Israeli Hospital Bans Speaking of Arabic
Arab teachers and students working in Kfar Sava’s Meir Medical Center have been forbidden to speak to each other in Arabic, which is an official language in Israel. Haaretz learned that three Arab families whose children were hospitalized in the center filed a complaint with the hospital management.
The Education Ministry operates an education department in the Meir Medical Center, where hospitalized children between the ages of 3-17 partake in lessons and educational activities, if their medical condition permits it. The lessons are intended to at least partially make up for the children’s absence from school.
Three teachers are in charge of instructing the Jewish children and one teacher, sometimes assisted by a student, teaches the Arab kids, according to the Arab parents. The lessons to the Arab children are given in Arabic. But recently, the assistant teacher asked the Arab teacher, in Arabic, for an explanation about a children’s activity in the center. To everyone’s surprise the department’s supervisor ordered them to stop talking in their mother tongue.
“We don’t speak Arabic among the staff here, at the [Education] ministry’s instructions,” the supervisor said.
For more, go to Haaretz.com
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we need 500 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Our Goal: 500 gifts during our Passover Pledge Drive!
