretz to get the full flavour of the deeply ingrained racism in Israeli society.  The Ministry of Education, which has banned Dorit Rabinyan’s book, Borderlife, is headed by one of the principal racists of the Israeli government, Naftali Bennett of Habayit Hayehudi.

Gopstein temporarily under arrest

The acting Chair of the Education Ministry's pedagogic secretariat, Dalia Fenig [she is the acting Chair because Bennett dismissed the previous Chair] explained her reasons thus:  

“The work is contemporary and therefore presents the reader in a very tangible and powerful way with the dilemma of the institutionalization of the love while he [the reader] doesn’t have the full tools to weigh the decisions of such a nature,”

In other words, a young reader might be seduced by the message of love, regardless of the 'race' of the characters in the book, forgetting that Zionism dictates that the Jewish people must not become 'impure' by marrying out.  Fenig asserted that: 

“The story is based on a romantic motif of impossible prohibited/secret love. Young people of adolescent age tend to romanticize and don’t, in many cases, have the systemic vision that includes considerations involving maintaining the national-ethnic identity of the people and the significance of miscegenation.”

And in this statement you get the full measure of the biological racism at the heart of Zionism and Israeli society.  As the author Dorit Rabinyan noted, 'There is something ironic in the fact that the novel that deals with the Jewish fear of assimilation in the Middle East was eventually rejected by this very fear.”

Tony Greenstein

Novel featuring Palestinian-Jewish romance threatens ‘Jewish identity,’ Israeli gov’t rules 

Dorit Rabinyan reading from Persian Brides, an earlier novel

Israel takes another step down a very dark path. Here is the news from Haaretz today:

Israel Bans Novel on Arab-Jewish Romance From Schools for ‘Threatening Jewish Identity’

Israel’s Education Ministry has disqualified a novel that describes a love story between an Israeli woman and a Palestinian man from use by high schools..

Move comes despite the fact that the official responsible for teaching of literature in secular state schools recommended the book for use in advanced literature classes, as did a professional committee of academics and educators…

“Young people of adolescent age tend to romanticizing and don’t, in many cases, have the systemic vision that includes considerations involving maintaining the identity of the people and the significance of assimilation.”

The novel is Borderlife by Dorit Rabinyan. It is blurbed by Amos Oz. A description:

'What begins in the cold of early New York winter ends on a Jaffa beach at summer’s blinding peak. A chance encounter brings two strangers together: Liat, an Israeli from Tel Aviv, and Hilmi, a Palestinian born in Hebron. For one frozen winter away from home, on snowy streets, filled with longing for a Middle Eastern sun, Liat and Hilmi demarcate the place reserved only for them, an intimate short-term place, a universe for two. At the fissures and margins of things, in corners and in gaps, the reality lurking in Israel peers and snarls at them. The story, with its twists and passions, follows them even when they each go their own way – Liat returning to Tel Aviv and Hilmi to the village of Jifna, north of Ramallah – refusing to end.'

What will liberal Zionists say about this?  When do you conclude that this kind of intolerance and racism is built into the very idea of religious nationalism? Henry Siegman writes in Haaretz today that American liberal values are not shared by Israel. And yes, we’re trying to live up to them over here; but it’s impossible to imagine this kind of official action here.

Thanks to Ofer Neiman

Israel Bans Novel on Arab-Jewish Romance From Schools for 'Threatening Jewish Identity'

Move comes despite the fact that the official responsible for teaching of literature in secular state schools recommended the book for use in advanced literature classes, as did a professional committee of academics and educators.

Or Kashti Dec 31, 2015 12:57 AM

Students taking a matriculation exam at a high school in Hadera. Alon Ron

Israel’s Education Ministry has disqualified a novel that describes a love story between an Israeli woman and a Palestinian man from use by high schools around the country. The move comes even though the official responsible for literature instruction in secular state schools recommended the book for use in advanced literature classes, as did a professional committee of academics and educators, at the request of a number of teachers.

Among the reasons stated for the disqualification of Dorit Rabinyan’s “Gader Haya” (literally “Hedgerow,” but known in English as “Borderlife”) is the need to maintain what was referred to as “the identity and the heritage of students in every sector,” and the belief that “intimate relations between Jews and non-Jews threatens the separate identity.” The Education Ministry also expressed concern that “young people of adolescent age don’t have the systemic view that includes considerations involving maintaining the national-ethnic identity of the people and the significance of miscegenation.”

The book, published in Hebrew by Am Oved about a year and a half ago, tells the story of Liat, an Israeli translator, and Hilmi, a Palestinian artist, who meet and fall in love in New York, until they part ways for her to return to Tel Aviv and he to the West Bank city of Ramallah. The book was among this year’s winners of the Bernstein Prize for young writers.

A source familiar with the ministry’s approach to the book said that in recent months a large number of literature teachers asked that “Borderlife” be included in advanced literature classes. After consideration of the request, a professional committee headed by Prof. Rafi Weichert from the University of Haifa approved the request. The committee included academics, Education Ministry representatives and veteran teachers. The panel’s role is to advise the ministry on various educational issues, including approval of curriculum.

According to the source, members of the professional committee, as well as the person in charge of literature studies, “thought that the book is appropriate for students in the upper grades of high schools – both from an artistic and literary standpoint and regarding the topic it raises. Another thing to remember is that the number of students who study advanced literature classes is anyhow low, and the choice of books is very wide.”

