Esther Lapian is a teacher and teacher educator in the field of Bible
studies and the teaching of Jewish texts. She works extensively in
Israel and abroad as a consultant to Jewish educational organizations
from every religious sector. She recently opened a private educational
consulting service called Paces, aimed at "walking parents through the
paces" of educational challenges presented by the Israeli school
system.She made Aliyah from the United States in 1987. This article
originally appeared in Hebrew, in De'ot, the magazine of Ne'emanei
Torah vaAvodah, no. 42, May 2009, and has been translated into English
by Sarah Nadav. This article appears in issue 7 of Conversations, the journal of the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals.
During the past several years as an educator in the fields of Tanakh and Jewish studies, I have come across a prevalent and disturbing phenomenon: most of the religiously observant student teachers whom I have met are not at all interested in teaching in the mamlakhti-dati school system (the religious public school system in Israel). When the time comes for them to decide on a professional placement, they apply to secular schools, or to the new model of specialized dati-hiloni schools (religious/secular schools), or to pluralistic religious schools.
