Yitzhak Navon

ב.1 | From president to politician: Yitzhak Navon resumes his political career

Yitzhak Navon was the first and so far the only Israeli president to return to political life. As president, Navon was seen as a “man of the people” who listened to the needs of the disadvantaged. He tried to advance relations with Israel’s Arab citizens and its Arab neighbours, especially Egypt. He was very popular, especially when Menachem Begin, the prime minister, was retreating from public life. There were even suggestions that he would run against Begin. In 1983 Navon decided not to seek a second term, but in the end Begin retired in favour of Yitzhak Shamir. In the 1984 elections Navon, who had served as a Labour MK before he became president, returned to the Knesset. He had hoped to serve as foreign minister, but since the Labour party was forced to set up a National Unity government, it had to give the foreign ministry to Shamir. Navon became minister of education.

Incoming minister Yitzhak Navon with outgoing minister Zebulon Hammer, 16 September 1984. Standing at left the director-general, Eliezer Shmueli. Photograph: Chanaia Herman, GPO

The ISA has digitized a large collection of files on Navon’s term as education minister on our Hebrew website. Not all the files from the ministry are about Navon himself, but they give an overview of the issues he had to deal with. The Archives has also published more than forty short online publications in Hebrew on his activities as minister of education, culture and sport. Here we present highlights from these publications, showing his ambitious aims and the difficulties he had to deal with in the context of the National Unity government with the Likud.

Expectations from Navon were high. An Arabic teacher by profession, he had led an adult literacy program in the 1960s. He was also one of Israel’s few Mizrachi politicians, coming from an old-established Sephardi family on his father’s side and a Moroccan one on his mother’s. Yet a short time after he entered the Education Ministry, the press and the public were expressing disappointment with his performance.

According to his memoirs, Navon had four main aims in the ministry: to educate students in values such as truth, honesty and respect for others  and in their national and cultural heritage; to encourage education in democracy and co-existence between different groups – Jews and Arabs, Ashkenazim and Sefardim, religious and non-religious people; to encourage science and technology and to improve the students’ command of the Hebrew language. During the first two years of his tenure, Navon could do little to carry out these aims due to the budget cuts imposed by the Finance Ministry in order to deal with hyperinflation of 400% and the budget deficit. He was forced to fire 1,800 teachers and to cut hours, at a time when thousands of children were arriving from Ethiopia in “Operation Moses. He had to deal with labour disputes and student strikes over increases in university tuition fees.

Yitzhak Navon visits Ethiopian children learning Hebrew at the Talpiot school in Hadera, January 1985. Photograph: Nati Harnik, GPO

His presidential image as a person who stood above party and sought compromise rather than conflict made it difficult for him to stand up to pressure. Only ten months after his appointment,  the “Yediot Ahronot ” newspaper wrote that he was indecisive and weak and gave him a grade of “almost good” (equivalent to a C pass). An even more fierce attack appeared in his own party newspaper, “Davar’, claiming that he was preoccupied with trivia at a time when the educational system was in crisis. His self-effacing style was described as “silence wrapped in chocolate”, and he was accused of pandering to the religious parties. Even when the economic situation improved, he found it hard to shake off his negative public image. By the 1988 elections he had become an electoral liability instead of an asset to the party.

This was Navon’s first ministerial post and he found it difficult to make an impact on the large and unwieldy bureaucracy. At first he had the help of Director-General Eliezer Shmueli. Shmueli came from the same kind of family and political background as Navon, who had even taught him Arabic. However in 1986 Shmueli resigned and was replaced by Dr. Shimshon Shoshani, an expert in educational administration and a dynamic personality. As head of the education department in Tel Aviv he had favoured new ideas about parental and school autonomy, which were criticized for widening social gaps.

ב.2 | Integration versus excellence?