Another source in the Education Ministry said that the process took a number of weeks, and that “it’s hard to believe that we reached a stage where there’s a need to apologize for wanting to include a new and excellent book into the curriculum.” 

Dorit Rabinyan. Credit David Bachar

Education Minister Naftali Bennett’s office said: “The minister backs the decision made by the professionals.”

Two senior ministry officials, Eliraz Kraus, who is in charge of society-and-humanity studies, and the acting chair of the pedagogic secretariat, Dalia Fenig, made the decision to disqualify “Borderlife.”

At the beginning of December, the head of literature studies at the ministry, Shlomo Herzig, appealed their decision, but his appeal was recently denied.

“The hasty use, as I see it, of the disqualification of a work of literature from the body of work approved for instruction and included in literature curriculum doesn’t seem acceptable to me,” Herzig wrote to Fenig. “In all my all too many years as head of literature studies, I don’t recall even a single instance that a work of literature recommended by a professional committee by virtue of its authority, after thorough and deep discussion, was not approved for use by the chairman of the pedagogic secretariat.”

Herzig cites a portion of Fenig’s first letter of opposition to the book, which noted concern that it would encourage romantic relations between Jews and Arabs. “The acute problem of Israeli society today is the terrible ignorance and racism that is spreading in it, and not concern over intermarriage,” Herzig wrote. “The idea that a work of literature is liable to be the trigger for romanticizing such a connection in reality is simply ridiculous.” He added that he would expect the Education Ministry to be “a lighthouse of progress and enlightenment and not be dragged along by empty, baseless fears.”

“The most horrible sin that comes to mind in teaching literature (and other subjects) is eliminating all or some work which we don’t favor out of ethical considerations. In such a situation, there is no reason to teach literature at all. If we would have wanted our students to study only ‘respectable’ and conservative works, we would be left without a curriculum, or with a list of shallow and dull works of literature. Stellar international works such as ‘Crime and Punishment’ (the murder of elderly women), ‘Anna Karenina’ (betrayal and adultery), ‘Macbeth’ (the murder of a king and all of his relatives and members of his household) would not [get close] to a literature curriculum in an ethical literary ‘respectable’ world.”

Herzig asked for a rehearing of the issue at the pedagogic secretariat, which Fenig is temporarily heading since Bennett dismissed the previous chairman, Dr. Nir Michaeli. The post of chairman is considered one of the senior positions at the Education Ministry. The rehearing, in which Herzig and members of the professional committee members took part, didn’t reverse the decision to disqualify the book.

On Tuesday, Fenig sent another letter in which she explained the reasons for her decision. She noted that “in the Israeli reality of the Jewish-Arab conflict,” the book “in some classes” could “create the opposite result from what the work is seeing to present,” but dedicated most of her comments to concern over contact between Jews and Arabs.

“The work is contemporary and therefore presents the reader in a very tangible and powerful way with the dilemma of the institutionalization of the love while he [the reader] doesn’t have the full tools to weigh the decisions of such a nature,” Fenig asserted. “The story is based on a romantic motif of impossible prohibited/secret love. Young people of adolescent age tend to romanticize and don’t, in many cases, have the systemic vision that includes considerations involving maintaining the national-ethnic identity of the people and the significance of miscegenation.”

Fenig added: “Works of literature are very powerful. And critical discussion to be held in class, if it is held, will not stand up to the very powerful message in the work that what was right and good was fulfilling the love between Hilmi and Liat.”

She predicted that many parents in the state school system would strongly object to having their children study the novel and would view it as a violation of the relationship of trust between parents and the school system. “It should be remembered that the choice of studying the work is the teachers’ and not the students’. Intimate relations and certainly the open option of institutionalizing [a relationship] through marriage and having a family, even if it doesn’t come to fruition in the story, between Jews and non-Jews is perceived among large segments of society as a threat to a separate identity.”

Rabinyan’s previous publications – “Our Weddings” and “Am Oved” – are taught in schools. According to the author, “It’s a great honor that my creations pierce the souls of young people and affect them. I would be happy if Israeli literature teachers were given the authority to choose whether to teach ‘Borderlife’ as well.”

She added, “I write novels for adults and ‘Borderlife’ also tells the story of intelligent adults. The hero of the story grew up and developed within the borderlines set by Israeli society, among the Jewish majority, the Arab minority and the Palestinian neighbors. Her difficult choice, to turn away from love, is the choice of a young woman whose main Zionist identity is deeply ingrained within her. There is something ironic in the fact that the novel that deals with the Jewish fear of assimilation in the Middle East was eventually rejected by this very fear.”

The Education Ministry said, “Professionals discussed the topic of including the work in the curriculum. After carefully examining all the considerations, and after weighting the advantages and disadvantages, the professionals decided to not include the work in the curriculum for five-unit literature studies,” referring to advanced literature classes.

Literary works that also told the stories of Jews who marry outside the faith include Haim Bialik’s “Behind the Fence,” Isaac Bashevis Singer’s “The Slave,” Shmuel Yosef Agnon’s “The Lady and the Peddler” and Sami Michael in “A Trumpet in the Wadi.” All were and some still are taught in schools.