In the 1960s Navon was a member of a Knesset committee which had recommended reform of the educational system in order to increase integration between children from different ethnic groups and social classes. As a result of the reform, students from different primary schools were sent to the same junior high school. The results were only partially successful. Mixing children did not necessarily lead to integration, and teachers found it difficult to teach large heterogenous classes; as a result streaming was often introduced. In the 1980s, as Israel became a more materialistic and individualistic society, conflict arose between the Ministry of Education’s traditional support for integration, and new demands for individual excellence and greater parental involvement. In 1987 Shoshani put forward a plan for improving the educational system which was fiercely attacked by the supporters of integration. Navon denied that the ministry planned to abolish it and claimed that there was no clash between the two aims. All students should have an equal opportunity to realize their potential.

Yitzhak Navon and Shimshon Shoshani. Photograph courtesy of Dr. Shoshani

Two years later Shoshani proposed an even more radical plan to abolish the kindergartens and the junior high schools and to allow students to start school at the age of four and finish high school at the age of 16. The brighter students would be able to graduate from university before their army service. Navon rejected the plan, which would deprive the majority of students of two years’ schooling, and destroy the kindergartens, which he regarded as an “educational jewel”. Shoshani decided to resign. He would later return to the ministry, but the plan was never carried out.

The debate over integration reflected the results of the cuts, including reduced help for weak students and the growth of “grey education” – semi-legal arrangements which allowed middle class parents to pay extra money to ensure high quality education beyond that provided by the state. At a government meeting in September 1988 Navon threatened to take all legal steps against parents who were trying to evade integration and called on the government to act against “grey education”. He also tried to limit the imposition of extra fees on the parents and the cost of school books, and increased the amount of grants to pay for the extra costs. Shortly before he left the ministry Navon announced that ten new junior high schools would be opened the following year. The percentage of students born in Africa-Asia receiving further education had risen from 7% in 1975 to 12.9% in 1987.

ב.3 | Introducing the "long school day"

By now the financial situation improved and he was able to carry out some of his plans. The most important measure sponsored by Navon to fight grey education and to restore the hours which had been cut was the extension of the school day to three or four in the afternoon. He was not the first education minister to propose this step. In the 1970s after the protests of the “Black Panther” movement and the recommendations of a committee on youth in distress, Education Minister Yigal Allon tried to introduce extra hours in schools in deprived areas and development towns. The scheme was not successful due to a lack of teachers and facilities for preparing school meals, and the opposition of the teachers’ unions.

In the summer of 1989 Navon decided to make another effort to carry out the plan, defined as the central aim of the ministry for the coming year. He set up a team to decide on the content of the extra hours, making sure that they did not turn into mere babysitting for parents. Navon hoped to finance the programme by moving to a five day week and to get help from the Jewish Agency.  He needed the support of the teachers, who were afraid they would be asked to work more hours without pay, and of the parents. The main parents’ association supported him, but some parents opposed the idea of a compulsory long school day. Some teachers opposed the abolition of studies on Friday, which might lead the students to waste the day on harmful activities.

On 2 November 1989 Navon brought his proposal for a law extending the school day to a government meeting. The law passed its first reading in the Knesset and Navon announced a pilot project in several deprived areas. But then the Ministry of Finance proposed to pay for the extra hours by reimposing school fees. Navon resisted this proposal, which threatened one of the most important achievements of the state, the Free Compulsory Education Law. Since it was passed in 1949, the law had gradually been extended to give all children free education up to the age of 18. Navon won the support of all sections of the Knesset, the Histadrut, the parents’ associations and social activists in this struggle. However there was also public criticism of the ambitious proposal. Some claimed that the country could not afford it at a time when immigration from the former Soviet bloc was increasing.  In January 1990 a pilot project came into operation in Kiryat Shmona, Hazor Hagalilit, Yerucham and other development towns, an Arab village and a Druze community.

After Navon was replaced by Zebulon Hammer, who came from the religious sector, where the school day was longer in any case, the long school day law was shelved. Hammer feared the flight of students to the Independent Religious system which continued to have classes on Fridays. The law was finally passed in 1997, was not implemented due to opposition by the Finance Ministry and has not been fully carried out to this day

ב.4 | Technological education and upgrading Hebrew and Arabic reaching

Navon’s efforts to raise money in the US for “Rechov Sumsum” (“Sesame Street” in Hebrew) and other cultural projects are documented in File GL 18680/9

In answer to criticism of the vocational education system and the demand to end  streaming of weaker students into courses which did not lead to a certificate of graduation (Bagrut), Navon sponsored reform in technological education. In 1989/1990 the ministry introduced a new course in 10^th grade. Other plans included a new curriculum, in-service teacher training, courses in science education in universities and colleges, providing laboratories in schools, computerization and upgrading technological education for the 21^st century. Navon himself spoke enthusiastically about the possibilities computers offered of providing information at the touch of a button and of promoting ties between schools in different countries. . He was also a great proponent of educational TV, becoming the international patron of the Israeli version of “Sesame Street”.

Navon believed that learning Arabic was the key to true dialogue with Israel’s neighbours and its Arab citizens. In March 1986 he wrote to all school principals on the need to improve Arabic teaching. He added that knowledge of Arabic was a vital need for the young generation, while most students knew little or nothing of the language. His plans for making Arabic a compulsory subject were carried out later by Education Minister Amnon Rubinstein. He also tried to encourage meetings between Jewish and Arab students which were only partially successful, especially after the first Palestinian uprising against Israeli rule, the Intifada, broke out in 1987. Navon saw it as the teachers’ duty to help students deal with issues raised by the Intifada and to explain the various political views without adopting any one of them. He added that the teachers must condemn soldiers who refused to serve in the territories, but should also emphasize that the soldiers putting down the uprising must behave as decent human beings. In programmes to prepare students for army service he insisted on including discussion of moral dilemmas faced by the soldiers dealing with the civilian population in the territories.

Jewish and Arab students at a peace rally in Neve Shalom, 1987. GPO

Israeli troops at a demonstration in Ramallah, March 1988. Photograph: GPO

As for the Hebrew language, he made sure that all students graduating from high school would pass an exam in Hebrew comprehension and composition. 1989/90 was declared the year of the Hebrew language in the educational system, to mark the 100^th anniversary of the Committee to Revive the Hebrew language, which coined thousands of words still in use today. Navon was shocked when he visited a course for women soldier-teachers and found that they too used meaningless slang words. Although his efforts to eradicate slang and foreign expressions and to persuade public figures to be careful about correct pronunciation were only partially successful, Navon took comfort in his efforts to help writers and the achievements of Hebrew literature.

ב.5 | Navon leaves the government, March 1990: summing up

In March 1990 Navon was forced to leave the government with the rest of the Labour ministers after Shimon Peres’ unsuccessful attempt to unseat Yitzhak Shamir. In his farewell message he mentioned his successes, among them the reforms in technological education, reducing the wait for results of the Bagrut exams from several years to a few months, a 30% increase in Arabic teaching and making cultural activities available in disadvantaged areas. As minister of culture Navon had directed resources to causes close to his heart, such as the Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master competition. He helped to found the Film School in Jerusalem and introduced the “cultural basket” programme which exposed thousands of children in deprived areas to theatre and the arts.

A message from Minister of Education and Culture Navon in the programme of the sixth Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition, 1989. File GL 18694/15

Other initiatives which Navon initiated or supported included the Special Education law of 1988, which ensured education for all children with special needs and learning disabilities. Originally a private members’ bill put forward by Knesset member Amira Sartani, Navon gave it his support despite the financial burden involved.

In his memoirs, Navon wrote that it had been a mistake to return to political life after the presidency. Yitzhak Navon may well be remembered mostly for his literary work and his contribution to public life as president, especially his intervention to set up a commission of enquiry after the Sabra and Shatila massacre. But possibly as education minister he had more real influence on Israeli society: even if some of his initiatives were not successful at the time, they laid the groundwork for later efforts to improve the educational system and make it more supportive of disadvantaged students.